karenmarie ROOTs around her bookshelves in 2017

Yay 2017!

I would like to read a minimum of 100 books total this year. Of those, I think a reasonable ROOTs goal is 40, which I define as anything on my shelves prior to 1/1/17.

Here are most of the books in the Sunroom - all, except for Hot Guys and Kittens unread and just waiting to be picked up in 2017! And they are ALL ROOTs! There are ROOTs in the Library too! And ROOTs in the Parlour! One thousand six hundred and ninety two of them, to be precise. I am pretty sure I can find 40 to read in 2017.

...

My take on the Pearl Rule:

Karen's Rule "If for any reason you don't want to continue reading a book, put it down. You may keep it, get rid of it, re-start it, never finish it, finish it from where you left off, but put it down." A different way of saying it is that I abandon books with glee if they're not working for me.

And my ticker. Now all I have to do is remember to keep it updated!

ROOTs read in 2017

01. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay by J. K. Rowling 1/1/17 1/3/17 **** 318 pages hardcover
*** Defining the Wind by Scott Huler abandoned after 61 pages read
02. The Stolen Bride by Jo Beverley 1/3/17 1/3/17 ** 269 pages trade paperback
03. The Patriotic Murders by Agatha Christie 1/8/17 1/9/17 *** 211 pages hardcover
04. Black Coffee by Agatha Christie 1/10/17 1/11/17 ***1/2 184 pages hardcover
05. The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories by Agatha Christie 1/13/17 1/14/17 ***1/2 185 pages hardcover
06. Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham 1/23/17 1/26/17 **** 378 pages Kindle 2012
07. Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie 1/29/17 1/30/17 ***1/2 201 pages hardcover 1939
08. One Good Turn by Carla Kelly 1/31/17 1/31/17 **** 215 pages mass market paperback
09. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway 2/4/17 2/5/17 ***1/2 140 pages hardcover
10. The Dutiful Daughter by Vanessa Gray 2/1/17 2/5/17 ** 216 pages mass market paperback
11. The Crossing by Michael Connelly 2/8/17 2/10/17 ***1/2 388 pages hardcover
12. Jeremy Poldark by Winston Graham 2/17/17 2/19/17 **** 344 pages trade paperback
13. Bleak House by Charles Dickens 2/1/17 2/27/17 Kindle 830 pages hardcover
14. The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie 3/14/17 3/18/17 **1/2 214 pages hardcover
15. His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis 3/1/17 to 4/3/17 14.75 hours audiobook, 275 pages trade paperback equivalent
16. Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama 4/3/17 4/19/17 ****1/2 7.5 hours
17. The Big Year by Mark Obmascik 248 pages, 253 pages trade paperback 4/18/17 **reread**
18. Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella 5/17/18 5/22/17 ****1/2 272 pages trade paperback read as e-book on Kindle
19. The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah 5/23/17 5/25/17 *** 384 pages hardcover 2014
20. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling 4/20/17 -5/8/17 and 6/10/17 - 6/22/17 **** audiobook 8.3 hours unabridged
21. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn 7/7/17 7/9/17 **** 538 pages mass market paperback
22. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling 6/23/17 7/14/17 **** audiobook 8.3 hours unabridged
23. The Blackhouse by Peter May 7/18/17 7/22/17 ****1/2 479 pages trade paperback
24. The Lewis Man by Peter May 7/22/17 7/25/17 ****1/2 418 pages trade paperback
25. Raven Black by Ann Cleeves 8/3/17 8/8/17 *** 376 pages trade paperback
26. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling 7/14/17 8/11/17 **** audiobook
27. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami 7/30/17 8/12/17 467 pages trade paperback
28. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling 8/11/17 9/29/17 **** audiobook
29. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout 9/18/17 10/7/17 **** 270 pages trade paperback
30. Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner 10/7/17 10/12/17 ***1/2 404 pages hardcover
31. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles 10/10/17 10/16/17 **** 335 pages hardcover
32. The Wyndham Case by Jill Paton Walsh 10/17/17 10/20/17 *** 223 pages hardcover

Current ROOT Reads:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling 9/30/17 audiobook
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt 11/15/16 318 pages hardcover 2012
The Literary Study Bible by Leland Ryken and Philip Graham Ryken 1879 pages hardcover plus 15 pages Preface, Introduction, and Features 2007

Glad to see you back, Karen!

Nice to see you're back! Happy reading!

Welcome back & Happy 2017 ROOTing!

Good luck with your 2017 ROOTs, Karen!

>1 karenmarie: Ooh The Righteous Mind is on my wish list. I hope you enjoy it!

Thank you Jackie_K, MissWatson, avanders, and readingtangent.

>7 Tara1Reads: Hello @dieKatze. Welcome! Another cat person. I currently have two, a 9 1/2 year old female calico named Inara Starbuck and a 17-year old male named Kitty William. He's keeping me company here in the sunroom at this ungodly hour (3:44 a.m., insomniac time), sitting on the printer with just enough heat coming off the lamp to warm his old kitty bones.

I am enjoying The Righteous Mind, very much, and am about halfway through. It takes seriously quiet time, which I haven't had for a bit, but I plan on getting back to it within a couple of days.

I just finished my first book and first ROOT of 2017, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay by J.K. Rowling. I've seen the movie twice, so this was icing on the cake. A quick, fun read that occasionally filled in a hole or two because I either simply missed something or couldn't hear something properly in the movie.

Now to find another fiction read.

Good ROOTing! And good start already.

You only have two cats? Would you like another? You can choose from Tabitha Ann (sweet little black cat, the eldest), Sassafras (long haired tortie with irritable bowel- she's very windy), Poppy (bright calico, very sweet), The Biscuit (gray blob- he honestly is round with a cat head), Mikey (gray tabby) or Stretch (the newest addition, a year old black kitty with a titanium pelvis- he was a stray and was hit by a car- took him to the emergency vet and got him fixed up but he is now an indoor-for-life kitty). I'll be happy to provide carrier, bag of food and kitty treats.

>9 enemyanniemae: Thank you! Yes, a good start.

And thank you for your kind offer, but right now I'm happy with two. I haven't decided if I'm in attrition mode yet or not - I'll see when I'm down to one. I might be inclined to get two from a shelter, but am by no means sure about that. I have had as many as 5 cats at once, and it was Too Many.

You know the definition of a Crazy Cat Person? It's someone who has one more cat than you have. *smile*

Kitty William

Inara Starbuck

>1 karenmarie: "Karen's Rule" inspires me! -- where I usually catch myself is in the not picking it back up to continue reading. I have 3-4 of those (not) going right now ... I need to move them away in favor of something I want to read.

Good luck toward 40 and 100 this year!

>8 karenmarie: oh you read it! I just saw the movie yesterday w/ my husband & MIL! She bought me the book (screenplay), which I also have to read now.... :)
Nice to know that you felt like it filled in a hole or two - I thought the movie was great! Much better than the previews made it out to be ;)

>9 enemyanniemae: lol! That's a lot of cats from which she can choose ;)

>10 karenmarie: that's a good definition ;)
& pretty cats! We have a single one - she's a calico... We call her all kinds of things, though I suppose her "official" name is Kitty Bear...

>11 detailmuse: Hi MJ! Thank you. To me reading is supposed to be fun. I'm not in school and I don't feel it's necessary to read a RL book if it doesn't appeal to me. Hence, my all-encompassing rule.

>12 avanders: Hi Aletheia! I want to see the movie again. Before I end up buying it on Blu-ray. I didn't have any positive or negative thoughts about the movie before I saw it the first time, I just knew it was related to HP and wanted to see it. I really like it a lot.

Thank you re my kitties. Of course they also have a multitude of names, I just gave their official ones. My favorite nickname for Kitty William is Catman-du, and my favorite nickname for Inara Starbuck is Missy Prissy.

Errands run, back home, time to get back to comfy clothes and read.

Welcome back and have a great reading year! Love the kitties!

Thank you, rabbitprincess. They are rather adorable. So are your rabbits, and pics with the famous and etc.

Welcome back, Karen! Love the cat pics! Happy ROOting.

>13 karenmarie: Yes - it's relation to HP was going to be a reason to see it for sure... I'm just glad it more than lived up to the relation :)

great nicknames for your kitties! We tend to call kitty bear KB the most in writing... my sister's top name for her is probably "scooter butt" because she always looks like she's scooting down the hallway.. and I guess I tend to lean toward bosa -- pronounced bow (as in a violin bow) - sah. ;p

>16 connie53: Hi Connie and welcome.

>17 avanders: Hi Aletheia! Yes, I love most things HP. I've got a few of the Bloomsbury editions, a couple from Canada, and even one of the Bloomsbury editions with the 'adult' cover! Daughter bought me Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: The Illustrated Edition a couple of years ago, and I have Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages. Plus the audiobooks.

I love 'scooter butt'. bosa is good, too. And of course quite a few of their names have nothing to do with their official ones, do they?

>18 karenmarie: I had multiple editions for a while too... then we needed to save on space and ... well, those went. I currently have only 1 duplicate (the deluxe edition of the 1st book, which I'd not yet been able to relieve myself of... ;))..

& yes, many of our pet's names have nothing to do w/ their actual names.... it's fun that way.. at least KB always seems to recognize the tone with which we call her.. ;)

>8 karenmarie: We went to that movie between Christmas and New Year. It's a tradition for the family. My brother and his girlfriend, my daughter and her boyfriend, my son and me. We have seen every HP movie together (and all the LotR movies). I liked it but not as much as I liked the other HP ones. I want a stickie friend too. I thought he was adorable.

>19 avanders: Hi Aletheia! I cleared out some books last year, but more important I moved books I had read up to daughter's rec room, now called my Retreat. That opened up shelf space downstairs to smooth out my to-be-read books. I even have empty shelf space.....



>20 connie53: Hi Connie! Ah, a bowtruckle. I loved Pickett! I actually thought all the magical creatures very cleverly done.

Have you read the HP books? Bowtruckles are in one of them.

>21 karenmarie: I have, but I can't remember anything about Bowtruckles.

>21 karenmarie: What is this empty shelf space of which you speak? Does not compute...!

1,692--that's a lot of books!

>23 Jackie_K: Well, Jackie, I'm so lucky I can hardly stand it.

When I moved to North Carolina 26 years ago, in 1991, I had 20 boxes of books. We had hallways through the boxes in the living room in husband's small house. He made the serious mistake of loving me enough to build a library (instead of a 4th bedroom) into the first house we built in 1992. He did the same in the second house we built in 1998, sacrificing, again, a 4th bedroom, although it has more shelves than the one in the first house. Then when I started using the sunroom as a home office, he had our friend and neighbor Larry built beautiful bookcases in it. And then when we put a room over our living room instead of having a 22' ceiling, I had them use some of the recessed area over the doorway for bookshelves in that new room Then when daughter didn't graduate college but permanently moved out to an apartment in Wilmington, I co-opted her recreation room as my Retreat (with her permission as long as I boxed up her stuff but didn't get rid of it). When we originally built the house, her rec room was an add-on-room over the sunroom, and at that time I had them put in 60 linear feet of recessed bookshelves - the room is 15 feet long and there are two shelves per wall for 2 walls = 2 x 2 x 15 = 60 linear feet. It's actually more like 120 linear feet because the shelves are 2 feet deep.

And in the event that I need more shelving, I could probably reorganize the media room closet, or co-opt some of the shelving in husband's media room which he doesn't use.

We're lucky, we have tons of space. It's allowed us to be extremely inefficient. Most of it has a shitload of stuff in it, but that's part of what I want to do this year is really get rid of things we don't use and aren't meaningful for daughter and move stuff around.

>24 Tess_W: Hi Tess! Yup. Lots and lots of ROOTs. I went mad there for a few years, buying books indiscriminately.

I honestly think that I'm going to start getting rid of more books that are truly things I won't read or that are duplicates that I don't want to keep.

>25 karenmarie: WOW, WOW and some more WOW.

That's a real good story!

Good to see you here, Karen. Love the kitty photos and great looking bookshelves. Are those spaces still free? (1,692 books is not that many.)

>26 connie53: Hi Connie. Thanks. I'm spoiled rotten.

>27 Familyhistorian: Hi Meg. Thank you. I've finally figured out how to post pictures and have become a data-consuming 'img src' er. At the rate of approximately 100 books per year, it would take 17 years to read all my TBRs. But last year I only read 34 ROOTs out of 93 books. The 7% increase is not unreasonable.

We're housebound with the weather but not going stir crazy yet. Husband tends to get more stir crazy than I do just in general, but so far he's not acting too antsy.

The Patriotic Murders by Agatha Christie
1/8/17 to 1/9/17





From Amazon:
In Christie's classic One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, Poirot investigates the murder of a dentist, found dead in his own surgery. Even the great detective Hercule Poirot harbored a deep and abiding fear of the dentist, so it was with some trepidation that he arrived at the celebrated Dr. Morley's surgery for a dental examination. But what neither of knew was that only hours later Poirot would be back to examine the dentist, found dead in his own surgery.Turning to the other patients for answers, Poirot finds other, darker, questions.

Published as One, Two, Buckle My Shoe in England and The Patriotic Murders in the US, it turns out that I had never read this one, thinking it a Tuppence and Tommy mystery, not an Hercule Poirot mystery.

I had to remedy that at once, and finished it this morning. It is a classic Poirot although he never once mentions his little ‘grey cells’. Seemingly inconsistent pieces of evidence and seemingly inconsequential scraps of conversation lead Poirot on his merry way to solving a complex and surprising set of murders.

Some, but not all, of Christie’s mysteries have deeper themes than bringing a murderer to justice, and this book has one. However, even describing the theme would be a spoiler, but putting it inside spoiler quotes allows you, the reader of this review, to choose whether to see it or not. Does the Greater Good outweigh Evil? One of the characters justifies the murders by her/his value to the world overriding the evil of the murders she/he commits.

I enjoyed this book. Most of Christie’s mysteries have typical British prejudices of the time and Dame Agatha was never hesitant to trot out stock characters and generalizations about their behavior. It doesn’t matter, though, because I realize she was a product of her times and glean the interesting, intelligent, and good out of her mysteries. Always excepting Tuppence and Tommy, of course.

Tickets are booked for daughter and me to go to California for my Mom's Memorial Service on January 21st. We'll leave the 19th and return the 23rd - short and sweet. I'm sure I'll have to go back later in the spring, but cousin Rebecca will book me standby both ways for that venture, when specific days don't matter so much. These tickets were $1300. Ah well, I just flung them on the credit card. Sister says I should get reimbursed from Mom's estate when it's settled. I'll take her up on it. This is the third time in 4 months.

Beautiful bookshelves! Best of luck in emptying them and re-homing your goal books. To a different shelf?

I love when people use the phrase "a rescue cat." We have a rescue litter, including the mom. Think double digit cats.

>30 karenmarie: That's a lot of money, Karen. But for a good cause.

>31 Limelite: Hi! Thank you. It's always fun moving books around and planning book stuff.

Double-digit cats. I had five at one point, and that was more than enough. They were (and the two we still have are) indoor-outdoor kitties, so feeding and boxes and etc. are in the picture.

>32 connie53: Hi Connie! Yup. I just added $132 to the total by splurging on a few preferred seats so we could sit together.

>33 karenmarie: Oeps! More money spend there. ;-))

Safe travels, Karen. At least you will have company.

>34 connie53: Hi Connie! Instead of using our checking account debit card I put it all on our credit card. Out of sight, out of mind. *smile*

>35 Tess_W: Thanks, Tess! I am used to traveling alone because husband will not fly ever since he had open heart surgery in 2002 and his doctor told him not to fly. I did not think it was a life-long proscription against flying, but he seems to think so. Last time I flew with our daughter she was 14. This time I expect her to curl up in her hoodie with her earbuds and listen to music.

Today husband goes to work for the first time since April 15th of last year. He was so stressed he hardly slept at all so is whupped on top of being nervous about the whole thing. He just cannot turn off his brain. He leaves in about 10 minutes.

>36 karenmarie: Congrats for your husband and the job. I hope his first day will make him more relaxed and able to sleep.

Thanks, Connie! He hardly slept at all and is so stressed..... I know he'll be and do fine, it's just that he doesn't know that yet. And I totally discount his unhappiness that I'm retired and he's not. I heard a lot of "back to the grind", "no more freedom", and stuff like that.

I, on the other hand, watched the car go up the drive and

>20 connie53: such a nice tradition!
I think I'd probably agree that I didn't like Fantastic Beasts as *much* as the other HP movies, but still quite enjoyed it ;)

>21 karenmarie: wow that looks wonderful! Very organized and accessible :)

>25 karenmarie: wow! (echoing Connie here ;)) that's so nice that he kept building you book cases and libraries! And it's also nice to have tons of space in which to do that ;)

>28 karenmarie: Mmm I actually love those days - being housebound because of the weather. Probably because they almost NEVER happen here.... ;p

>30 karenmarie: whew! That is pricey - but obviously completely worth it! Nice to book the tickets with your daughter - the moral support (for both of you!) will be invaluable. (even if she curls up with her earbuds the whole flight ;))

>36 karenmarie: how exciting! Hope he loves the new job!
lol yes it will be so nice for you to have some downtime/alone time!

