Sally's reading constantly in 2021

Hi, Sally here again.

Last year I finished somewhere around 168 books. At the end of the year Life rather overwhelmed me, and I am looking forward to a fresh start.

2021 First Quarter

First Quarter Totals=

SF&F -16
Children’s -3
YA -0
Non-fiction -3
General Fiction -5
Classics -4
Paranormal -6
Romances -7
Graphic novels -0
Mysteries -8
Horror -1
Historical Fiction -6
Sports -1

(Many of these books are counted in more than one category.)

January

1. The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry
2. South of the Buttonwood Tree by Heather Webber
3. From Doon With Death by Ruth Rendell
4. Fool Moon by Jim Butcher
5. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison
6. Magellan's Navigator by Kenneth D. Schultz
7. As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust by Alan Bradley
8. The Enchanted Land by Jude Devereaux
9. The White People by Francis Hodgson Burnett
10. Minor Mage by T. Kingfisher
11. Fairy Godmothers, Inc. by Jenniffer Wardell
12. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
13. Hounded by Kevin Hearne
14. Air Awakens by Elise Kova

February

15. Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross
16. Over the Edge of the World by Laurence Bergreen
17. The Lost Prince by Frances Hodgson Burnett
18. The Land of the Blue Flower by Frances Hodgson Burnett
19. Suddenly Psychic by Elizabeth Hunter
20. Squeeze Me by Carl Hiaasen
21. The Doll House by John Hunt
22. Dove in the Window by Earlene Fowler
23. The Book of Etta by Meg Elison
24. The Great Explorers edited by Robin Hanbury-Tenison
25. Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier
26. The Girl Beneath the Sea by Andrew Mayne
27. Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore

March

28. The War for the Oaks by Emma Bull
29. The Family Trade by Charles Stross
30. The Book of Flora by Meg Elison
31. Knight Templar by Leslie Charteris
32. Starship Mage by Glynn Stewart
33. The Last Star and Other Stories by D. L. Orton
34. The Lacemaker by Mary Kingswood
35. Jinx High by Mercedes Lackey
36. Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier
37. Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis
38. To the Stars and Back by Camilla Isley
39. Written in Red by Anne Bishop
40. Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch
41 Shadows in Bronze by Lindsey Davis
42. The Valley So Low by Manly Wade Wellman
43. Championship Ball by Clair Bee
44. The Sweetest Fix by Tessa Bailey
45. One of Our Own by Jane Haddam

Happy New Year, Sally! 168 books is very impressive. I hope 2021 is better for you.

Happy new year, Sally. I hope you got a chance to mentally and physically recharge over the holidays.

Happy New Year Sally. May it bring that fresh start.

Hi Sally! Happy 2021!

Ha, I beat you by 1 :)

Happy new year and I hope the fresh start works out for all of us :)

Happy new year, Sally! Here's to your fresh start!

>6 AnnieMod: Guess what? I left out a book. So we're tied!

1. The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry.

This is a time-travel, love-conquers-all type of young adult novel. The explication was very different from the standard, though, if there is such a thing.

Natalie is adopted as a baby into a loving environment, but from a very young age she has terrible night terrors, and seems to hallucinate sometimes. In late childhood she ends up in therapy, but it never seems to "take". Her dead grandmother begins to visit at times during the night, and tells Natalie many stories, a number of them from various folklores. Eventually, Grandmother tells her that this will be their last visit, and that the girl has 3 months to save "his" life, with no explanation given as to who "he" is. At around that time the young woman, now 18, begins to see an alternate world from her own, then meets and falls in love with a young man in the alternate town. Most people have an incarnation in both worlds, but Natalie and Beau seem not to have this. Natalie naturally wonders whether her Beau is the "him" she must save, and she begins to search for information. Grandmother had told her to see a certain doctor, who turns out to be a research neurobiologist. As time passes, Natalie agrees to hypnosis to make some progress remembering early traumas, at the insistence of this doctor, and some things become clearer. Eventually Natalie comes to believe that she can succeed in preventing Beau's tragic death in only one way, which is to exchange her life for his at a 2-car accident they both experienced, and which killed one child in one version of the world, and the opposite child in another, and she makes her plan.

The most interesting part of the book to me, was the sharing of so much conversation between Natalie and her doctor, as both of them do research. The sharing of critical data between two researchers is thrilling, and in this case the doctor and Natalie are both bright and vitally interested. and they have free-wheeling discussions about the epistemology and the metaphysics of Natalie's situation, in a fiction-y sort of way, and for young adults.

I enjoyed the book, although it was hardly a great novel. The young love aspect was tender and sweet, and the deadline made the situation painfully suspenseful. Natalie has grown significantly over the time covered in this novel, and she is believable as a thinker and a woman of decision.

Happy new year, Sally! Dropping off a star on your thread.

Happy new Year, Sally!

Happy New Year! I've got you starred.

Hi there again, and hoping 2021 is better for us all. Dropping off a star on your thread.

Thanks for all the lovely stars!

Here's to a fresh start and a happy new year! A star is dropped and I sincerely hope that I can keep up with your thread. 168 books, wow! I hardly leave the single digits...

2. South of the Buttonwood Tree by Heather Webber

Buttonwood, Alabama has its stereotypes, and Blue Bishop is the girl from the black-sheep family, but she has been law-abiding since high school. She has had no choice but to raise her little sister, who is more than 10 years younger than she is, and has no one else to rely on.

Blue has done very well for herself. She writes and illustrates children's books, from which she makes enough to live, and to send her little sister to college. Almost everyone in town likes her. She's more than just creative and hard-working, too: she finds things. She doesn't know how or why, she can just find things. And today she will find a baby near the buttonwood tree on her jogging path. No one knows where the three day-old baby came from.

Sarah-Grace Landreneau is from the upper-class family in town, and she has everything you would think she might want. Of course, she is unhappy. Her family is poisonous, and they want the baby.

This is just part of the story. We will learn who had the baby, who helped her, and why it all came about. We learn how Blue finds things. The baby changes everything. Sarah Grace and Blue discover what they truly want, and they know how to find it now. Relationships have all been redefined and clarified.

The cover calls this magic realism, and I guess it meets the definition. Somehow it doesn't feel like that to me. This was pleasant and at times better than that, but ultimately was not that special.

3. From Doon With Death by Ruth Rendell. Ruth Rendell is another one of those groundbreaking, peak-dwelling mystery writers from the glory time of mysteries. This was published more than 50 years ago, and helped define Rendell as one of the paragons of crime-writing. It shows some of the first-novel flaws one might expect, but starts the long saga of Chief Inspector Wexford, and his usual assistant, Inspector Mike Burden. They are good coppers and thoughtful, clever, men, who strive to understand the murders they investigate in a way we would call psychological. Incremental changes and nearly programmed consequences lead us to a result that may shock those who are not in on the knowledge of the relationships and pre-novel situations.

Chief Inspector Wexford is a prototype of the morose, contemplative, police inspector now so common to the British crime novel experience. Since this was her first novel, it is surprising to see so much skill already developed, but I look forward to its maturation in this, and in her stand-alone novels. Rendell also wrote under the name Barbara Vine.

Nice pair of posts yesterday. Based on the way i personally read, I appreciate your going back 50 yrs and reading Rendell’s first.

Hello, Sally, returning the visit in my slow revolution around the Club.

I have seen some of TV adaptations of the Inspector Wexford series, and I think I remember that one (in >17 sallypursell:). Possibly a brave theme for the times.

4. Fool Moon by Jim Butcher

This is now the second book in the Dresden Files, the stories about Harry Dresden's experiences as the only practicing professional Wizard in Chicago. His paid work is often for the police, and for three months has trailed off enough that Harry will soon not be able to pay to eat.
At that critical point, a friend asks Harry for information about setting up a system of three containing circles, and Harry refuses to answer, since the asker is not capable of the type of magic this would entail. Three circles are only used in summonings of demigods or demons.

Next, this police contact asks to come to a murder site to consult on something which looks paranormal. This begins Harry's involvement and learning about theriomorphs, creatures who shape-shift, such as werewolves. Harry goes home and invokes Bob, his computer for magical information (technology does not do well around magical forces). Bob is a spirit housed in an old human skull. He is nearly infallible on things about which he knows, and his knowledge is vast, but has awful tastes in fun. Harry has imprisoned him in the skull to make him a reliable source, but can give him furloughs to go have fun, so Bob puts up with this.