How did your husband's day go? I hope he is reassured and has a better night's sleep tonight!

>39 avanders: Hi Aletheia! and >40 Jackie_K: Hey Jackie!

Husband had a good day. He's whupped, but in a good way and we just got off the phone as he is on his way home and wanted to give me his ETA. Today was much paperwork and just watching the guys on the shop floor, but he did spend 1 1/2 hours with one of the owners who was quoting a job. Fortunately, the boss did a lot of good explaining and took his time.

I didn't get out of my jammies. Did some straightening up in the sunroom, finished a book (review to follow), relaxed, and decompressed a little bit. Talked with daughter, who had a good, if tiring day, and have a beef stew simmering on the stove. I told my husband to not expect cooking every night (he doesn't) but he knew me pretty well and asked if I had cooked, otherwise he was going to stop and get himself something.

A good day.

Black Coffee by Charles Osborne based on the play by Agatha Christie
1/10/17 to 1/11/17





From Amazon:
In her first novel to appear in over twenty years, perhaps Agatha Christie's most famous and beloved detective, Hercule Poirot, returns to bring his "little gray cells" to bear on one more case. In the spring of 1934, Poirot is summoned by England's most prominent physicist, Sir Claud Amory. Amory fears that someone in his household is attempting to steal his latest discovery, a formula critical to England's defense. Poirot, with Captain Hastings at his side, rushes to Surrey but arrives too late. Amory has died, his formula is missing, and everyone in this country house, full of relatives and guests, could have been responsible.

Originally written by Agatha Christie in 1930 as a three-act play, now adapted as a novel by Charles Osborne (an expert on Christie's life and work), Black Coffee is classic Christie at its finest, sure to delight newcomers and devotees alike.

If I hadn’t known this wasn’t written by Agatha Christie, I wouldn’t have believed it. It was published in 1998 but has the feel and flavor of an Agatha Christie 1930 British country home mystery, complete with servants, eccentric characters, and our inimitable Hercule Poirot and his trusty sidekick Hastings. The ‘little gray cells’ do get mentioned, Hastings provides important information although unknowingly, and the bad guy/gal gets his/her come-uppance.

Glad to hear that your husband's first day at work went well for both of you ;)

Thank you, rabbitprincess.

>41 karenmarie: so glad to hear your husband's first day was good!
Your day also sounds just lovely ... just what retirement should be ;)

>42 karenmarie: nice review - that's a series I haven't gotten into at all.. I think I have a couple Christie books on the shelves.. will have to get around to them someday!

Hi Aletheia!

First day good, today I don't know yet. He texted me a couple of times yesterday as he was settling in, but nothing so far.

Thank you. I have been reading Agatha Christie since I was a teenager. I'm amazed that there were Hercule Poirot books I hadn't read - I guess I was going by the titles and making (wrong) assumptions. I'm going to check to see if I've read everything EXCEPT Tuppence and Tommy (a husband-and-wife sleuth team that I don't really care for) and have them lined up as comic relief (so to speak) against the seriousness of reading The Literary Study Bible, The Righteous Mind and American Tabloid.

If you like mysteries you may like them, although they are rather formulaic compared to some of the newer authors and subgenres.

>38 karenmarie: LOL. I can understand completely. I could do that too if Peet decided to leave the house for a longer period of time.

>41 karenmarie: Good to hear your husband had a good first day. That's so important for his confidence in himself. Curious how day two turned out to be.

>47 connie53: Hi Connie! It's hard when your spouse has anxiety. I think you wrote that his treatment started today (the 12th?)

His second day was okay. He just got home. So far I've only heard about the commute and that he helped one of the bosses clean algae out of the fish tank. (they are very laid back, only 15 employees total, and anything goes)

Beef pot roast is heating up, so will go see how the day went.

>48 karenmarie: His treatment started today. He had several visits for tests and intake. Today he had the first session in which there was a sort of introduction. Tuesday next is his first full day (10.30 till 17.00) with outdoor activities and some things to do with Physiology.

Glad to hear day two was okay. I think a very laid back company is good to lower the stress of pressure to deliver.

>46 karenmarie: hmm, maybe the lack of texts just means he was really focused on work :)
>48 karenmarie: glad to hear his 2nd day went well too! :) :)

back to >46 karenmarie: Oh interesting about going by the titles to determine if they were Hercule Poirot books... does she have a lot of other series(es)?

I have only relatively recently started getting into mysteries... I tend to really enjoy them in the fall.. I don't know what it is about the fall, but it makes me want to read mysteries ;) I'm always open to suggestions!
And you aren't kidding when you say "seriousness of reading"!

>49 connie53: I'm happy to hear Peet's been able to start treatment! Hope it ends up going perfectly for him!

Hi Aletheia!

He's been busy and enjoying it, totally relieved that he feels he can accomplish the work and be an asset to the company. We never texted or talked much at work ever anyway, even when we worked for the same company and in the same department!

Ah, Agatha Christie Mysteries. Agatha Christie's other famous detective is Miss Marple. There have been TV series of both Poirot and Miss Marple. There are 5, I think, Tuppence & Tommy, books I don't really like, and several each for the following characters: Harley Quin and Mr. Satterwaite, Parker Pyne, Superintendent Battle, and Colonel Race. Also Ariadne Oliver, but she usually pops up in Hercule Poirot books. I think the only one of her own is The Pale Horse. The only AC books I don't like at all are Tuppence & Tommy. I pretty much like everything else of hers that I've read. I still have 12 of her books on my shelves that I haven't read. although A Pale Horse is questionable - may have read it but am not sure.

I have several favorite Poirots, including Murder on the Orient Express, Elephants Can Remember with Ariadne Oliver, and Murder in Retrospect. Favorite Miss Marples include A Murder is Announced, A Pocketful of Rye, What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!, and, possibly the favorite, her last one, Nemesis. There are very few of her books I don't like. I even like her short stories, and I am SO not a short story girl! Notice that some of the links go to different named books - British titles vs US titles.

Here's the Wikipedia entry for her bibliography: Agatha Christie Bibliography

I'm puzzled why you like mysteries in the fall. I like them all year round. *smile*

Yes, I've gotten myself into a couple of serious reads, one of them all year. It's all good, though.

Calling All Dame Agatha Fans!

If you love her mysteries, I think you'll enjoy the fictional biography Woman on the Orient Express by Lindsay Jayne Ashford. I did!

The novel covers the period in Christie's life directly after her divorce from Archie Christie when she treats herself to a journey on the eponymous train from home to Baghadad. It is here she becomes involved with her soon-to-be real life second husband, an archaeologist working of the excavation of Ur in the late 1920s.

The novel happens to be my first ROOT read of 2017. I could have done a lot worse! And I think it would be too bad for Christie fans to miss it.

>52 Limelite: Hi Limelite! Ah, another Agatha Christie Fan. Woman on the Orient Express sounds intriguing. I've added it to my wishlist.

I have read Dame Agatha's Agatha Christie:An Autobiography, and it was excellent. I also have The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery, compiled by her grandson.

Congratulations on your first ROOT of 2017, too!

Do you have a ROOT thread? I just went looking and couldn't find you.

The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories by Agatha Christie
1/13/17 to 1/14/17





The succinct description from Amazon:

A collection of classic stories featuring multiple victims, multiple mysteries, multiple suspects, and a multitude of talent to solve it all: Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple, and Mr. Parker Pyne.

Originally published in 1939, this collection of short stories shows the depth and skill required to create a successful short story. Christie deftly creates characters by a simple description of hair color or expression on a face, and the mysteries are not all about murder. Perhaps my favorite is Problem at Pollensa Bay wherein Mr. Parker Pyne uses psychology to achieve a desired end. The real brilliance of the story is that you think you’ve got it figured out and yet at the end you realize that there is another layer. The outcome hasn’t changed, yet you smile at the cleverness.

I’m not usually much of a short story fan. However, short stories about some of my favorite characters by one of my favorite authors makes for a good experience.

>53 karenmarie:

I didn't mean to deceive you. I was a Christie fan as an adolescent and read Marple/Poirot novels until I was bleary-eyed. After a few years, though, I think I was inured to the formula and my joy in her mysteries subsided. But I was heavily into her books at one time. So, once a Christie fan, always a Christie fan?

Yes, I have a ROOT thread here, but I'm not terribly interesting because my reading life has gone astray compared to what it was 4 years ago. Lot's of upheaval and rival demands on my attention these days. But you can find it here:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/245601

>55 Limelite: I would tend to agree that once a Christie fan, always a Christie fan. She had such a huge body of work that I would be surprised if anybody who likes mysteries couldn't find something or someone appealing.

Thanks for your thread link! I've already been to visit, just realized that I hadn't replied here to your message.

>51 karenmarie: wonderful! My husband's the same way -- MUCH prefers being busy!
Oh yes, I've heard the name, Miss Marple... And I feel like I actually have read or started to read a Tuppence & Tommy book and didn't enjoy it... so maybe I'll focus on Poirot .. and maybe eventually Marple :) & I'm very much looking forward to finally reading Murder on the Orient Express -- esp. since I've read/seen parodies/off-shoots of it and feel the need to read the original! Also, a local theater is doing the play right now... I want to go, but I don't want to ruin my reading experience...
Thanks for all the information & the reference!

Lol I am also puzzled as to why mysteries appeal to me in the fall, but they ALways do... I just go w/ it ;)

>52 Limelite: interesting.. fictional biography. Perhaps once I read the original, I'll check that out!

Hi Aletheia!

Murder on the Orient Express is a very good one.

I personally have never felt the need to read them in order although there are occasional mentions of previous cases.

>58 karenmarie: good to know! It's nice to feel like I can just read one without having to worry about missing all kinds of references :)
Hope your husband's new job and your new-new retirement are continuing to go well!

Hi Aletheia! Husband's job is going well. He feels insecure, but has gotten two 'Atta boys' since January 11th. He's working on a 'smallish' quote by himself - a 62-page blueprint, which doesn't seem so small to me. He has to interpret the blueprint into lines on a quote - materials, dimensions, type of endcaps and all sorts of other things. I think he'll do fine. It's not a large environment at all, and since he's an extrovert, it's a bit tough on him. He hates to eat out alone and does so most days for lunch, then comes home to introvert wife. We do spend about 3 hours together in the evening, watching TV series of one sort or another - last night was an episode of Lucifer then a NOVA episode about the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi and Daini in 2011.

Back from our trip - here's a bit about it as I posted on my 75 books challenge thread across several days.

We arrived Thursday the 19th about 2 p.m. Sister picked us up, we went out to lunch, back to Mom's, where we were all 3 staying, watched The Help, then to sleep. Friday was errands in the morning, with breakfast out. We watched Julie and Julia in the afternoon, then sister went home with her husband. Daughter and I met them at the church next morning.

Saturday was the Memorial service for my Mother and everything went beautifully. We were totally whupped, but happily so. Big stress off of me. Huge relief that things went well, lovely service (even if it was REALLY Christian with a bit of proselytizing thrown in by Pastor Randy for good measure), wonderful people who came to honor my Mom, and my sister and I both gave eulogies that were well received. Mom's first cousin Lenita sang two songs too.

My sister and her husband in their truck, and my daughter and I in Mom's car, we headed down to Long Beach to niece/wife/son's condo for pizza dinner and then some board games. We had a blast. My sister and her husband, and my nephew were staying with them, and since I wasn't into a blow up mattress or the couch and both daughter and I are introverts and had been around people all day, we stayed at a hotel 10 minutes away from where Heather and Amber live. At the hotel, we were both very quiet, and recharging our batteries, as it were. Daughter was on her cell phone texting and I played a couple of my favorite match-3 games then we both went to sleep. We had a light breakfast at the hotel, then went on the "cruise", which was not a cruise because the wind was gusting to 30 knots and the Captain refused to go out. We knew that would be the result as we were driving over, but we ate wonderful food, I had 3 glasses of champagne, and we all had a great time chatting and relaxing. It was a brunch, a combination of breakfast foods and lunch/dinner foods. I have never had before, and probably won't ever have again, prime rib with horseradish sauce, cold boiled shrimp with cocktail sauce, and thick cut bacon, all on the same plate. Heaven. Oh yes, I also had salmon, fruit, croissants, and desserts. It was absolutely wonderful food.

It was a dangerous drive home from Long Beach to Diamond Bar, sister coming with us and driving to Mom's house. There were flooded roads in LB, accidents, spin outs, and downed trees, but my sister is a great driver and we got safely, if slowly, back to Mom's. At Mom's we watched movies, ate take out, and went to bed early so we could get up at 3 a.m. to get to the airport at 4 a.m. It all worked out. (We watched a really stupid movie called Fun with Dick and Jane that my sister likes, then Chicago, which I'd never seen and wanted to watch. I loved it. I want to watch it again.) The two legs of our trip home were both uneventful and we got back to our house at about 7 p.m. Daughter relaxed for a bit and ate half a sandwich, then headed back to Wilmington for work yesterday.

My official Retirement Take 2 start date is Monday the 30th. The rest of this week is recovering from the trip, mailing a few Memorial Service programs to relatives who sent cards, and reading. I'm reading a ROOT on my Kindle - Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham. I put it on my Kindle last year in April, so it counts as a ROOT by my rules.

>60 karenmarie: That sounds nice (to the extent these things can be) - glad that you are home safe and sound.

>60 karenmarie: glad to hear your husband's job is going well! Sounds very interesting :)

Sounds like you had a truly wonderful trip, all things considered. Such a lovely time with close friends and family..
And I'm so glad your mother's memorial service was beautiful!

Ah, January 30th -- a date to look forward to! & Hope the rest of your week is productive & relaxing!

Thank you, Caramellunacy. It's good to be home.

Hi all! I've sent messages to people who've expressed an interest in the February Group Read of Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Everybody's welcome to join in. Personally, I'll be starting February 1 and reading 1-2 chapters a day.

Bleak House Group Read

Mmmm that food sounds delicious!

I am glad to hear that your mom's memorial service went well.

Thank you, rabbitprincess. I feel very good about what we did and the people who came to honor Mom.

And the food was to die for!

Hi Karen! Glad to hear that after all the stress the memorial service went well.

Yes, I'm glad too that it went well and you had a good time with your family (even though the reason itself is sad). I hope you manage to recharge your batteries this week!

>67 MissWatson: Thank you, Birgit. It was about as perfect as anything could be. No tension, no problems with any of the logistics, good food, pretty flowers, happy memories.

>68 Jackie_K: Thank you. I'm working on the battery re-charging, Jackie. I had an invitation to go have lunch with my former co-workers at the job I was at the last 20 years today, but they are including a manager who is visiting from out of town who I don't particularly like and I don't want to deal with a new person and have him hear about my Mom. Strange but true. So I bowed out. It was a last minute thing anyway, so Michelle, lunch/dinner coordinator (tee hee) said we'd get together next week instead. I can't think of anybody else who really wants to see Arul anyway.

I'm very sensitive to group dynamics, and our little group of 6 is perfect. 7 changes things dramatically, especially with someone none of us really like, with the possible exception of our old boss Joe, who worked for Arul. Arul never impressed me with any kind of technical OR managerial abilities and he keeps on moving up in my former company. Don't respect the company, don't respect him.

So I'm still home in my jammies. :)

>69 karenmarie: I'd say the best part of retirement is not having to deal with managers you don't like anymore, so I think you totally did the right thing to stay home in your jammies :)

Pyjama day sounds perfect to me!

>69 karenmarie: I completely agree! Group dynamic can definitely be altered by 1 person... esp. someone who is a downer or is an over-talker, etc. ;P
& not wanting to share something so personal to you with someone you don't particularly like is perfectly understandable too..

Staying home in your jammies sounds wonderful :)

>70 Britt84: Hi Britt! Thank you. I love being retired. No more idiots at work, no more alarms in the morning, no more long hours away from home. And I love hanging out in my jammies!

>71 Jackie_K: It was, Jackie!

>72 avanders: I had a lovely day, got a lot of reading done, talked with my mom's sister, my Aunt Joyce, for 90 minutes today, also spoke with my daughter for a bit and my sister for a bit. Husband came home pretty much on time, and we're going to watch .... Emerald City or find something new because the Amazon Prime Nova episodes we were watching are all watched and the rest aren't Prime.

Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham
1/23/17 to 1/26/17





The description from Amazon:

A young prostitute lies dead in a Cardiff squat. Her six-year-old lies dead beside her. It looks like an ordinary murder scene . . . except that a millionaire's platinum bank card lies among the debris. How did it come to be there? And is there more to this case than meets the eye? Investigating the case is rookie Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths - a new recruit with a reputation for being deadly smart, more than ordinarily committed . . . and unsettlingly odd. As she starts to follow up the clue left by that platinum bank card, she finds the disturbing hints that suggest a truly appalling crime has been committed - and release the demons of her own dark past.

This is the first in the Fiona Griffiths series. I found it as compelling as the second book, which I read out of order and adored.

I read this on my Kindle, discovering that I had purchased it last April.

The murders are violent. As with any good mystery, the clues are few. Fiona is fearless and doesn’t do well at following rules. She also has an abnormal affinity for the dead, which seems rather shocking, frankly. She goes out on a limb several times as things start making sense to her, putting herself in danger. She introduces us to her friend Lev and we also get a hint at her Dad’s shady past and power.

Harry Bingham has written an intelligent and complex mystery. He has also written the story of a young woman trying to make her way in a world that she feels excludes her because of her ‘illness’. Nobody in the police force knows what her illness is, just that it claimed 2 years of her life. She then went to Cambridge, and then joined the police force. It was shocking to read what her illness was in the second book, so much part of who and what she is, and it is explained in painful detail in this book close to the end, with hints and foreshadowing throughout.

>73 karenmarie: sounds like a really wonderful day!
& Oh, what did you think of Emerald City? I tend to love all things Oz, but I didn't get past the first few minutes the first time I tried to watch the pilot... I guess I am just tired of the oversexualization of all things, including those things that were not sexual from my youth (I happened to try to watch the beginning of Riverdale the same day, with the same problem)... But am still trying to be open minded about it, theoretically anyway, and have it saved on my DVR for when I have the attention span for it :)

>74 karenmarie: sounds fun! Congrats on another ROOT pulled!

>60 karenmarie: It sounds like a beautiful tribute to your mom and a loving place among family. I so admire your ability to eulogize your mom and to take care of your self.

>60 karenmarie:
What a lovely description you gave of your mom's memorial celebrations. All the time I was reading, I was thinking. . ."I hope this doesn't turn into one of those 90s family reunion/friend retreat movies where everything goes south and people have to pretend to forgive and forget all the horrible things they've said and done at the end." It didn't. So, how lovely for you.

PJs have been my favorite wear since retiring. For the first time in my life I shop for lounge wear instead of day clothes. Much cheaper and MUCH more comfortable! Ideal garments for book and device reading, too.

>75 avanders: Hi Aletheia! I like it and dislike it all at the same time. It's clever yet strange. So far we've met a scarecrow who's not a scarecrow, a tin woodman who's not a tin woodman, a wizard whose name is Frank Morgan (clever that - the actor who played in the 1939 movie was Frank Morgan), strange witches, and etc. I'm interested in continuing so far, but as with books (which I abandon with glee), I will be happy to abandon it if it stops pleasing me. Husband grumbles about this - I stopped watching Colony, Blindspot, Dollhouse (quite a few years ago), and a couple of others that he's continued to watch.

>76 detailmuse: Thank you MJ! I hope that my 63 years on this planet have given me some grace and insight. It was all good. Plus, and I am so lucky to be able to say this, my sister and I are in synch in all things about dealing with our mother's life, death, and estate. I think others aren't so lucky.

>77 Limelite: Nope, limelite, there was peace in the kingdom. I do, however, have quite a few negative feelings towards my BiL, but have decided to not burden my sister with them and have become the always supportive sister. Unless she specifically asks my opinion.

Sometimes she breaks my heart - she doesn't ask for much, is the sole breadwinner with a permanently disabled husband who hasn't been able to collect disability yet, has her terminally ill MiL living with them AND a caretaker who I and my niece and nephew (her kids) actively despise, and yet she NEVER gets anything she wants, large or small. Everybody in her life discounts what she wants and does what they want, all the way from not having that particular care giver to not buying the kind of milk she wants. They irritate me beyond measure.

So here's the thing - our mother and father bought a painting in 1967 that is apparently going to be worth some money and is considered by the deceased painter's gallery to be a "premiere piece" of her art. They want to publish it, meaning reproductions and a bit of fanfare and if we keep it, possibly some royalties for the 'publishing' of it. This painter has works in the Louvre, the Prado, and other museums. My thought was to get it cleaned and re-framed as per the gallery's recommendation, and then sell it in a reasonable time frame depending on the market, but my sister is really excited and expressing interest in us, she and me, having a piece of art, not keeping it at any of our houses, but having it on display at a gallery or even in a museum. I think I'll just do that for her and not let her know that my wish is really to sell. At least she's agreed that her husband and her kids and my kid have no say in the decision making about it - my husband knows he has no say in it, but I think BiL would like to be involved in the decision making.

And so there are some negative feelings, but they are not directed towards any blood relatives, just my .... well, I won't say it.... BiL.

I have been feeling bad about PJs, limelite, but tend to stay in them as they are warmer than my leggings and t-shirts and I don't like to turn up the house heat too much during the day because it seems wasteful and I like to bundle up anyway. But now, with your approbation, I won't feel bad any more.

>78 karenmarie: I borrow box sets from the library and am constantly stopping after only a disc or so, even if I like the show a lot (example: The Night Manager). Sometimes I just want to get a taste of what the show is like, rather than watch the whole thing.

>79 rabbitprincess: Yup, rabbitprincess. Why continue with something you don't like? A huge waste of time.

Today is lunch with some friends, a few errands, then back home. Sometime in there my sister will be calling from California at the gallery, to discuss Mom and Dad's painting. I hope it is around their lunchtime, which means I'll already be home.

I think I'll make a buttermilk pound cake today - I have buttermilk that needs to be used up and I've never made one before. I have made other pound cakes, just not this recipe.

>78 karenmarie: Everything surrounding your parents' painting and what to do with it is fascinating!

>80 karenmarie:

From the way you write about it. . .I'd love to sit in my PJs at your table, and savor a slice of that delicious-sounding buttermilk pound cake, and gaze at the painting with you, in mutual admiration, before you and your sister do what's best.

>81 detailmuse: Thank you, MJ!

>82 Limelite: That would be a lot of fun. I wish I had been here today, but I was on the phone, a distant but acceptable second.

So my sister, husband, daughter/wife/grandson took the 'piece' into the gallery, got a tour, ate a very nice lunch, and 'Warren' looked at the painting. About that time I called, having come in from eating lunch out with friends and running errands.

Warren is ecstatic. There is some cracking and OF COURSE the restoration is going to be even a bit more expensive than the upside he mentioned the other day, but they are confident that the painting can be perfectly restored. Because the artist's gallery is doing the work, with the original paints this painter used, with the only two qualified restorers who worked with her in her lifetime, they are telling us that it will be restored to its 1967 pristine condition and will be able to be called an original. We are going to frame it in another framing scheme that was also used during her lifetime that they think will enhance the value. And barring unforeseen circumstances, they will publish the painting, meaning reproductions and etc. with royalties. My sister is ecstatic. I'm temporarily out $3300, put on a credit card and needing to be covered with some 401k monies. Sigh. But husband says I should do what I need to do and sister says thank you and I'll be reimbursed for her half if/when they get her husband's disability. We'll see, but I'm just happy that it is considered a premiere piece and my sister is happy.

They will have it 2-4 months and then we can decide what to do with it.

In the meantime, for book club, I am reading The Old Man and the Sea. I thought I had read it, but I now think I've only seen the movie. It's short and sweet and I'm on page 50 of 140 pages.

And the pound cake will come out of the oven in about 5 minutes. It smells heavenly.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
2/4/17 to 2/5/17





The description from Wikipedia:

The Old Man and the Sea is a short novel written by the American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Bimini, Bahamas, and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction by Hemingway that was published during his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it tells the story of Santiago, an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Florida.

In 1953, The Old Man and the Sea was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and it was cited by the Nobel Committee as contributing to their awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Hemingway in 1954.

It is as pure a novella as any I’ve ever read. A simple life, a simple man, a simple task, a boy who loves an old man. It is as bare bones as the skeleton of the giant fish that the old man finally brings back into the harbor.

What pleased me was the knowledge the old man had about the sea - the currents, the clouds above it, hurricanes. It also pleased me that he knew the habits of the marlin after he had hooked it - diving, moving into the currents, finally coming up and circling the skiff. He respected the fish, loved the fish, honored the fish.

I cared about the old man and the boy too. They loved each other, and that shone through each page the boy was in or mentioned in.

All in all, a very sastisfying read.

>84 karenmarie: I've never actually read any Hemingway, but that review might have sold that one to me!

Hi Jackie! It's a short read, only 140 pages in my copy, but like I said, very satisfying.

>84 karenmarie: Thanks for such a great review! I've read 2 Hemmingway's and been turned off by both (The Sun Also Rises--just terrible, and For Whom the Bell Tolls--not much better). But because of your review I might read The Old Man and the Sea. I know my children read it in high school and they hated it--but hey--boys being forced to read in high school---can't depend on their opinion!

I, too, loved the boy, and the old man. It's my favorite of Hemingway's fiction, but haha that's probably because it's not long and not full of the style he's so known (and disliked) for.

I also liked A Moveable Feast, which is memoir-ish about his travels and meet-ups with other expat writers in France between the world wars. I persevered through A Farewell to Arms and will probably not read his others.

>87 Tess_W: Hi Tess! I would be very interested in your opinion of it, and since it is so short, won't feel too bad about seriously recommending it.

>88 detailmuse: Hi MJ! Having not read anything else by him, I am not prejudiced. I see on Mark's thread that Hemingway is the AAC December author, so may pick up one of my other three then.

A Moveable Feast sounds interesting, but I don't have it. I'll have to choose from among A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls. (Unless, of course, I find a copy of it at one of the two Friends of the Library sales between now and December).

>78 karenmarie: Interesting .. maybe I'll give it (Emerald City) another change :)
Yeah my husband & I don't always see eye-to-eye... he continues to watch Last Man on Earth, which I gave up last year sometime... I continue to watch Gotham and Scream Queens (frivolous and funny :)), which he can't remotely stomach ;) And then we have some shared watches...

That's rough w/ your sister & BIL ... I have a few friends in that kind of situation and ... sometimes it's so brutal just having to sit by. :(

Re the painting -- that's very generous of you to consider her thoughts on the matter, despite your own wishes! I can imagine being torn by that ... we have nothing that valuable, but we have a few pieces that may someday get to that point, that are family heirlooms (from his side)... so far, he and his sister have agreed (at least we think they have ;)) on what to do with them all :)
Good luck in dealing with such a wonderful inheritance!

>83 karenmarie: oh, the update :) I am behind here...
Great news!

& don't feel bad about the PJs! It's just that time of year :) comfy, cozy PJs are just the thing...

>84 karenmarie: glad you enjoyed your read so much! :)
>85 Jackie_K: (me neither :))

Hi Aletheia!

Emerald City has become even weirder.....

I let husband watch what he wants after I've gone to bed. Fortunately we both like certain types of documentaries and lots of BBC stuff.

I hate sitting by and watching my blanket-blank BiL be so selfish. *grrrr*

I have to keep reminding my sister to not get her hopes up too high. We won't even know anything for 3-4 months, the time it takes them to restore/clean it and then appraise it.

I'm back in PJs, Friday afternoon at 4 p.m.!!!

I heartily recommend a dip into Hemingway via The Old Man and the Sea.

The Crossing by Michael Connelly
2/8/17 to 2/10/17





The description from Amazon:

Detective Harry Bosch has retired from the LAPD, but his half-brother, defense attorney Mickey Haller, needs his help. A woman has been brutally murdered in her bed and all evidence points to Haller's client, a former gang member turned family man. Though the murder rap seems ironclad, Mickey is sure it's a setup.

Bosch doesn't want anything to do with crossing the aisle to work for the defense. He feels it will undo all the good he's done in his thirty years as a homicide cop. But Mickey promises to let the chips fall where they may. If Harry proves that his client did it, under the rules of discovery, they are obliged to turn over the evidence to the prosecution.

Though it goes against all his instincts, Bosch reluctantly takes the case. The prosecution's file just has too many holes and he has to find out for himself: if Haller's client didn't do it, then who did? With the secret help of his former LAPD partner Lucy Soto, Harry starts digging. Soon his investigation leads him inside the police department, where he realizes that the killer he's been tracking has also been tracking him.

I really liked this mystery because the words “the crossing” represent the strategy Harry uses to find where the victim’s life crosses the client’s and Harry’s feeling that he has crossed over to the dark side of defense.

The slow unraveling of the issues of the case are interesting and believable. Harry and Mickey have totally different views on what to pursue and how to use the information, which also give this book an edge and tension that go nicely with the tension of finding the real killer.

All in all a good addition to the series – Harry’s and Mickey’s.

>91 karenmarie: I can imagine... when my sister has dated ... unpleasant (putting it very gently) people in the past, it has been SO frustrating!! Fortunately, this past September she married someone who seems to love and respect her.. yay!

It's good of you to remember & to remind your sister that it's good to manage expectations... it's hard to do sometimes, though .. our hopes get a little high ;)

PJs on Friday afternoon sounds perfect!

>92 karenmarie: and congrats on yet another ROOT!

Hi Aletheia! Thank you. I hope I can keep up the momentum as the year progresses. Everything on my shelves prior to 1/1/17 is a ROOT, but as the year progresses and I buy books (I'm actually up to 48 new books so far..... yipes.....) I tend to read the new ones. I do think I can manage the 40 out of 100, though.

>94 karenmarie: Those shiny new books are so enticing.... ;)
I'm sure you will manage the 40 of 100!

Thank you for the vote of confidence! I've already read 12 in less than 2 months, so I feel confident.

Yay, hooray! I just finished Bleak House. ROOT, Group Read. I'll post a review later.

>97 karenmarie: Ooh, well done! I must admit I find Dickens books where I don't already know the story (if I've not seen a TV adaptation or film) really daunting!

>97 karenmarie: Woo hoo!

>97 karenmarie: Congrats!!

Thank you Jackie_K, rabbitprincess, Sace. I'm rather proud.

>101 karenmarie: You should be!! Charles Dickens is not the easiest of reading.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens
2/1/17 to 2/27/17



In keeping with displaying my book covers, but I do apologize for its drabness.



The description from Amazon:
Charles Dickens's masterful assault on the injustices of the British legal system.

As the interminable case of 'Jarndyce and Jarndyce' grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada and Richard Clare, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured by legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; the determined sleuth Inspector Bucket; and even Jo, the destitute little crossing-sweeper. A savage, but often comic, indictment of a society that is rotten to the core, Bleak House is one of Dickens's most ambitious novels, with a range that extends from the drawing rooms of the aristocracy to the poorest of London slums.

When I finish a book, I try to think of the one word that best describes how I feel at that exact moment about the book. This one started out at “Excellent”, meaning 4 stars, yet about 5 minutes later, as I started thinking back, it became “Stunning”, 4.5. And there is stays. I can’t quite put it up there with Pride and Prejudice, or The Source, or The Killer Angels, or, finally To Kill A Mockingbird – my only 5-star rated novels - but it’s awfully close.

I won’t pretend to be a serious Dickens fan, because I’ve only read 4 of his works, and A Christmas Carol is barely a novella, much less a novel; but of David Copperfield, Great Expectations, and Bleak House, the third is by far the best. It’s caustic, tragic, comic, heroic, ironic, and pedantic. It’s confusing and verbose, yet there are paragraphs of sheer beauty and emotional power that are quite stunning, hence my rating.

I was going to say there were characters I could have done without, but when I come to try to list them, I can’t. They all play their part, with vivid descriptions or vivid actions that immediately convey who and what they are.

I wish it had been shorter, yet I can’t imagine what could have been cut out.

Most of all, by the last of the 830 pages in my edition, by my reckoning it was far better than I expected and definitely worth the read. All the loose ends were tied up, everything explained, and even if there were unhappy endings for some people, they all made sense to me.

I do so love John Jarndyce. He is Esther Summerson’s guardian and in love with her; yet when he realizes where her heart lies he gives over and provides a living and home for her and Allan Woodcourt, her own Bleak House. The title says it all – it’s not Jarndyce & Jarndyce, after all, but Bleak House. Bleak House because of John Jarndyce and his absolute goodness and involvement with almost every character either directly or indirectly, and Bleak House because of the two love stories intertwined in their rooms.

I admire Inspector Bucket for pursuing truth. I admire Esther Summerson for being honest and loving and dutiful. I admire Lady Dedlock for being loyal to Sir Leicester and living with her tragedy. I admire Sir Leicester for his love of his Lady.

Mr. Tulkington is a right villain, Mr. Guppy is obsequious. Grandfather Smallweed disgusting, and most of the women much stronger than one would imagine. And I got choked up when Jo died. I could say something about pretty much every character, but instead I will say read it and enjoy it for yourself.

Congrats on finishing such a big tome. Dickens can be daunting with his huge casts of characters, and I find the TV versions helpful to put faces on the names. I think Charles Dance is truly scary as Tulkinghorn!