Okay, now it gets complicated. I won't belabor this at all. It is detective grit with Magic. Since Magic has rules, this isn't as advantageous as it sounds, and Magic also entails tremendous risks. Harry gets shot, beaten, scared like crazy, and many other traumas. I liked this, but I like other series better. Still it is iconic, and the sequels go on almost forever. I'd like to know if it gets better, or stays pleasant reading with mild humor.

>20 sallypursell: It hits its stride a bit later when the world around Harry gets better built and he becomes more of a wizard and less of a detective with magic. I like the first installments but it is somewhere around the 5th or so where the series breaks up with the standards and takes off. So if you like them, give it a few more books. :)

5. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison

I read an ebook! Maybe I will learn to like this method eventually.

A woman is teaching a class of boys, who will be copyists: they will each make a copy of the most respected book of this colony, for use when more colonies are eventually formed. We read the book as they encounter it, but their responses are never given to us.

The book is a history of the travels of a woman who was a powerful elder in her dystopian community, written before she settled there, and then covering the history of this community. We don't know what occasioned the fall of America, except that this midwife encountered it working in a hospital, in the form of a Fever. It kills women and infants at a much higher rate than anyone else, but the fatality rate even in men is very high. In a short time, women become a prized commodity, and pregnancy a valued condition. This midwife starts wandering, checking to see if all areas are affected, looking for a reason to live, and a place to matter. She uses a false name, and begins a journal. She encounters various women, tries to make common cause with them, but is badly disappointed by their foibles and weakness. Men generally come off badly in the story, but she knows it is partly her own suspiciousness, having encountered as many weak and rapacious men as women.

The details matter. What the unnamed midwife experiences are many of the possibilities which might occur to anyone thinking about a serious global calamity. For quite some time no babies are born alive, but still, women in childbirth die, along with their babies. This book ends shortly after the first child who does not die. Every day the colony waits for the baby's death--they have had so many before. This book was certainly good enough that the time when the baby does not die comes off as a triumph, and the glimpse of the new culture being born is tantalizing.

>21 AnnieMod: Thanks, Annie, that's enough to keep going.

>22 sallypursell: Congratulations on your first ebook read! I like ebooks for stories, and I love downloadable audiobooks - no more changing out CDs. I do still prefer paper copies for books I need to flip back & forth in the pages, which I often do in complex stories or nonfiction.

I read The book of the unnamed midwife and its sequel The book of Etta a few years ago. They are quite bleak, and an interesting contribution to dystopias that play with What if fertility plummeted dystopia. Will be interested to see whether you continue with the series.

>23 sallypursell: I think that it was semi-intentional - instead of dumping the whole world in our laps in a single book and scaring half the readers, go for a standard paranormal detective series until you have enough background for other things to start happening. I know that Butcher has a plan for the whole series, not sure if it was there since day 1 though...

And considering when they were published, the space was not that saturated with the type - so it worked out.

Dresden is one of my favorite series :) I had been thinking about rereading from the first...

By the way, if you are looking for another series in that vein, I had been enjoying Alex Verus, Eric Carter and Shadow Police a lot. They are all different in their own ways but I find them good companions to Dresden... Plus Rivers of London of course...

>22 sallypursell: And I really need to get to this one. It had been on my shelves since it came out... and I keep ignoring it. It is on my "I know I will like it so let it wait" list - which gets longer and longer and I probably should start reading from it...

Ebooks grow on you - welcome to the club ;) I still prefer paper and I will probably always do but... :) And you don't need to deal with the publishers' idea of cramming too much text on a single page to keep it cheaper (looking balefully at some mass market paperbacks...)

>24 markon: Oh, I didn't know there was a sequel, but I was planning to go see if she wrote anything else, so I suppose I would have discovered this eventually. Even so, I thank you for the information. I'll go look for it.

>25 AnnieMod: Those three series are all already on my wishlist, so I'll get to them, but I might want to try them sooner rather than later.

I think I will still prefer paper, too, but I have just more than run out of room for more books!

>22 sallypursell: Interesting. I make a mental note for it. Thanks for the review!

6. Magellan's Navigator by Kenneth D. Schultz When I ordered this, I had assumed that it was non-fiction; when it appeared and was fiction, I had a flash of disappointment, which surprised me. I had always preferred fiction to non-fiction. My non-fiction reads last year were so good, though, that I was hoping for another.