>103 karenmarie: well done! I enjoyed reading your review, having recently finished Bleak House myself. I agree with your assessment of the characters and the way the storyline strengthened as it went along - and the four and a half stars. It is daunting (not least because it's time consuming) but I listened to large chunks of it on audiobook - excellent performances by the two narrators really brought the story to life - and I had the paperback to dip into (handier for flipping back and forth to check details). Well worth the effort. Looking forward to what the Group Read-ers have to say about it :)

>103 karenmarie: I agree with your review of Bleak House, Karen. I'm not a Dickens fan, but I think society and book clubs have "forced" me to read Dickens. Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and Bleak House are the 3 of Dickens that I really liked and rated them 5 stars. I've also read Oliver Twist and The Old Curiosity Shop which I found to be so very average. I couldn't even finish Martin Chuzzlewitt.

>104 MissWatson: Thank you, Birgit! It seemed daunting until about page 500 or so, frankly. I'm going to watch the BBC production again because the only thing I really remember is Mr. Guppy and "Shake me up, Judy!"

>105 floremolla: I started out with my hardcover, floremolla, but switched to the Kindle then moved the bookmark in the book to keep them in synch. Thank you re my review.

>106 Tess_W: Hi Tess and thank you. I had to read David Copperfield in high school and I think I was supposed to read Oliver Twist but never finished it. For me, Great Expectations suffers in comparison with Bleak House. Pip and Estella are, to me, both extremely unlikable characters. Most of the BH characters are endearing and endearingly eccentric, not irritating and irritatingly eccentric. Of course the bad guys are very bad, which is satisfying.

Now I'm thinking I should investigate Bleak House on Serial Reader! I tried reading it in print and the edition I had was so heavy and drab that it was difficult to persevere. But perhaps reading it in bite-size chunks would help. I did like what I saw of the BBC adaptation.

>108 rabbitprincess: Good idea, rabbitprincess! If the format hindered your reading, change format! I got a free download from Amazon, just happened to be good timing, and it really, really helped.

>104 MissWatson: I find it quite difficult to read any Dickens if I've not seen a TV adaptation or film first, just to keep me right! It's the only reason why I have a copy of Martin Chuzzlewit, as there was a TV adaptation a good 20+ years ago, but as I can remember nothing about it, if I tried rereading it I'd be lost now! David Copperfield is by far my favourite Dickens - first read as a teenager after seeing a play at a local theatre which featured as young David the actor who went on to play Adrian Mole in the TV series in the 1980s.

>110 Jackie_K: It's funny how a TV version can make you search out the books! I first read Our mutual friend because the actor who played John Rokesmith in the 70ies version made a lasting impression as Mercutio in Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet film. That's still my favourite Dickens.

... I will definitely not be able to "catch up" on threads.. so I'm just dropping in to say Hi!! :)

& Congrats on finishing Bleak House! Interesting that it seemed daunting until about page 500 or so... ;)

Hi Aletheia!

Yay! It's good to see you posting again. No catch up needed.

Update please, on your thread!

I'll check on it periodically to see how you're doing, no need to update here.

>113 karenmarie: I know... I started to respond on threads, then baby started calling... update coming !!

Hi all! Here's my newest ROOT: an audiobook I got last fall. Since I don't commute any more to work, it's taken me over a month to listen to it!

His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis
3/1/17 to 4/3/17





The description from Amazon:
To this landmark biography of our first president, Joseph J. Ellis brings the exacting scholarship, shrewd analysis, and lyric prose that have made him one of the premier historians of the Revolutionary era. Training his lens on a figure who sometimes seems as remote as his effigy on Mount Rushmore, Ellis assesses George Washington as a military and political leader and a man whose “statue-like solidity” concealed volcanic energies and emotions.

Here is the impetuous young officer whose miraculous survival in combat half-convinced him that he could not be killed. Here is the free-spending landowner whose debts to English merchants instilled him with a prickly resentment of imperial power. We see the general who lost more battles than he won and the reluctant president who tried to float above the partisan feuding of his cabinet. His Excellency is a magnificent work, indispensable to an understanding not only of its subject but also of the nation he brought into being.

I listened to the audiobook of this excellent biography of George Washington. Ellis made him accessible, understandable, and vivid where most people think of George Washington as austere, vague, and perfect in every way. There are many pertinent quotes from his writings and many facets of his personality that seem surprising only in that Washington’s greatness tends to make him god-like. There was an immediate rush to glorify him after his death, and many stories about him are simply not true at all. He was not formally educated yet had a near-perfect perception of power. He kept slaves yet wanted to free them, wouldn’t sell them because he didn’t want to break up families yet also leased slaves. He abhorred debt and was a combination of parsimonious and extravagant. The contrasts in his personality are what make him so interesting.

>115 karenmarie: I'm moving this up on my list! Great review!

>116 Tess_W: Thank you, Tess! I have both the audiobook and trade paperback so after I finished it today I looked at the pictures, objects, life masks, and etc. It definitely rounded the experience.

>115 karenmarie: >116 Tess_W: (ignore if you don't want enabling...!) If you're not already signed up to bookbub it might be worth doing so - they send notifications of offers on ebooks, and I'd say the majority of stuff they alert me to is related to American Presidential history - biographies, histories, etc. I haven't got any of them so I'm not sure of the quality, but if it's something you're particularly interested in then there is just so much out there!

Hi Jackie! I just joined and we'll see what happens. I tend to get books on my Kindle that I don't read but perhaps this will motivate me! Thanks.

When I signed up I deliberately didn't include fiction (which is the main free stuff they seem to find), but I think signed up for biography, history, general non-fiction etc. I honestly would say that over 50% of what they send me is US president-related! (and quite a bit of the rest is US civil war stuff!). Occasionally there's a memoir that interests me, or some travel writing, but usually I find it's not too hard to just delete the email. When I'm tempted by something I've found that going to amazon and reading the reviews often helps me resist too! (not always though!). I probably only get about 1 or 2 books max per month that way, but it is a good way to see what else is out there that I might not come across otherwise. Occasionally it comes up with something really great!

>118 Jackie_K: I belonged to bookbub for years, but after receiving mostly offers of sci fi, romance, etc., I dropped them. They also provided a daily list of free Kindle books, which Kindle also offers for free. I did get a few free books from bookbub, but for the most part the emails just ended all piled up making it too late to grab the offer. (Kindle offers usually only good for 24 hours) I canceled after a couple of years.

>115 karenmarie: looks like it was worth the month! :)
sounds interesting!

& hello :)

It was, Aletheia! I am now listening to Dreams of My Father by Barack Obama. It's so nice to listen to an intelligent, articulate, thoughtful ex-President compared to the bloviating orange gasbag we've got now.

>123 karenmarie: I think I would still feel too sad to listen to that :( I do mean to read it though at some point (along with The Audacity of Hope).

Hi Jackie!

I am very sad, but his honesty and introspection are a balm to everything coming out of the White House, the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court. There is a small sliver of hope with the Senate in that Richard Burr (R-NC) is head of the Senate Intelligence Committee and at least so far he's not caving in or towing the WH line like Devin Nunes of the House Intelligence Committee is.

>123 karenmarie: lol I can see you might appreciate that ;) i have that book, but have not yet read it!

>124 Jackie_K: me too... on both counts :)

Hi, Karen, just skimming through your thread to see what you were reading while I was away.

Bleak House: hurrah!!

>126 avanders: Hi Aletheia! In addition to being so wonderful in general, he's a very good audiobook reader!

>127 connie53: Hi Connie! I'm glad to see you here again. I hope things are improving for Peet and you.

I was very happy to read Bleak House, enjoying it much more than Great Expectations. Having said that, I'm not at all inclined to read any more Dickens for the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately for my ROOTs goals, I've been reading new books that I can't count. I've read 31 books, only 15 of them ROOTs. Sigh.

>128 karenmarie: I'm impressed you've read Bleak House though. Dickens is great when you get into the story, but even so he's not for the faint-hearted!

And by my reckoning you're still on track to meet your ROOT goal - you've read over 1/3 of your goal, and we're not quite 1/3 of the way through the year :)

>128 karenmarie: Karen, the two Dickens you've read are the two best! The only other one that is of that quality, IMHO, is A Tale of Two Cities. I've read 3 others (Oliver Twist, The Old Curiosity Shop, and Martin Chuzzlewite) and they were just horrible!

>129 Jackie_K: Thank you, Jackie! And thank you for reminding me of my goal. I just finished the 8th Poldark, unfortunately not a ROOT, was going to pick out one of my shiny new book sale books but have decided to dig around in my ROOTs instead. There are certainly enough of them!

>130 Tess_W: Thanks for the confirmation, Tess! For a while I thought to have a group read of A Tale of Two Cities but people persuaded me to host Bleak House, which I was happy to do. If those are your three favs, then perhaps I'll either host a group read or just read A Tale of Two Cities myself sometime down the road.

I read David Copperfield in high school, and that one combined with my two recent LT experiences and a read of A Christmas Carol a couple of years ago, is my total for Dickens.

>128 karenmarie: I'm not surprised - he has the voice to read well!

Heh heh - I have also had that problem -- reading as many non-ROOTs as ROOTs! Historically, the problem has grown as the year passed... but this year is different. We'll see how it all plays out this time :)

>131 karenmarie: Poldark -- I keep hearing about it... I assume, since you're on the 8th, you enjoy it? It's a series?

Hi Aletheia!

Obama reads in a natural, unaffected voice. He uses his 'white people' accent, his 'black people' accent, and his 'African people' accent to great effect - I know it's how he is thinking about the words, remembering the people, as he's reading.

Sometimes the shiny new books win..... but not this time! Next choice is a ROOT!

Oh, my goodness. Poldark. It is a 12-book series written by Winston Graham and takes place mostly in Cornwall England, from 1783-1820. There was a BBC series in the 1970s, and then there's the new series, two seasons in, started in 2015.

Ross Poldark returns to Cornwall after fighting as an English soldier and getting wounded in the American war. He returns to find that his father has died in his absence and the woman he loves is engaged to his cousin.

The books and the new series are SO good. Here's Aidan Turner, who plays Ross Poldark in the new series:



Ross Poldark is the first book. If you like historical fiction, you might like this series! TV or book or both!

>133 karenmarie: oh interesting about the "accents"! I will have to check that out.... :)
And okay, i'll put Poldark on the wishlist! :) I'll definitely have to read it before I agree to watch it..... :)

>133 karenmarie: *strolls casually through thread*
*double-take at photo*
Ooh, HEL-lo! :D

I'm starting Book 5 soonish to coincide with the Category Challenge's group read (one book a month for all of 2017). Have to have books 5 and 6 read before the third season of the show starts.

>135 rabbitprincess: lol! 😉

>134 avanders: It's very noticeable to me, Obama's accents. They provide so much information that words don't convey.

Yay Poldark!

>135 rabbitprincess: Yes, isn't he a dish? I can't wait for season 3 - don't even know when it starts, but I'm well enough along in the books now.

>136 avanders: Yes.

I could post pictures of Aidan Turner all day, but won't. You can google or use whatever browser you prefer and look for him with the images option and drool to your heart's content.

>135 rabbitprincess: hehehe!

>137 karenmarie: not too long to wait, the new series starts here in June on BBC :)

The PBS website says Season 3 will premiere on Sunday, October 1 :D

>138 floremolla: Hi Donna! We always have to wait in the US. :(

>139 rabbitprincess: *grumble* October.

I've finished book 8, The Stranger From the Sea but haven't started book 9 The Miller's Dance yet. I needed a teensy break.

Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
4/3/17 to 4/19/17





The description from Amazon:

In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey—first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance.

I find Barack Obama a compelling author and reader, much as I found him a compelling President. This memoir is bursting with personality and life. He brings to life the black American accent of Chicago and New York, the Kansas inflections of his maternal grandparents and mother, and the black African accents of his father’s family. We see the potential problem child, the reluctant college student, the activist, the law student, son, friend, brother, and grandson. If I hadn’t respected and liked Barack Obama before reading this book, I certainly would respect and like him now. The bonus material at the end of the audiobook is his electrifying keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. I got shivers just listening to it.

>141 karenmarie: thanks for the BB!

You're welcome, Donna! I should have listened to it years ago, but now's better than never.

The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik
4/18/17 to 4/21/17





The description from Amazon:
Every January 1, a quirky crowd storms out across North America for a spectacularly competitive event called a Big Year -- a grand, expensive, and occasionally vicious 365-day marathon of birdwatching. For three men in particular, 1998 would become a grueling battle for a new North American birding record. Bouncing from coast to coast on frenetic pilgrimages for once-in-a-lifetime rarities, they brave broiling deserts, bug-infested swamps, and some of the lumpiest motel mattresses known to man. This unprecedented year of beat-the-clock adventures ultimately leads one man to a record so gigantic that it is unlikely ever to be bested. Here, prize-winning journalist Mark Obmascik creates a dazzling, fun narrative of the 275,000-mile odyssey of these three obsessives as they fight to win the greatest -- or maybe worst -- birding contest of all time

With my new-found interest in bird watching, I decided to re-read this book. This reading was to learn about birds and birdwatchers. The first reading was for the fun of it and the competition.

This is the story of Sandy Komito, Al Levantin, and Greg Miller, going for a Big year in 1998. Each of them spent tens of thousands of dollars, drove and flew tens of thousands of miles, obsessed almost exclusively for the entire year, and came away rewarded, exhausted, and ended up one of the top three for Big Year 1998. 1998 was the year of an extraordinary El Nino effect, which tore up the old rules and had birds showing up in the oddest places at the oddest times. The most interesting thing to me about this book is that once a bird was successfully confirmed, each man turned away, anxious to find the next bird.

Interspersed with each man’s quest and individual successes and failures are the history of bird watching in the US, how bird migration patterns were discovered and explained, and the lore of many of the over 700 birds each man was able to count for the year. I don’t say saw, because at least one memorable bird was counted by song alone, fair within the rules. It’s a story of competition, camraderie, seasickness, and all good things about obsessing over birds.

There are websites devoted to reporting rare birds, bird watching tours, boat rides, and even camps for finding rare birds.

A fun book, chock full of info, chock full of humor, and a glimpse into the lives of serious birders.

>133 karenmarie: Wow, that's a hunk!

Hi Connie! Oh, yes. There are a lot of wonderful photos of him, but this is probably my favorite.

I took my brief break from Poldark with The Big Year and am now reading book 9, The Miller's Dance. Very good so far.

>137 karenmarie: I can imagine -- accents inform a lot! :)

>141 karenmarie: and 4 and a half stars! Will try to move it up the TBR list (always harder for me with non-fiction...). Maybe putting it on my audio wishlist on overdrive will help :)
... Darn. They only have it on ebook, not audio. I recommended it for them to get though... they may. They did w/ the last 2 books I recommended!

>144 karenmarie: fun :)

>141 karenmarie: I really want to listen to this now. Might check Audible, as I (apparently) have a chance of a free trial, if my vague noticing of the blurb in Amazon is right.

>147 avanders: Hi Aletheia! I hope you can get the audiobook for Dreams from My Father.

And re-reading The Big Year was a lot of fun.

>148 Jackie_K: I hope you can get hold of it too, Jackie!

I had 3 ROOTs for April, bringing my total to 17. I'm a bit ahead of pace for the year.

>149 karenmarie: I decided against the Audible trial in the end, because in the UK it is really not great value (you get one free book, then have to pay £7.99 a month to get one book per month. Paying £7.99 really doesn't feel like 'a deal'). I might see if our library does audio books.

I can understand not wanting to spend that money when you have so many other ways of getting books. Good luck getting hold of it some other way.

>149 karenmarie: me too... ;P

Awesome re being ahead for the year! That always feels good :)

>150 Jackie_K: you only get 1 book for the 7.99 price? I agree, not really a deal. I thought that the monthly fee gave you unlimited books.... but I hadn't looked into it at all.. I might have just assumed it was like the Amazon Unlimited Kindle deal..

>152 avanders: I think the US deal is probably better (from what I can gather from the disgruntled comments), but yes in the UK it's just one book a month for £7.99 a month. It's particularly annoying as we already pay for Prime, which gives benefits on lots of different areas (video streaming, postage, etc), but doesn't include Audible.

Ah well. It's not like I don't have tons of other books to be getting through :D

>153 Jackie_K: I've got the 7.99 deal from Audible - I credit it with getting me back into reading when I'd been too stressed to read - now use it mainly for the big chunksters I might not otherwise tackle. They usually last all month - Vanity Fair was 31 hours and it was great entertainment.

Cheaper than therapy, anyway ;)

>153 Jackie_K: Well I can certainly see how that would be annoying!
In any event, I'm not currently tempted ... as you, it's not like I don't have tons of other books to get through ;)

>154 floremolla: I could see that as a huge benefit! Right now I just use overdrive with my library :) but I bet audible has much greater access to books!

>152 avanders: Hi Aletheia! I love being on target with my goals, and actually a bit ahead on the number of pages to read this year, which is part of the 75 book challenge that I participate in every year. Goal there is 100 books, 34,000 pages read. End of April I’d read 34 books and 12,000 pages, so I’m humming right along.

I just checked out Audible and here in the US the first month is free then you pay $14.95/month. Given the fact that I only listen to books in the car, this doesn’t make sense for me either. Amazon Kindle Unlimited is $9.99/month after the first month free. So we’re no more lucky here in the US than folks are in the UK.

I use my Kindle, but actually don’t consider books on it part of my catalog. I’ve added a few here and there, but probably only about 10% of those I’ve bought or gotten free.

>153 Jackie_K: Hi Jackie! I’m not willing to pay for a monthly service since we’re a bit more restricted financially with me retiring last January and husband’s new shiny job now going to be costing us $900/month for medical insurance. Sigh.

>154 floremolla: Definitely cheaper than therapy, and as an inspiration to get you back to reading, a boon.

>155 avanders: Aletheia – books and Malachi. I remember when daughter was teensy just being enthralled watching her as I fed her and not wanting anything to interrupt – even a book.

I know our library has an e-book collection but have enough physical books on my shelves to last me 17.5 years at my current rate of 100/year (yes, 1747 books tagged ‘tbr’) and that doesn’t even count all the new books I buy every year.

Insomnia! I shouldn’t have eaten that chocolate at 8 p.m. 6-8 hours after caffeine I’m usually up. Drat. Ah well, coffee, my book, and in about 3 hours back to sleep. I love being retired.

>156 karenmarie: I also love being ahead 😉
Congrats on your success so far! Must feel great! 😉
Hmm $15/month for audible -- is it unlimited at that price then? If you listen to a lot of audio and don't like the library selection (or somehow don't have one), I could see that maybe being worth it 😜

Whoa -that is so much money for medical insurance!! And of course if you use it, it's even more ..... 😖

And yes - I often just watch him eat 😉 he's so interesting! But sometimes he's also just a little too ... active while he's eating for reading to be possible ... 😜

Oh yeah I can understand that! I haven't listened to any audio books since I haven't been driving to and from work every day! My tbr would take me ... well over 20 years at a very generous rate (one I haven't accomplished!), at this point. ... I should keep that in mind! 😳

Bummer about the insomnia ... but so nice that you can "handle" it! 😄

Hi Aletheia! It does feel great. I'm feeling very good about my reading so far this year, even with all the stresses and strains that RL has brought this year.

20 years of tbr. You've got me beat, but either number is pretty daunting.

I woke up again at 5 this morning, read some, dozed some, but never really got back to sleep. I was just going back to sleep when our girl kitty Inara Starbuck started grooming herself on the bed. Oh well.

Audible or Amazon Kindle Unlimited would be great if one didn't want to read paper books, I think. I haven't added up how much I've spent on books this year, but it's definitely more than the $75 of Audible that I would have spent this year so far.

>156 karenmarie: Wow, that are a lot of pages. And you are ahead of your goal, good for you!

Thank you, Connie!

Can't catch up, but will start anew here! Happy reading!

>161 Tess_W: Hi Tess! I'll be in the same boat when I return to NC, writing "Can't catch up, but will start anew here! Happy reading!"

I've been in California since May 9th, getting rid of things, selling things, and now will be donating things to the Goodwill in order to get Mom's house ready to put on the market.

It's been rough, but things are moving along and I hope to be back in NC by early June.

I hope you've all been doing well - I barely have enough energy to keep my own thread going and apologize for not visiting any other threads.

>162 karenmarie: Hope you get some respite, soon, Karen!

>162 karenmarie: Echoing @tess_schoolmarm, hope you manage some rest and relaxation soon and the house sale goes smoothly. And that you get home soon. Take care x

>158 karenmarie: that's nice to feel that way about your reading! Some years I feel better than others ;p

(lol I'm looking back at my post in >157 avanders: -- I was clearly on my phone in light of all those emoticons :))

Sounds like a nice morning... you know, until you were trying to sleep and your cat was there grooming herself ;)

& that's a good point about the price of audible/kindle unlimited...

>162 karenmarie: wow what a lot of work! Glad things are moving along and you'll be back in NC in June.... hope the next couple of weeks are easier! Wishing you much rest & peace..

>162 karenmarie:. I hope things will settle down soon and no worries about reading threads. We will be here waiting for you.

>162 karenmarie: just to echo what Connie says - hope things settle soon and we'll just see you when we see you.

>163 Tess_W: Hi Tess! Still here in CA, still working on getting rid of stuff. I am close to getting the listing settled with the real estate agent. I hope to be back in NC by the end of next week.

>164 Jackie_K: Hi Jackie! I am reading a lot – we sold the TV and even though there wasn’t cable, my Mom had the Harry Potter movies, which I was watching. Once that option went away, book reading in the evenings increased. New books mostly, alas. Unfortunately the HP movies were so old that they don't work on my laptop! I have been watching Amazon streaming video movies with my sister - she spent last weekend with me and I'm picking her up today for this weekend. Yay.

>165 avanders: Thank you, Aletheia.

>166 connie53: Hi Connie! I really miss chatting with you all, just don’t have the emotional wherewithal to spend any more time on the computer than I do. I’ll look forward to getting caught up when I get home.

>167 floremolla: Thank you, floremolla.

>168 karenmarie: I hope you are able to make it back to NC soon! Sounds like you are making good progress. We'll be here, patient. :)

Thanks, Aletheia!

Just to say I'm thinking of you, and I hope that the house clearance is progressing and you're home very soon!

Thank you, Jackie! Lots of good progress, fortunately.

The house is listed. Today or tomorrow the realtor is arranging for it to be cleaned and the carpets shampooed. Everything I didn't want and my sister didn't want went to the Goodwill or into the trash/recycle. Furniture that hasn't yet been sold or donated is in the garage.

I'm on a flight out of here tomorrow, should be home by 5:30 p.m. local time.

Yay. It's been a whole month.

Hope your flight is enjoyable and uneventful! I know you will be glad to get home.

Hi everybody!

I made it home yesterday safe and sound, although once again on different standby flights than originally scheduled. The first flight got delayed two hours due to weather in Dallas, so the woman at the Dallas gate immediately put me on standby to the 6:20 a.m. flight to Phoenix/Charlotte, which I made. Then in Phoenix I missed the Charlotte/Raleigh connector by 10 minutes - Phoenix flight was delayed and got in late - but I got on the NEXT Charlotte/Raleigh flight and got to baggage claim in Raleigh just in time to pick up my bag from the original two-hour delayed ONT-DFW-RDU flight!! I kid you not, walked down to baggage claim, sat down for 3 minutes, got up and walked over the baggage carousel and there was my bag. Then, husband was just coming around the corner at Arrivals, so he picked me up within 10 minutes. Serendipity.

I was, and am still, totally whupped. I can feel the adrenaline draining out of my body still, even as I type this. I have no plans to do anything this weekend except do a load or two of laundry, hang with husband and kitties, and call Louise and daughter.

The kitties missed me and Inara slept with me most of the night. Kitty William came in after it was light, telling me all about it, but I went right back to sleep. I slept from 10 p.m. 'til 10:15 a.m. EST. I really needed the sleep because I didn't get good sleep at my sister's. First night was because stupid BiL didn't bring his nephew and I had to help him move furniture so my back was on fire even with meds, and the second night I think I was journey proud plus they keep the hall light on for sister's MiL AND the whole house fan droned on all night because that's what they do.

Last night it was dark out (no street lights), quiet (rural), and my own bed (heaven).

Tomorrow or Monday I'll probably start visiting here on LT again, right now it's time for a nap and perhaps a bit of reading.

I came down this morning halfway through the Women's Final of the French Open and it was really good tennis and quite exciting. The underdog won, but either way would have been fine with me.

>174 karenmarie: Good to see you again, welcome home! That sounds like an exhausting journey, after poor sleep - sounds like sleep and book (in that order!) is definitely what's called for! Enjoy your relaxing weekend!

>174 karenmarie: welcome back - there's nothing better than getting back to your own bed and your own rhythm of life :)

>175 Jackie_K: Thanks, Jackie! Late birthday wishes - I had your birthday marked in my desk calendar but didn't look at it the last week I was in CA..... so far my weekend has been very relaxing and rejuvenating.

>176 floremolla: Thanks! You're absolutely right and I so appreciate my own bed. Time to head to it.

Glad to see you're back safe and sound and can get back to your own life.

Thank you, Birgit! I'm settling in okay, have a bit of a headache right now but am relaxing and going to read here in a minute or two.

I'll probably start posting on friends' threads tomorrow or Tuesday.

Glad to see you back!

Thanks, Tess! Sooooo glad to be back. Today was much better energy-wise. I unpacked and put away the suitcase, put out fresh hummingbird food in 2 feeders, emptied the dishwasher and put in some dirty dishes, and have read and relaxed.

>172 karenmarie: glad to that there was lots of good progress!
wow, a whole month! I bet it feels good to be back home!

>174 karenmarie: Oh I bet you were totally whupped when you got back! A lot of sleep and rest and relaxation might help a little.... :) Looks like you had the best plan!

"Last night it was dark out (no street lights), quiet (rural), and my own bed (heaven)." Perfect.

>181 karenmarie: and sounds like you're easing back into life nicely :)
So glad to "hear" it!

Hi Aletheia!

Thank you. Yes, I'm settling back in and relishing being home.

Last night we got almost 2" of rain in about 45 minutes. Thunder, lightning, the whole shebang. It was good. The lights flickered but didn't go out. The rain made it easier today to pull some weeds, too.

>183 karenmarie: oh wow .. that's a lot of rain! This girl's super jealous (#pluviophile 😉) - glad you enjoyed!
And I'm glad it made weeding easier too! Always nice ;)

Hi Aletheia!

Yesterday I finally raked the weeds I'd pulled on the 15th over to the edge of the concrete. I started power washing the walkway yesterday, and plan on doing some more this weekend and in to next week. Hot, humid, nasty. I can't take more than an hour at a time, plus we're on a well, so can't afford to run it down or dry.

I've read 19 of my ROOT goal of 40 this year so far, so am feeling pretty good about it. If I can finish Tree of Smoke by the end of the month I'll nail it. I might, however, slip in something short from my shelves to be halfway in the event that ToS remains unfinished. It's long and dense, quite excellent, and I'm only on page 100 of 614. sigh.

Congratulations on accomplishing such a big job in California. I can feel how good you feel being home!

>185 karenmarie: Good job on the ROOTs. I know how you feel when you're so close to a total, I used to always sneak in a short ROOT then (although that's harder now I'm using the Jar of Fate).

I hope you're having a lovely weekend - and isn't it your birthday tomorrow? Looking forward to hearing about a good haul of books :)

Happy birthday, Karen! May you receive lots of lovely books to enjoy!

Happy birthday, Karen! Hope you're having a lovely day and if you receive books as gifts, so much the better! :)

>186 detailmuse: Thanks, MJ! Being home is fantastic.

>187 Jackie_K: Thank you, Jackie. Yes. I'm reminded that "Today is the tomorrow you thought about yesterday."

>188 MissWatson: Thank you, Birgit. I indulged on Amazon with four new books. The first three are due to arrive tomorrow and the 4th hasn't been scheduled yet.

Theft by Finding by David Sedaris
Making the Mummies Dance by Thomas Hoving
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders ***audiobook*** The book was so stunning that I wanted to hear the audiobook. There are 166 different readers.
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney

>189 floremolla: Thanks, floremolla. So far so good. No books due to arrive today, but that's okay.

There are no official plans for today, although I might make myself a German Chocolate Cake. I'd have to make the 18-mile round trip to the grocery store to get a few of the ingredients, so I'm luxuriating in the idea of Choice.

So today is I turn 64. I was born at exactly 6 a.m. PST according to my birth certificate, so at 9 a.m. EST it'll be official. I got up, showered, and have just had my first sip of coffee. The bird feeder is out so I can see it from the sunroom, and I am (finally) back on schedule with the year-long read of the Bible as Literature. I didn't do any reading in California, so have been taking it in great gulps ever since. Reading 30 Psalms a day didn't do right by them, but today through the 2nd of July I'm scheduled to read Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. 70 pages, 7 days, 10 pages per day.

I've got locking shelf pegs due to arrive today. The shelves in the Retreat are only held up with small brass pegs in the adjustable shelf holes and the weight of the books is pulling them out. So I found some heavy duty plastic pegs that should be better support. They'll probably be dropped off in our mailbox so I'll get them late afternoon if I go to the mailbox (1/4 mile away) or early evening if my husband picks up the mail on his way home.

And on Wednesday my new front-porch bird feeder is due to arrive because on Saturday I saw a squirrel on the one there now. And I've seen him three times since, drat him. It was inevitable, because the railing is a perfect Squirrel Launch Pad. Husband found a potentially good feeder to replace it: the "Brome 1024 Squirrel Buster Plus 6"x6"x28" Wild Bird Feeder with Cardinal Perch Ring and 6 Feeding Ports, 3qt/5.1lb Seed Capacity." The weight of the squirrel causes the feeding ports to be covered. It's adjustable too, so that you can keep grackles and other large birds from feeding at it too. It should arrive Wednesday.



The one currently on the front porch will be moved to one of the feeding stations on the Squirrel Stopper in the back, replacing one of the old ratty feeders. The Squirrel Stopper was our anniversary present to each other this year, and is a huge success, by the way - I just love seeing the squirrels UNDER it. Here it is, sans squirrels:

Happy birthday, Karen! I hope you have a lovely relaxing day!

Those bird feeders look great, I hope they can keep the squirrels off! We had a feeder in our front garden (which is about 10ft x 8ft square, tiny! - the back is bigger, but it is communal, so shared between us and 4 other houses), the feeder used to get a lot of traffic, mainly from sparrows and blue tits, but one of the neighbours over the road has an enterprising cat who saw his opportunity and decided to set up shop at the bottom of the feeder. After that hardly any birds came any more, and then one day when I got home from work I found the remains of one of the rare birds that tried sitting on our front step, so we took the feeder down. Maybe if we ever move somewhere bigger we can think about it again. I used to enjoy watching the comings and goings of the various birds. We were also amused that they seemed to notice if we ever changed the brand of nuts we put in the feeder - there was one brand (more expensive, of course) that they much preferred, if we put cheaper nuts in they were much less enthusiastic about it!

I'd like to read some David Sedaris some time. Occasionally on Radio 4 they will have a half hour programme of him reading his various monologues, which I've always enjoyed.

Lovely feeders, Karen! We have squirrels, foxes, cats and huge crows and jackdaws to contend with so we gave up on the feeders except in snowy or freezing weather. We have a bird box in the eaves of our shed which had blue tits in spring. Some summers bees colonise it instead. Either way it's a joy to watch the comings and goings. :)

Cheers, Karen! Eagerly awaiting your comments about Lincoln in the Bardo on audio, I've been interested in re-reading via audio too. I just finished Theft by Finding and could read another 500 pages ... will we have to wait ten years to get his next 25 years of diary entries :-0

P.S. loving the bird/feeder talk!

>191 Jackie_K: Thank you, Jackie! I'm sorry you had to give up on the feeders. I have an enterprising cat too, Inara Starbuck, and since we have a kitty door built into the side of the house, she comes and goes at will. She frequently brings in critters, sometimes alive, sometimes dead. Mice, kangaroo rats, worm snakes, voles, moles, and alas, the occasional bird. As she's gotten older she's been bringing in fewer birds, fortunately, and since we moved the feeder it's been very slim pickings for her. We can't bell her because out here kitties can strangle if they get caught up in barbed wire (one kitty was gone a week and came home sans collar and with big gouges in her neck). Hunting is natural for them, and it's the cost of doing business in the country with a cat, I'm afraid, for those of us who also want to have bird feeders.

We've never had a 'rare' bird casualty, but any bird is tragic. On the bright side, she has frequently brought in live birds which we have assiduously captured and released. Imagine my surprise one night when I was upstairs reading and all of a sudden a sparrow swooped over my head! Scared the you-know-what out of me. We got him without hurting him, finally, and escorted him outdoors.

David Sedaris is just as much fun reading as listening to. I first heard him then sought his books, so have always had his voice in my head as I've read. You'll have the same benefit, too.

>192 floremolla: I'm sorry you had to give up on the feeders, too, floremolla. Bees and birds are both opportunistic, but they're all good to watch and support, right?

>193 detailmuse: Hi MJ! I'm really looking forward to both LitB and TbF. I'm glad you liked the Sedaris book so much. He's such an endearing person.

>194 detailmuse: I've really become interested in birding in the last year or so and just love watching them.

Just dropping by to say hello!

>185 karenmarie: Ooph, hot and humid sounds nasty! :(
& Great progress!

& Happy (belated) Birthday!
I see you bought that Sedaris book you'd been coveting ;)

>190 karenmarie: I like the bird feeders!

Hi Aletheia!

Still hot, humid, and nasty. The weather forecast says it's going to be 100F on both Friday AND Saturday.

I haven't started any of my birthday books yet. I've been in a lightweight-summer-reading-mode.

The feeders are working out well. I saw the squirrel jump on the new feeder a few days ago but immediately jump off, and I still enjoy seeing squirrels under the Squirrel Stopper in the back yard.