We are told that the pilot for Magellan's own vessel in his trip around the world was a Greek, Francisco Albo. As it happens, he was then the Navigator and Pilot of the Victoria, the only ship of the five that comprised the Armada to sail back to Spain, and complete the circumnavigation. Magellan, and the bulk of the crews, were killed or captured during the trip. It seems that Pilot Albo kept a journal during the trip, and that this was lost for quite some time. It surfaced on the island of Elba in the year 1788, and forms the main source text for this story. Most other documentary materials were seized by the Portuguese, then at war with Spain, and subsequently lost at Lisbon in the Great Earthquake of 1755.

In the main, the story is a simple one. Leaving from Sanlucar, Spain, where the Guadalquivir River debouches into the Atlantic Ocean, the Armada sailed on September 20th, 1519. Magellan's Armada sailed first to the coast of Brazil, and worked its way down. There was a pause at Rio de Janeiro and the small fleet stopped in several bays, searching for the rumored strait into the Pacific Ocean. A mutiny was encountered and overcome. Once the strait was found the ships slipped into the Pacific with no trouble, having providently, and accidentally, arrived at the perfect time of year. The first serious trouble arrived as they sailed to the equator and then West. The vast size of the Pacific was unexpected, and deaths from scurvy were occurring before land was seen. Their first landing was at Guam, and then Cebu, in the Philippines, where Magellan was killed by native inhabitants. Sailing down the spine of Indonesia took months, and politics became the main factor to consider, as the area was well sprinkled with Portuguese ports and warehouses.

A reduced fleet of three sailing ships did make it to the Spice Islands, which was the goal of the charter they were given. A business was set in motion, and treaties made with the local Rajah. When it was time to leave, the captain and pilot of the main vessel left mooring with insufficient care, and disabled the ship. Wanting to leave before the Monsoon, which was about to start, the Victoria left alone, and headed West at the Latitude of the Cape of Good Hope. Coming up the West Coast coast of Africa, they came home. 21 men made it home on the Victoria out of the crews of five vessels. Albo received his pay for the entire time afloat, a new suit, rather fine, money for his travel, and still had two sacks of cloves he was allowed to sell. He also kept his memoirs and the secret maps he had made of the journey, making him a pilot worth more than any other.

The story was already known, but the details: almost none. Albo was a high officer on the Victoria, and was also able to meet King Carlos of Spain. His reputation was sky-high, and his career flourished. This book was clearly and grammatically written, and made the story make sense, besides. I can only think of one thing negative to say. The prose did not sparkle, and it was hard to become interested for about half of the book. Thank goodness it was not a large book, or I would not have enjoyed this. I did, though, once I got used to the style and the story in the Pacific began to unfold. I wonder if there is any better or at least better written novel about this. This was admirably clear, but not wholly satisfying.

The kind of review that’s going to make me want to hunt down Magellan, you mentioned so many intriguing details. Fun review, even if this this particular book wasn’t a favorite.

A couple of other urban fantasy series I would recommend are Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles and Charles Stross's Laundry Files.

Hi Sally - Well, you are cruising with your reading so far this year. I've read some of Rendell's novels but not in any order...

The one that called to me the most was The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. I'll add that to my WL.

>32 BLBera: Hi, Beth. Good to see you.

>31 rhian_of_oz: Rhian, those were both on my WL, but gods know when I will get to them. They are buried under lots of other stuff.

7. As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust by Alan Bradley It's a pleasure, always, to encounter another Flavia de Luce novel. In this one, Flavia, now 12, is sent away to school in Canada, the same school that was attended by her mother. It is Miss Bodycote's Female Academy, a venerable institution, in which Flavia is to be trained to take up her heredity role, one of which she is ignorant, except that it exists. She knows that her Aunt is Head of the group which secretly bolsters England and saved it in World War II, at the hands of her mother. Flavia does not know what her training will be, or what she will be trained to do. She knows only that she is desperately sad and homesick, and envies her sisters at home, who don't have any such training ahead of them.

Miss Bodycote's Female Academy is suitably gothic, like a school in a 19th century novel. Her first experience is to be warned by another student, who then provokes a decapitated body with a head in its lap to fall from the chimney in Flavia's room. School rules say that students and faculty may not discuss personal matters about other students and faculty, and Flavia's investigation is hampered, as well by the fact that in this environment she can have no notion whom to trust. Before she is finished she will have met local shopkeepers, school faculty, local newspaper reporters, school laundresses, and the local police Chief Inspector, as well as numerous other students, nearby farmers, and so many potential murderers and -sses.