I have been remiss in reporting ROOTs - I've now read 22 of my 40 goal. The three newest are:

20. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling 4/20/17 -5/8/17 and 6/10/17 - 6/22/17 **** audiobook 8.3 hours unabridged
21. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn 7/7/17 7/9/17 **** 538 pages mass market paperback
22. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling 6/23/17 7/14/17 **** audiobook 8.3 hours unabridged

The Harry Potters are my 4th or 5th re-listen, but since I don't commute any more they are going very slowly. They are a lot of fun, though.

Over the years I sent all 7 audiobooks to my mother, who listened to them EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. She loved them, would talk about them all the time, fall asleep listening to them, wake up in the morning and listen some more.

When I went to CA in May, my sister and I agreed that whatever gifts we'd given to Mom became ours to decide about, so I sent them to my daughter. She has an hour commute each way, and is on book 5 and talks about them all the time. What goes around, comes around, in a positive way.....

I absolutely love that your audiobook gifts are getting another outing!

My commute is c10 minutes to my daughter's nursery, and a further c5 minutes to my office, so audiobooks aren't going to happen for me for a while! Maybe another thing to aspire to in retirement!

>197 karenmarie: that's a lovely story about the audiobooks being passed along. I got my mother hooked up to Audible on her iPad and she enjoys listening to books in bed when her eyes are too tired for reading. She's also become very adept at emailing and sending me photos, and she's on Facebook and Pinterest. Not bad for pushing eighty!

>197 karenmarie: Great that audiobooks can be recycled! I have about 4 dozen that I've listened to and they are now in the cloud. I've been told that I have macular degeneration, but my eyesight has not changed in 10 years, so it's all good. The Dr. said that it may never get worse (right now NO symptoms) or it could degenerate quickly in the next 10 years. If that occurs, I can still "listen" to books! I always have 1 audio book going because I commute 20-30 minutes each way. It is on in the car regardless of where I am going. I also read paper or ebooks at night for about 30-90 minutes before I go to bed but I "have" to fall asleep listening to an audio book. I set the sleep timer for 15 minutes and sometimes I make it and sometimes I have to rewind before beginning the next day. I love technology!

>199 floremolla: My mother is 86 and on Facebook and texts me every day! (although she can not get the concept of cutting and pasting)

>198 Jackie_K: Hi Jackie! That is an excellent commute, definitely worth sacrificing audiobook time for. I've only started listening to my first retirement audiobook in the house - Born a Crime by Trevor Noah. I'll probably listen to more of it tomorrow when I have time to start scanning photos.

>199 floremolla: Woo hoo to your mom, floremolla! Good for her.

>200 Tess_W: Ah Tess, my dad had macular degeneration and one of my close friends in the Friends of the Library does too. She says that she'll keep reading until she can't, then switch to audiobooks - so great minds work alike. I pretty much keep an audiobook going in the car, regardless of duration or destination. I love technology, too - if I get bogged down in driving, I'll hit the back button to go back to the last place I remember listening to and go forward again.

And your mom, too, Tess! Fantastic. My mom was pretty good on the computer until her eyesight got so bad - she had complications from diabetes and Fuch's Dystrophy over the years, in addition to cataracts, glaucoma, AND detached retinas. Audiobooks were the perfect solution.

edited to fix the numbering!

My MIL is currently having treatment for macular degeneration, her eyesight has deteriorated quite dramatically over the last year or so. I think not being able to read is the most difficult thing for her, as she has always been an avid reader. When she first started the treatment she got a kindle, as the font size can be easily changed, but I don't know if she's really got into using it. We're going to see them in a few weeks so I'll have a better idea of how she's doing and if she needs any more help with it. I might suggest audio books to her as another possibility. We have often bought her books for gifts for her birthday and Christmas, so I really hope we can find a solution that works for her.

Good luck on a solution for your MiL. I hope she can start enjoying audiobooks, Jackie.

Hi Karen, I'm hopelessly behind with threads. So I missed your birthday and your coming home again and finishing the job with your mom's house. But here I'm with belated birthday wishes.



I love the squirrel feeder. It must be fun to watch them gallivanting around and under it.

Hi Connie!

Thank you for visiting and for my birthday wishes!

It's actually a squirrel-proof bird feeder, but the squirrels enjoy the stuff that falls to the ground. We got so tired of the squirrels eating everything!

>205 karenmarie: I know about the squirrels eating everything dropped by the birds. Although we live in a city, we have squirrels too. 3 of them. I even gave them names.

And their names are?

Today is my brother’s 62nd birthday. I do not know if he is alive or dead. Moving to Diamond Bar, CA, USA, when I was 14, he was 12, and my sister was 10 was so very hard on all of us kids, ripping us away from everything we ever knew, but most of all on my brother. He never made the kind of friends he lost, never met his intellectual potential, and always disappointed my father, who wanted him to be an engineer like he was. My brother is a fantastic brick mason. He is also an alcoholic, with violent tendencies, although I never experienced them first hand, having gone off to college at the tender age of 18 and only returning for one summer before leaving home permanently. My sister has major issues with him that are still unresolved. My parents tried to help him with back pain from a 4-wheeler accident when he was about 19, spending tens of thousands of dollars on treatments and opinions, but were unsuccessful. At various points he lived with my sister and me, but both of us had to ask him to leave as he was unstable. He then lived at home until my father died in 2006, when my mother kicked him out and disinherited him from her portion of the estate. He is still part of the trust and will receive money if I am successful in selling the house. It will be set aside, legally, until we can determine if he is alive. If not and he has children, they would inherit, otherwise it reverts to my sister and me. I don’t think he has any children.

The last time I heard from him was in 2008, after he had tried to kill himself in Arizona. He was adamant that I not come out there. He was in a state-run hospital and he and his psychologist wanted me to participate in his medical treatment plan, which I was happy to do. However, on the day of the first conference call, she called me to say that he changed his mind and didn’t want me in the call. That’s the last I heard from her or him. My phone number hasn’t changed, my address hasn’t changed.

I’ve found Internet evidence of him at least through 2014, in Phoenix. I haven’t had the emotional wherewithal to reach out, mostly afraid of being rebuffed.

It makes me sad to think of his life, his failures, his alcoholism. I love him very much.

Oh, I'm so sorry, Karen. It's always desperately sad when someone 'goes off the rails' and there's no way back, especially when they are your kin. I can't imagine how you must feel but it sounds as if you have tried your best to accommodate and help him, which is as much as anyone can do. Although it may be unlikely, I sincerely hope you hear from him and that it's something positive. In the meantime console yourself with knowing you did your best by him.

Just love him and pray for him, Karen, that's all you can do!

>208 karenmarie: That is very sad, but I agree with floremolla that you have done your best by him, and can look at yourself in the mirror with no shame. I'm sure that days like today that have a particular meaning in relation to him must be difficult, though.

Such a sad story, Karen. I agree with Tess, love him and pray for him. I feel blessed you wanted to share this story with all of us. Thank you for that. I hope you will find prove he is alive and doing better.

L&H, Connie

Connie, yes you put that so beautifully - it is very moving that you felt able to share, and even though our words on the screen can't offer you much, you can know that you have people all over the world thinking of you and rooting for you (pun not intended!!).

floremolla, @tess_schoolmarm, Jackie_K, connie53

Thank you all for your caring words and support. Today’s been a combination of good and rough, as you can imagine. I’ve buried myself in a good book, just finished about 15 minutes ago.

So here’s a picture of my family circa 1986, Christmas at my house in Tujunga, CA. From left to right: Dad, Mom, sister Laura, brother Doug, niece Heather, me, nephew Ryan. It’s rather amazing that I still have this photo – scanned it at some point, and was able to find it and pull it into LT just now.

>214 karenmarie: lovely photo, Karen, it's always very poignant looking back at happy occasions when we didn't know the heartache in front of us. Today is coincidentally exactly five years since my husband collided with a lorry on his motorbike and sustained multiple injuries that left him severely disabled. I was just looking earlier at some photos of him on top of a mountain and remembering how life was before. Got to keep looking forward though, and finding comfort in our family and the small pleasures we can still enjoy.

Thank you Donna. I look at my family and wish So Very Much that some things had been different, some things said that weren't said, some things NOT said that were said. But most of all to tell them more than I did how much I love them.

I'm so very sorry about your husband's accident and disabilities. Everything can change in a heartbeat, can't it? Your optimism is admirable, and finding comfort in your family and the things you can a testament to your strength.

We just have to keep on keeping on, don't we?

>214 karenmarie: Lovely photo, Karen.

When I read everybody's story I realize we all have had bad times and bad things happening to us. But I think that is what formed us too. Without those things we would not be who we are now. And I think we are all strong women with big hearts and we care about our friends (near and far) and family.

Oh yes, Connie! I agree. We ARE strong women with big hearts. My family keeps shrinking, but my circle of friends keeps growing, especially here on LT! You're all very dear to me.

>217 connie53: I think your final sentence there should be our motto. What I aspire to is that my daughter will be able to say that of me, one day. I can certainly say it of many of my friends here (and further afield!).

Hear, hear!

I call myself a tough old broad!

>221 Tess_W: LOL! That's one way of putting it!

>219 Jackie_K: my daughter put a lovely message on Facebook on my birthday that said I was a wonderful mum and the most selfless person - my job there is done :)

>221 Tess_W: hehe, I'm with you on that, although here we'd say 'a tough old bird'!

>223 floremolla: fantastic, it makes it all worth while. Like when my daughter tells me she loves me - it gets me every time!

I think I'm more 'silly old bat' than 'tough old bird' ;)

>224 Jackie_K: I have a son and a daughter - I think my son loves me unconditionally but I think there's an element of my daughter judging me against her own developing concept of womanhood, if that makes sense? We share the same interests but have different characters so I learn from her too. The other day she retorted "you're such a mum!" when I was fussing over something and I found myself thinking, she's right, what am I fussing about, I'm being so uncool! :)

>225 floremolla: yes, I'm very sure I have all that to come! I'm making the most of the unconditional bit of it while it lasts! :D (one thing I know for sure is that I am not going to ever be considered a cool mum!)

>225 floremolla: That makes much sense. I feel the same with my daughter and me.

>225 floremolla: I think that is universal in general about the difference between boys and girls. I had no daughters, only sons, so can't speak from the daughter perspective. But from my experience in the classroom I can tell you that boys are very easy going and "like" me a lot more than the teenaged girls. If I taught in a perfect world I would teach all boys. When I discipline or correct the boys it's done and over and we go on. When I do the same to a girl it's hateful stares, heads down on their desks and the silent treatment for weeks! Please don't tell me I acted like that when I was a teenaged girl!

Hi Karen, I've been a little absent from threads lately because there's always so much else going on in summer. That must have been a hard day for you, thinking of your brother, and to feel so helpless. It reminds me how fragile life is, and how important to stay in touch. Thank you for sharing this.

>229 MissWatson: Yes, it is fragile, and important to stay in touch. I am currently in a position where my dad said something earlier in the year to me which was very hurtful and judgmental. We are still talking, but when we head down there in a few weeks we are staying elsewhere, as I think that is going to be the best way forward for maintaining peace and civility, and preserving my emotional health. I really want to stop being angry about it, and I'm certainly able to rationalise why he's like he is and what is unreasonable. I hope when we see him I'll calm down a bit. (It doesn't help that he and I are very alike in a lot of ways, so we really rub each other up the wrong way as we highlight the bits about ourselves which we don't like! I totally got my stubbornness from him)

>230 Jackie_K: oh, the dads and daughters dynamic, especially when they're alike! you seem very self aware, Jackie, and often the older generation (especially the male variety) aren't - ok gross generalisation, but hopefully this was a blip and your strategy for standing back from it seems like the right move!

>231 floremolla: Oh ain't that the truth! It's a long-standing issue (he had a similar out-of-the-blue conversation with my sister some years ago, and to be honest I think having seen her having to deal with the fall-out from that has really helped me to formulate my boundaries and not be so scunnered by it - I am not going to blame myself). But I do have to acknowledge that I am also a chip off the old block, and can recognise certain of his traits in myself. I am just trying to make sure that where I identify things like that, I figure out how to deal with them in a way that doesn't put my daughter in a similar position to the one I am in now.

Strangely enough, earlier on this evening I was chatting with my parents on the phone and I was telling them about a book I read recently (we discussed it on my thread, it was the memoir of the mixed-race child from my home town, who was the same age as my dad), and in the course of the conversation dad just dropped in that he had had a younger brother who had died as a baby. And I can't believe (except that I can, to be honest) that I have reached the age of 48 and never knew about him before today! I'm not upset, just feeling a bit philosophical about it all. Families are weird sometimes, aren't they?!

>232 Jackie_K: That's a story there, Jackie. I remember I learned in my teen years my mother miscarried sometime after I was born. I guess things like that were not openly discussed, especially not with children and certainly not way back in the 50's.

>232 Jackie_K: >233 connie53: they sure are weird - my mum only told us a few months ago that she'd miscarried before she had my younger brother. She mentioned it at a family social occasion and it seemed an odd choice to tell us in those circumstances, half a century after the fact, but she'd just come through major heart surgery and I guess was feeling her mortality weighing heavily. She has suffered a lot of heartache in her life that she hasn't really talked about including depression and anxiety. That subject wasn't talked about either. You would never have known, she was so expert at putting on a happy face and we as children never noticed anything amiss.

It's odd to think how little miscarriage is talked about, even these days, given that it is so common. I had two miscarriages before my successful pregnancy, and I was amazed when I told people just how many people said "me too", and I had had no idea. It meant that I didn't feel such a freak, but I also found out later that a friend who miscarried after me had remembered what I said and said that it had helped her to know she wasn't alone when she went through it herself.

I'm so sorry to hear that, Jackie. When I was expecting my first child two colleagues miscarried and it was such a shock to realise how prevalent it is. That was thirty years ago and there was no guidance on how to acknowledge what they'd been through so I didn't know what to say. Both went on to have healthy babies afterwards but it was a humbling experience.

Hi all!

I’ve been happy to just sit back a bit and read all your comments, but really felt this morning that I should chime in on my own thread!

Thank you all for visiting and sharing.

>221 Tess_W: – >228 Tess_W: We’re all survivors, that’s for sure.

>229 MissWatson: Thanks, Birgit. It was a hard day. I felt good sharing with you all.

>230 Jackie_K: Preserving your emotional health is so important, Jackie! I didn’t invent these ways of looking at the people in our lives, but I adopted them in the early 1970s – toxic and nourishing. I try to avoid toxic people although it’s hard when they’re family members. I try to spend more time with the nourishing people in my life. I’m sorry that your relationship with your dad is on tenterhooks and hope that when you do see him things will be better.

>231 floremolla: Agree!

>232 Jackie_K: I have found out over the years that family members do drop bombs. I wonder why your dad never mentioned it before? Families are very weird.

>233 connie53: Hi Connie! My MiL had a miscarriage after she had my husband in 1956, and so he never had a sibling – a sister in this case. They were always open about it, surprisingly. She told me several times that I was the daughter she never had.

>234 floremolla: Another miscarriage story. It’s not something that can come up in a casual conversation.

>235 Jackie_K: Me, too! Although I am not sure mine was an official miscarriage – just a very late period that was physically worse than any period that I’d ever had. I got pregnant the month after and had my daughter with no problems (except an emergency c-section!) when I was 40. I’m sorry to hear about your two and glad that you were able to have a successful pregnancy and your daughter to show for it.

>236 floremolla: It’s such a hard thing to know how to respond to, especially as some women are more devastated than others.

>236 floremolla: >237 karenmarie: Thank you ladies! There was something on the radio yesterday about a survey (I think) which showed how awkward people still feel - either saying the wrong thing, or not saying anything in case they say the wrong thing. I think you can't go wrong with "I'm sorry, that sucks" or variants thereof, to be honest! And (if it applies, and you feel up to it) "us too".

I think that's really wise Karen, to acknowledge how "some women are more devastated than others". When I was having my first miscarriage, I went online to check my symptoms, as I wasn't sure at the time what was happening as I'd never experienced it before. I found so many accounts of how devastated people had felt, how it had 'ripped out their soul' etc etc, and I found that really difficult because it just didn't chime with how I felt at all. I felt like I'd been run over by a steamroller, and felt a bit fragile, but I think because I'd always felt that I already had a good life, and didn't need a child to make me 'complete', I didn't experience the devastation to the same extent.

I believe that live happens to all of us. We all have bad and good things happening in our lives. We have discussed that before. It forms us into the people we are now and without it we would be not better or worse, just different. We learn how to cope with adversity and find our way in that. And we act and respond according to what we are. I know a woman who is always telling me how I feel (not how I should feel) and when I say that's not the way I feel she is a bit offended. I am not her!

>238 Jackie_K: Good for you, Jackie. I don't know how I would react if I had had a miscarriage.

>237 karenmarie: Hi Karen, Ohh I wish I had a mother in law like you have who would have accepted me as a daughter, but she was really not such a likable person. A bit cold and condescending.

Hi Connie!

I think that we have discussed that before, but it's interesting for us to discuss particular issues that come up willy nilly. This one about secrets and miscarriages is just another way for us to get to know each other better.

I sure wish we could meet in RL!

My MiL was not perfect, but she and my other MiL, my husband's step-mother, both loved and cherished me. We had our ups and downs, but always in the context of a loving relationship. I know that I'm lucky - to have one MiL who I got along with would be the best, but to have two still amazes me.

And you know what the ironic thing is? Had they met under any other circumstances than one being the divorced wife and one being the second wife, they would have quite possibly become very good friends. Both were extremely intelligent, engaged, outgoing and friendly, and loved life, even when it gave them lemons.

>240 karenmarie: My mother in law "accepted" me in that she thought nobody was good enough for her son. We got along fine during the years before she died. I did not particularly like her (she was an alcoholic) but I did not say anything.

I can't let a conversation about mothers-in-law pass without saying how lucky I was to have a great one, albeit only for seven years as she died in '93. She was charming, fun and supportive of me all the way as wife of her blue-eyed boy. It's such a positive influence to be accepted, loved and complimented by someone who doesn't owe you anything, I hope I'll be similarly generous when/if I become a MIL!

>241 Tess_W: Hi Tess! At least there wasn't outright war! My sister's MiL has always been self-centered, selfish, and controlling. For 42 years she's treated my sister poorly.

>242 floremolla: You are lucky. Good goal, too, to be a good MiL to any spouses your children acquire. That's my goal, too, eventually, hopefully.

>243 karenmarie: I'm not really a MIL, my children are not married (yet), but they are living together with their partners, so I act like a MIL. And I love them both, my SIL and DIL (these abbreviations looks very silly to me). And I hope they can feel that too.

>243 karenmarie: I try to be a good Mil. They are the mother's of my precious grandchildren so they are important!

>244 connie53: Even if they're not married, you are the mother of their significant other, so acting like a MiL is good.

>245 Tess_W: Good thought, Tess.

Raven Black by Ann Cleeves
8/3/17 to 8/8/17





The description from Amazon:
Long a celebrated crime writer in Britain, Ann Cleeves' fame went international when she won the coveted Duncan Lawrie Dagger for this amazing suspense novel, Raven Black. Like Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse or Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks, Cleeves' new detective, Inspector Jimmy Perez, is a very private and perceptive man whose bailiwick is a remote hamlet in the Shetland Islands.

It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a splash of color on the frozen ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbor, Catherine Ross.

The locals on the quiet island stubbornly focus their gaze on one man---loner and simpleton Magnus Tait. But when detective Jimmy Perez and his colleagues from the mainland insist on opening out the investigation, a veil of suspicion and fear is thrown over the entire community. For the first time in years, Catherine's neighbors nervously lock their doors, while a killer lives on in their midst.

It’s extremely difficult to separate this book from the TV series Shetland in my mind. Both take place in the Shetland Islands, both have Jimmy Perez, both have a murdered girl and a girl missing for many years. It’s unfortunate that I saw the series first, something I never do intentionally.

Only a few characters are given depth. Most are caricatures instead, and it may get better in subsequent books but the police force of Shetland is a shadowy denigrated lot, only represented by Sandy and Morag.

We are given a good sense of life on a small subarctic island in the North Sea. Lots of descriptions of local customs and holidays, fishing, isolation, conflict between natives and inlanders. There are failed romances, sad divorces, tragic deaths of spouses, and teenage angst. Travel by boat, travel by airplane, driving over rough roads all play their part. Some of this is unique to Shetland, but much of it simply life, regardless of environment.

The assumption of Magnus Tait’s guilt in both cases is vague and prejudicial, and it’s almost anticlimactic to find out who the murderer of Catherine Ross is and what happens to the missing girl, Catriona Bruce. We are allowed into the minds of many of the characters – Jimmy Perez, Magnus Tait, Sally (Catherine’s friend), and Fran Hunter, who finds Catherine’s body – but I didn’t find them terribly compelling.

The local tradition of Up Helly Aa is supposed to be frenetic and build the tension that leads to the denouement. However, all in all the book didn’t have the power I expected from the winner of the Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award, a staggeringly rich prize. It never quite jelled for me.

>247 karenmarie: I've not read the books or seen the series (I'm too much of a wimp for crime fiction), but have to say that I love Shetland the place! I actually was offered a job there in 2009, and if my husband had had work he could take with him, or a job to go to, I would have loved to have moved there, I really liked what I saw of it. Up Helly Aa is pretty high up on my bucket list.

>247 karenmarie: I had similar feelings about the book. Undecided about continuing the series. Might watch the TV series instead.

>248 Jackie_K: Hi Jackie! I've loved crime fiction and mysteries since I was in 5th grade and started reading Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. 6th grade was Perry Mason, and I've read adult crime fiction/mysteries ever since. Shetland would have been a serious change based on what I saw of the TV series and the one book.

>249 rabbitprincess: I really enjoyed the TV series, rabbitprincess. They don't do Raven Black first - the order for the TV series is Red Bones, Raven Black, Dead Water, Blue Lightning for some reason.

I'm reading another ROOT for the 75 Book Challenge Group, Kafka on the Shore. It's quite stunning. I've had it on my shelves since 2009.

I just want to stop by to say hi... I couldn't possibly catch up, though I wish I could (explanation in my thread)! I hear that you feel like you have a little more time again at some point after having a kid... here's to hoping ;)

& YAY about re-listening to HP! I ... can't seem to get enough? ;p
I now own 3 of the 20th anniversary editions... expecting to get my hands on more ;)

And that's such a nice memory to have of your mom :) :) And I love that it's been passed on to your daughter!

Oh and >208 karenmarie: wow ... that is just so much. I'm sorry about the whole situation. it totally sucks. I know it may not feel like anything, but I'll pray for you and for him... that he finds his way home, safe and healthy.

>225 floremolla: You know what, though, when I think about my mom that she's being "such a mom," it may be frustrating and annoying or whatever, but man am I glad that I have someone that is "such a mom" in my life. Coolness doesn't matter an iota. ;*

>232 Jackie_K: >233 connie53: >234 floremolla: ain't that the truth: "Families are weird sometimes, aren't they?!" There's a whole can of beans to open up here re mine... I'll wait until another day ;)

Hi Aletheia!

Thank you for stopping by.

I'm on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Now that I don't commute, I don't get near as much car time, which is the only time I usually listen to audiobooks.

Thank you re my brother. Families are a blessing and a curse.

I hope you get some time soon, but know that unless you carve it out of the rest of your life, you're Mom first for a while.

We'll be interested in hearing about your family one of these days - only because you have teased us!

>252 karenmarie: Yes, Ava, We are very curious now!

Hi Karen, I just revisited your thread as a friend on fb who is laid up in hospital was asking for audiobook recommendations, and I remember you raving about a Barack Obama one but couldn't remember if it was "Dreams of my Father" or "The Audacity of Hope". So I've suggested "Dreams of my Father" after the revisit here, along with Trevor Noah's "Born a Crime" which someone on the Category Challenge had recommended. I'm not an audiobook person at all, but both of those are really tempting me.

I hope you're having a lovely weekend!

Hi Jackie!

I have listened to Dreams from my Father and it was wonderful. It was abridged, which I don't normally like to listen to, but I went ahead and listened to it. Without reading the book, I don't know what bits I missed!

Born a Crime is definitely worth a listen also. It's funny and serious and inspiring and eye-opening.

Another wonderful memoir, although quite sad, is Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities by Elizabeth Edwards. I don't know if you've heard of her or not, but she was the wife of NC Senator and Presidential hopeful John Edwards. I found it inspiring. Sad, melancholy, but with quite a bit of inspirational emotion too.

So far the weekend is good - a Friends of the Library meeting yesterday, watching Roger Federer win his 3rd round match against Feliciano Lopez easily in 3 sets, reading. Tonight we're meeting friends for dinner. Husband will be doing some mowing and be glued to the TV the rest of the time. I'll read and putter. Just made breakfast and emptied the clean dishes out of the dishwasher.

I hope you have a lovely weekend, too!

Here I am, middle of September, with only 27 of 40 ROOTs read. I've read an additional 41 books that are NOT ROOTs.

I have no willpower. If I buy a book, I read it.

However, I have started a ROOT, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, and hope to finish it soon. It's been on my shelves 7 years so definitely counts!

I have, however, also started another non-ROOT, Louise Penny's newest Inspector Gamache book Glass Houses, but hope I can juggle both.

I hope you're all doing better on ROOTs than I am!

>256 karenmarie: That's why I decided to count anything I own (and even anything the BF owns, given that it lives in the same house as me) as ROOTs ;)

>256 karenmarie: I don't think it really matters what you read..........just enjoy it! I always said my roots were anything older than 6 months; now I think I classify them if they are older than a month just sitting on my shelves!

>257 rabbitprincess: Hi rabbitprincess! Good for you! I might revisit my rules for next year.

>258 Tess_W: You're right, Tess, just enjoy it. That's why I'm so good at abandoning books. If I don't enjoy it - and enjoyment can include difficult subjects - then it's not worth continuing with.

I just finished A Gentleman in Moscow. I bought it this year so it doesn't count as a ROOT, but I have to say that I'm very, very stingy with 5 stars, and this one is a 5-star read! Here's my review from my 75 Book challenge thread: karenmarie's review of A Gentleman in Moscow

>259 karenmarie: A Gentleman in Moscow is my RL bookclub's read for next month. I'm not going to read your review before I read the book!

>260 Tess_W: That's how I approach it too, Tess - I do not read reviews prior to reading a book. I do hope you like it as much as I did. I'll be interested in your opinion.

>260 Tess_W: >261 karenmarie: Interesting. I sometimes flick through reviews before reading, but I must admit I mainly use reviews to decide if I'm going to buy a book or not.

>259 karenmarie: My husband reads mainly non-fiction about war (the Russian Revolution, WWI, WWII, the Spanish Civil War, the Cold War...you get the picture) but was looking for 'a change' so I suggested A Gentleman in Moscow because I'd read rave reviews about it. His verdict was that it was 'ok, but very slow' - I give up! He can choose his own books from now on. But I'm looking forward to it now on the basis we rarely share an opinion on books.

>260 Tess_W: nice review, Karen! I'm not averse to reading reviews beforehand but hate it if I inadvertently get a spoiler - this has happened to me a few times on LT. I try to be mindful of it when doing my own but it's easy to slip up as my reviews are meant to remind me of what I've read.

>262 Jackie_K: Hi Jackie. Don't you see spoilers? Or, I guess if you mostly read nonfiction it doesn't matter, eh?

>263 floremolla: I've been drawn to things specifically because someone I know isn't! I hope you enjoy A Gentleman in Moscow.

Your comment about reading spoilers makes me realize I need to go back to some of my old reviews and clean them up - I didn't know about the Spoiler option my first several years here on LT.

Sigh. Still not reading a ROOT except for my year-long Bible as Literature group read. I've fallen a bit behind, but only a few days and should have the Old Testament finished by October 1, as per the schedule.

I just read something in The Literary Study Bible that I liked. "Literature portrays the universal through the particular."

Not a new sentiment, not anything I didn't know, but succinct and perfect.

>264 karenmarie: Yeah, spoilers don't tend to be as much of an issue with non-fiction. But an example of where a review really helped me: kobo kept offering me a book for 99p about the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. I've read a few books on this over the years (some focusing on the religious side of it, others not) and find it interesting, so thought I'd probably get it. But a couple of the reviews made it clear that not only was the book not remotely interested in the religious side of things (not a problem in and of itself, necessarily), but that the author was basically using it as a 1000km pub crawl. And I just knew that that would really get on my nerves, so I didn't get it.

Hi Jackie! Sorry for the delayed response. I like the idea of using reviews for non-fiction purchases, because I have been seriously disappointed with some of my non-fiction choices over the years.

Well, I'm up to 28 ROOTs, but only because I re-listened to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and just finished it yesterday on the way home from the Post Office. I've been re-listening to HP all year, starting in May. On to book 5, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I always hear something new.....

>266 karenmarie: Never read a Harry Potter because my grandsons (who read hundreds of books per year) said they didn't like them. But I got the first one free on Kindle a couple of weeks ago and it's sprouting roots right now!

I've never read Harry Potter either, and now I'm at the point where I think I really should demolish a bit of the TBR mountain I already have before adding more! But what I might do is get them when my daughter is a bit older, and read them together with her.

>268 Jackie_K: That would be a wonderful thing, Jackie. I've read the Rick Riordin series with my grandsons and also Michael Vey: Prisoner in Cell 25 with them and I liked both series. I've shared my Kindle account with my 2 oldest grandsons (now ages 14 and 17) since they have been 6 & 9 years old so I can read anything they have and visa versa. Although, they don't read mine!

>269 Tess_W: We have already tried reading a longer book in installments with her, but she's still a little bit young for it yet. So that's something for us to look forward to! We all enjoy reading the shorter books with her.

I have a friend who is in the middle of reading Harry Potter with her eldest daughter, and I think it has been a really amazing experience for them both (they both love the books though, which helps!). I think the whole good vs evil stuff in Harry Potter is a really good way of introducing harder concepts (like the world isn't all fluffy unicorns!) in a way that kids can relate to.

>270 Jackie_K: My daughter was about ten when HP came out and capable of reading it herself - she loved it from the off, so much so she barged into the bathroom where I was soaking in the tub and read me the first chapter because she couldn't wait to share it.

She also loved CS Lewis' Narnia series and Philip Pullman's Dark Materials. The Kin by Peter Dickinson told her the story of human development and Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World introduced her to philosophy. I loved seeing her enjoy reading as much as I did as a child and one of our favourite things to do was to sit in bed together reading when her dad was away and talk about things that cropped up in her books. Now she's away from home we still share books. So much to look forward to, Jackie!

>208 karenmarie: catching up, what a tragic and beautiful post about your brother, and everyone's posts that followed it. Good luck in what will come during settling your mom's estate.

>256 karenmarie: Whether you like Olive Kitteridge or not, do consider then watching the HBO adaptation (avail. on DVD), the actors are excellent.

I always read books to my kids when they were younger. They had library passes from day one. We often went to the library 2 times a week.
And we read HP too. And loved them.

>267 Tess_W: C’mon, Tess, you should start it immediately! You’ll know right away whether it is something you want to continue, and if you like it there are 6 more books.

>268 Jackie_K: When the first book movie was released in 2001, daughter, who was 8, wanted to see it because she heard kids at school mention it. I made sure we read the book first. We loved it. The rest is history – own all the books, have seen all the movies several times. As a family project I read all the books out loud, even when daughter was old enough to read them herself. She’s read them a time or two also.

A good project for when she’s old enough. And personally I’d wait till then, so you can share the magic together.

>270 Jackie_K: Hi Jackie! Harry Potter does get darker as the books progress, but there are many names and places that are clever and/or have a Latin-sounding name that tells you about the character or place. JK doesn’t sugarcoat pain and suffering, good and evil, but she also writes about love and friendship and loyalty.

>271 floremolla: Would you believe it, Donna, that although I was given a paperback set of Narnia when I was 22 as a graduation present from college, I still haven’t read them all? And daughter and I tried reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe out loud one time and we both just shrugged and put it down. I loved the first two of the Dark Materials series but put down the third one about ¾ of the way from the end. Go figure.

>272 detailmuse: Hi MJ! Thank you re my brother. Mom’s house didn’t sell and I’ve turned it back to the mortgage company for a deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure. There is no legal reason to get in touch with my brother, but I may look for him sometime in the new year.

>272 detailmuse: I love Olive Kitteridge. The third story started off slowly without Olive making an appearance, but it and the next one have been devastating. I’ll get some more reading done today.

>273 connie53: Hi Connie! I read to daughter until she was in junior high (middle school), even when she was reading on her own. It was fun to find something we both enjoyed, which happened more often than not.

Tomorrow through Saturday are the Friends of the Library Book Sale. I'm Treasurer of the Friends, so will be there all three days. The first two hours tomorrow I will be there as a customer, which was a condition of my becoming Treasurer! After that, 8 hours on Thursday, 10 on Friday, and 6 on Saturday. Long days, and I'm a bit worried about my back and feet. Ah well, ibuprophen, sitting down when I can, and changing my shoes halfway through each day as recommended by someone who has worked the sales for years should help.

Oh, Karen, I feel your pain(s)! I have sciatica just now and an arm that won't fully raise, a knee that gives me gyp randomly and arthritis in my left big toe joint, which gets painful in anything but sandals or slippers...old age doesn't come by itself as they say here, but nor does middle age, it seems. ;)

Look forward to hearing what treasures you find at the book sale.

>275 floremolla: So sorry about your pain(s), Donna. I, too, have sciatica and it comes and goes. My chiropractor got this new "stretching" table and if I go once a month for a 20 minute treatment it seems to keep it at bay. I have 2 new knees but Arthur Itis (!) seems to visit the shoulders, hips, and ankles frequently! My mother, who is 84, said "Getting old isn't for sissies!"

>275 floremolla: and >276 Tess_W: I feel your pains. I have only had sciatica once (when pregnant with daughter) and hope to never have it again, but I've had a bad back since 1974 when I got rear ended by a drunk hit-and-run driver. The pain in recent months has just been in my right hip, which is a combination of the accident and now Arthur Itis.

I take some very good vitamins, turmeric, and CoQ10 that seem to help with inflammation in general. My most recent problem is the long thoracic nerve pain, which I keep aggravating by doing ANYTHING that involves lifting or stretching, darn it. Monday I did some book moving for the Friends of the Library Book Sale setup.

I have a deep-tissue massage once a month for 90 minutes, and that helps, too. I need to go to the chiropractor, but will wait until it gets really awful. Usually the massage keeps it at bay.

My MiL used to say almost the same, Tess, "Getting old isn't for wimps!" Separate but related, she also used to say "I miss my mind!"

I think I'm very lucky to have no pains at all right now. I have one new knee and with that all pains in my hips and back are gone now. But I feel sorry for you all. Living with pain constantly is something I know about.

Yes, I'm the same Connie - I've never had sciatica, and any pains I have experienced have been short-term (usually due to comedy falls, I do a particularly good line in tearing knee ligaments, most spectacularly on the first day of my honeymoon) rather than ongoing. I am so glad to be not living day to day with pain.

I'm posting this from a yoga mat on the floor which has become my position of choice for the past three or four weeks because I can't sit on a sofa without feeling I'm being stabbed in the lower left back. The doc prescribed a stronger antiinflammatory and cocodamol. Between spells of lying on the floor I'm trying to keep moving and at least the drugs facilitate that, albeit in a slightly woozy state!

>277 karenmarie: looks like you've got some good coping strategies, Karen! I found a nice recipe for turmeric milk which I take mainly for colds but is comforting for all sorts of ills - it's from JourneyKitchen food blog and I hope they don't mind me sharing it here. The pepper helps the body to absorb the turmeric apparently.

Turmeric Milk

Serves: 2

Ingredients

2 cups fresh whole milk
1/2 - 1 tsp turmeric powder
2-3 whole black peppercorns
2-3 whole cardamom pods, cracked
1/2 inch ginger, roughly chopped
Pinch of saffron, optional

Sweetener like honey or sugar can be added to sweeten the milk.

Method

Heat the milk along with the spices for 2-3 minutes. Add the sweetener to taste if using. Let it cool until its warm. Strain and serve.

>278 connie53: I remember your knee replacement, Connie, and am so glad that it was such a success. I know several people who've had them. Only one didn't go well, but that was mostly because James was so heavy and so disinclined to do all the exercises and physical therapy the doctors wanted him to do.

>279 Jackie_K: Torn knee ligaments are not a joke even if they don't produce comic results. You don't miss being pain-free until you aren't. Enjoy it for all of us!

>280 floremolla: Wow, Donna, that's awful. I know that kind of pain and hope you get some relief soon.

I've cut and pasted the Turmeric Milk recipe into a word document and saved it in my recipes folder. I'll have to get a couple of the ingredients, but can see that it would be beneficial for inflammation.

...

I just got over 3 days of the Friends of the Library Book Sale. I'm still weary but overall don't have too many back pains or feet pains. Today will be busier than I'd like since my husband, with my acknowledgement, invited a friend over to watch the Carolina Panthers play the Detroit Lions in gridiron football today. It means straightening up the living room since I basically haven't been home for 3 days of book sale, vacuuming, and separate but related going food shopping for the week's groceries and a few snacks for the game. Sigh.

If anybody wants to see how undisciplined I am - in other words, how many books I personally bought - here's the link to my 75 book challenge thread message: Book Sale Haul

I finished Olive Kitteridge last night and will post a review later on. IIt's a ROOT, so I'm up to 29 of 40. With 3 months to go, I just might make it!

Ooh you did very well with that haul! I will be interested to hear what you think of Girl Waits with Gun! And Will Ferguson is a very funny author, so he is a good choice to have written Canadian History for Dummies. Have fun digging through the collection!

Oh wow Karen, that is a Haul-with-a-capital-H there!

I'm very jealous about your signed Two Lives. I have loved everything of Vikram Seth's that I have read (including Two Lives), in fact A Suitable Boy is one of my all-time favourite books, it is wonderful. He's apparently in the thick of writing A Suitable Girl, and I can't wait for that - I'm hoping it's finished and out next year.

Wow what a haul!

Awesome haul, Karen! :)

>282 rabbitprincess: Hi rabbitprincess! I am glad to finally get Girl Waits With Gun. I'm having lots of fun digging through my haul, have already read one 1066 and All That. Of course neither that or GWWG would count as a ROOT for me, sigh.

>283 Jackie_K: Hi Jackie! I think shopping at my leisure for 3 days produced such good results. Before becoming Treasurer and working through the whole sale, I'd come for 2 hours on Thursday and then again to fill a $5/bag on Saturday. I was able to shop during the day when I didn't have Treasurer or Square duties - nobody minded at all.

I've never read A Suitable Boy but of course found it, too, along with Two Lives. Normally we'd up-price a signed edition, but this was our 20th year anniversary sale (meaning 40 sales!) and so everything was put out at $3 for hardcover, $2 for trade paperback, childrens' always priced individually (but this time never over $3), and mass market paperbacks at $.50.

>284 Tess_W: Hi Tess! I'm still a bit gloaty.....

>285 floremolla: Thanks, Donna! I've only put less than half into my catalog, as I was immersed in reading Missing, Presumed, a police procedural, today, finally finishing it about 30 minutes ago.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
9/18/17 to 10/7/17





The description from Amazon:

In a voice more powerful and compassionate than ever before, New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout binds together thirteen rich, luminous narratives into a book with the heft of a novel, through the presence of one larger-than-life, unforgettable character: Olive Kitteridge.

At the edge of the continent, Crosby, Maine, may seem like nowhere, but seen through this brilliant writer’s eyes, it’s in essence the whole world, and the lives that are lived there are filled with all of the grand human drama–desire, despair, jealousy, hope, and love.

At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance: a former student who has lost the will to live: Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.

As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life–sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition–its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.

I didn’t think of this as a book of related short stories. I thought of it as a novel told from a variety of viewpoints, but all ‘chapters’ with Olive Kitteridge as the glue that held it all together. In fact, I began to consider this a birding project – see where Olive comes into the story just as I look for birds in trees.

I found Olive phenomenally unlikable in the first story, then stunningly loving and caring in the second; so on and so on through each story, whether she was mentioned once in passing or the entire story was told about her directly. Like, dislike, agree with, disagree with, sympathize with; all aspects of her character were laid out for us.

Olive as wife, mother, teacher, friend, or acquaintance is always abrasive and challenging, rarely anything but brutally honest. In many cases the honesty jars the person she’s speaking with in a positive way, but her relationship with her son is fraught with tension, history, misunderstandings, and a clear lack of acceptance on both sides. She loves her son beyond anything, I think, yet cannot show that love in any way except dysfunctional ways.

I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to spend any time with Olive unless I was in dire need of emotional and/or spiritual help. She’d snort to hear that said, of course, not realizing that sometimes brutal honesty is the best way to help someone.

A wonderful book, nervous making and awe inspiring. It wasn’t an easy read, but it was a good read.

Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner
10/7/17 to 10/12/17





The description from Amazon:

At thirty-nine, Manon Bradshaw is a devoted and respected member of the Cambridgeshire police force, and though she loves her job, what she longs for is a personal life. Single and distant from her family, she wants a husband and children of her own. One night, after yet another disastrous Internet date, she turns on her police radio to help herself fall asleep—and receives an alert that sends her to a puzzling crime scene.

Edith Hind—a beautiful graduate student at Cambridge University and daughter of the surgeon to the Royal Family—has been missing for nearly twenty-four hours. Her home offers few clues: a smattering of blood in the kitchen, her keys and phone left behind, the front door ajar but showing no signs of forced entry. Manon instantly knows that this case will be big—and that every second is crucial to finding Edith alive.

The investigation starts with Edith’s loved ones: her attentive boyfriend, her reserved best friend, her patrician parents. As the search widens and press coverage reaches a frenzied pitch, secrets begin to emerge about Edith’s tangled love life and her erratic behavior leading up to her disappearance. With no clear leads, Manon summons every last bit of her skill and intuition to close the case, and what she discovers will have shocking consequences not just for Edith’s family but for Manon herself.

Suspenseful and keenly observed, Missing, Presumed is a brilliantly twisting novel of how we seek connection, grant forgiveness, and reveal the truth about who we are.

It took a bit to get involved in this police procedural/novel. Each chapter is told from a particular person’s perspective. Personal details are mixed with professional details and the character studies are rounded and thoughtful. I feel like I would know these people immediately if I were in a room with them. The writing is powerful and spare yet somehow is very visual and vivid.

As Edith is not found alive and her body is not found, the suspense builds and there are hints of whodunit – but what “it” was done? I kept reading to find out, eventually needing to know Edith’s fate and how everything presented tied together.

There’s a second book out, Persons Unknown, and Steiner’s website says a third is being written. I’ll definitely continue with the series.

Olive Kitteridge sounds interesting - I'm intrigued now after reading your review!

Hi Jackie!

It's a great character study, something I should have said in my review.

After having read A Gentleman in Moscow for our October book club discussion and giving it one of my rare 5-star reviews Karen's review of A Gentleman in Moscow I've joined a group read of Rules of Civility, another ROOT.

>290 karenmarie: Wow Karen, our reading lives are running parallel, for the moment! A Gentleman in Moscow is my RL book club's read for December, Olive Kitteridge is on my current TBR pile, and the Rules is on my radar the next time I make a purchase.

You're right, Tess!

I still don't exactly know what made me pick up Olive Kitteridge after being on my shelves since March of 2010, but I'm sure glad I did.

Amor Towles is a wonderful author. I'm on page 59 of Rules of Civility and although it started a bit slow for me has really gotten interesting.

>287 karenmarie: I found Olive phenomenally unlikable in the first story, then stunningly loving and caring in the second
Me too! Strout seems to love prickly characters. I've read four of her novels and (after Olive) would most recommend her latest, Anything Is Possible, also in linked-story format. It riffs off characters in her previous My Name is Lucy Barton but is better. I don't think it's necessary to read Lucy first, though it was interesting to meet the characters briefly in the first book and then know them more deeply and sympathetically in the second.

Great book haul from the library sale. Must admit that it exhausted me to notice that your thread over there is on part 9!!

Hi MJ! This year has been a bumper-crop of messages in my 75 Challenge threads and I'm flattered.

I'd have to start acquiring others by ES. Not to say I won't, but right now I'm seriously book full, as you might imagine.

Today I've ruthlessly gone through 2 shelves of books as a result of inventorying, and have decided to get rid of most of the early Stephen King I haven't read and ALL the Dean Koontz I haven't read (which is everything I misguidedly acquired that isn't Odd Thomas.) Plus two Rita Mae Brown/Sneaky Pie Brown mysteries that I'll never, ever read. I keep a record of my culls on my 75 threads. 25 total, 10 hardcover.

Just popping by to say hello and catch up on your activity, Karen - good work with the cull! Olive Kitteridge is already on my wishlist - she might have to be acquired and join A Gentleman in Moscow in the 2018 ROOT pot soon!

Hi Donna!

Thank you. They're already out of my catalog and sitting on the little yellow table and the ugly metal file cabinet, waiting for daughter to go through before the final disposition at the thrift shop. There are other books there, too - some for daughter from book sale, some I don't know what to do with yet, and some more for daughter to go through. I had just cleaned that little table off, too!



And re Olive and A Gentleman, you won't go wrong with either book, IMO.

>296 karenmarie: that corner is way too pretty for tables and filing cabinets - what a lovely view! I'd have a beautiful desk in there and pretend to work :)

>297 floremolla: Thank you. I love looking out the windows in the sunroom. My desk is in the corner opposite from the little yellow table. Not a beautiful desk, but a functional one. Notice Kitty William on the printer. It's one of his favorite places. I can also look up and see a bird feeder at the end of the eaves just above the stair railings. Sorry it's a bit blurry.

>298 karenmarie: it all looks so calm and peaceful, no wonder kitty is asleep!

>299 floremolla: It's always calm in the Sunroom, and whenever husband's not home and the TV's not on, it's peaceful. I thought, when we built this house in 1998, that the Library would be my favorite room, but it's too close to the living room where the TV is, and so it's mostly where I keep books, not where I read books. The Sunroom is my favorite room.

I finished another ROOT, Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. We've got a group read going on in the 75 Books challenge group. I've been reading all afternoon and just finished it.

>300 karenmarie: what is it with husbands and TVs? I particularly can't bear to hear sports commentary - plus he's a bit deaf so everything's at high volume anyway. To be fair we usually agree our viewing and watch together - usually with the subtitles on so that I'm not deafened!

>300 karenmarie: My husband is the same way! LOUD TV from the minute he gets home till he goes to bed! I've vacated the family room in the evenings and weekends for a quieter spot in my bedroom or the parlor!

>302 Tess_W: my strategy is to be 'making dinner' for a couple of hours while he watches in the early evening. Afterwards we watch tv together 8-10pm for a mutually agreeable viewing of something, then after the news headlines I'm off 'making tracks for bed'. I don't think he's twigged I only really sit down for two hours because I'm always 'around'. :)

>303 floremolla: I'm not a TV watcher at all....probably lucky if I see 4 shows per month. I do watch series on BBC if they are any good like Downtown Abby. I want to start watching Poldark and Outlander once I get all those books finished.

>301 floremolla: - >304 Tess_W: It's sad, isn't it? what is it with husbands and TVs?

My coping strategy is similar to Donna's. Husband gets home between 5:30 and 5:45. Drops his keys and lunchbox on the island in the kitchen turns the TV on IMMEDIATELY, then heads to the bedroom to get comfy clothes on. Returns and watches news until 7 when I join him. Sometimes I cook and we eat in the living room together, but usually during the week we 'wing it' - he gets something and I get something. If we eat together, I skedaddle after we finish eating 'til 7, when I join/rejoin him and we watch whatever series we're watching on Netflix or Amazon Prime. When I'm TV'd out, usually after two episodes of whatever we're watching, I check e-mail one last time, occasionally check LT, and then go to my Retreat and read or play on my cell phone or watch something on my TV, but the TV bit upstairs is rare.

My husband knows my opinion of TV, and is grateful when I actually sit down and watch with him. Admittedly it's become every night, mostly, except if he wants to watch gridirion football Monday or Thursday nights and it's not the Carolina Panthers.

Lol, it's a universal conundrum!

>306 floremolla: It is, Donna, it is.

But I must say that he's done something very nice for me, so between my being retired and his always thinking of nice things to do for me I'm less stressed about the TV than I used to be. We have a propane heater in the living room. When it's on, which will be quite a bit of this coming winter as it was last winter, the house heat doesn't get activated, so my Sunroom is freezing. Space heaters are okay, but not a really good solution, so husband's been researching heating solutions for the sunroom and has ordered a heater through our propane company. It's what's called blue blame, heats the room, not just a space in front of wherever it's set up, and the propane company will come out and install all the piping and it. Because we have such a huge credit with them from getting new HVAC units 3 winters ago and saving on our heating bills, it is, in effect free - they will take the costs out of our credit so no out-of-pocket expense. It will probably be installed week after next.

And I had some laser surgery on my eyes to remove a film that can develop after cataract surgery. It's been 3 years and my distance vision had deteriorated enough for me to mention it to my eye doctor in August and so today I had it all cleared off. My distance vision is already better - lots of drops and eyes heavily dilated - so by tomorrow should be back to where it was immediately after the cataract surgery in 2014.

And I just finished my 32nd ROOT. I may or may not write a review. The Wyndham Case by Jill Paton Walsh, ***.

>307 karenmarie: Glad your eyes are back to "normal."

>307 karenmarie: sounds like you've got yourself a good deal with the blue flame! We're lucky to have North Sea gas piped to our home, to fixed stoves or gas fires, it works well as a space heater and there are no containers involved!

We had a smart-meter installed a few weeks ago and it's been an eye-opener seeing how much power we consumed. I'm being very good now about switching stuff off when not in use and I think our power bills might go down for the first time since....forever!

Hope your eyes recover quickly and fully!

I read Jill Paton Walsh's Knowledge of Angels decades ago and thought it was very good but never read anything else by her. She's still on my radar though for when I get clear of Mt TBR. (as if!)

>308 Tess_W: Thanks, Tess!

>309 floremolla: I hope so. We have a buried propane tank that sources our house, so we've always known how much we've consumed and paid. It's good to know so you can make intelligent uses on how to 'spend' your power pounds.

Thank you re my eyes. Much improved, even less than a day after. Within 48 hours things should be very good.

I read Knowledge of Angels a long time ago, too. I don't remember a single thing about it, rated it "Very Good" at 3.5 stars.

I will never get clear of Mt. TBR. I have 1,791 books tagged TBR. That's 18 years worth of reading if I get to 100 per year, and that of course doesn't include additions. Sigh.

Come visit me on my second thread. It will be set up in just a minute or two!