Flavia rootles her way to a solution which satisfies her and in the meantime must steal into the Chemistry lab to perform a middle-of-the-night, solitary Marsh test to test for Arsenic or Antimony. When she is sent home, Flavia believes that she has Failed, but of course, she has misinterpreted--she passed the course in rapid time, and has earned a portrait on the wall of the school, probably next to her mother's portrait.

And a good time was had by all--except the decedents and the accuseds.

Long Live Flavia!

I just leaned that Jules Verne wrote a Magellan. I'll have to start there for my fiction, of course.

8. The Enchanted Land by Jude Devereaux
I thought I had read Jude Devereaux successfully and with some pleasure in the past, but this was awful. A supposed love story in a marriage of convenience taking place in New Mexico in the past, this was unbelievable, negative about women, and of course, presentist. Presentist is okay in moderation, one does not expect better in light novels, but the setting, the plot, the characters, and the prose were really subpar. I read about 8/9 of it, but did not finish. The good things were that the grammar and spelling were generally good, and that's not always true in genre fiction. At least there were few abrupt screeches where my brain recoiled.

>36 sallypursell: I have never heard about a novel by Jules Verne with Magellan as a character. I'm intrigued as it is not Jules Verne's habit to feature real-life characters. Which one is it?

>36 sallypursell: I may be wrong but I think it was about the Straits of Magellan and not Magellan the man. Unless I am missing a Verne novel somewhere :)

>38 raton-liseur: Magellania is the only one that comes to mind... the original of Les naufragés du "Jonathan".

>35 sallypursell: I've just added the first in the series to my wishlist.

I don't necessarily want to add to your wishlist but you may enjoy the Friday Barnes series by R A Spratt.

>40 rhian_of_oz: My TBR is so large, it won't matter, and I'm game!

>39 AnnieMod: Magellania is the one! I don't know anything about it, but I'm hot to read it. I downloaded a Complete Works of Jules Verne from hoopla, a place my library uses for an ebook source. I don't know if it is in there, but I'm hoping.

So it's about the Straits? Good!

>42 sallypursell: It is about a man and an island in the Straits. If it is not in the collection, look for a novel called "The Survivors of the 'Jonathan'" (that one even have a wiki page if you want to check some more details) or -- it is the same story.. it may also be hiding under "Masterless Man" and "Unwilling Dictator" (the novel was split in 2 for at least one of its translations).

It was written by Jules, rewritten/finished by Michel so it has two versions (the original and the rewrite) and until the 70s or 80s the only version that was known was Michel's). I don't think that the original was translated early enough (the French was not published until 40 years or so ago when it was finally found so the translation will be even later - that version is called Magellania) to make it into those "Complete Works" (I tend to buy them for authors I like on Amazon now and then - they are cheap as they use out of copyright translations) - but who knows.) Verne is always fun anyway... :)

PS: The only reason I know that much about this one is that I was untangling the history awhile back for a project. :)

>43 AnnieMod: Thanks, Annie!

>40 rhian_of_oz: I know you will enjoy them.

9. The White People By Frances Hodgson Burnett
In this novella, by the famous author, a young woman discovers that she can see the dead, only years after she begins to do so. This is crucial, because she has made dear friends who are at great risk for death soon, and she is able to reassure them that our loved ones are still here and around us. The timing is everything. A death occurs, and one dear friend, instead of grieving, is able to believe that she will meet her loved one soon, and that he is still here with her.

Very affecting, although I thought the young lady a little dense that she did not figure out her faculty early in her life. Still, her goodness and charm were palpable.

10. Minor Mage by T. Kingsfisher

You might consider this a companion piece to a book I read last year by this author: A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking. In both cases an older child, 12 - 14 years, is a minor magician, but manages a great deal with a creative use of his or her magic, out of necessity. In this volume, Oliver is the minor mage, and when a prolonged drought threatens his village with starvation and failure, he is sent, rather unwillingly to fetch the rain. He may not be much of a mage, but he's more powerful than anyone else in the village, and they don't know what to do. They are ashamed to send him by himself, but no one offers to go with him, and they have waited until his mother is out of town helping his older sister with a new baby before they try to compel him.

The story was charming, although not without its threats and frights, especially in the person of ghuls who want to eat him, and bandits who might kill him. When he arrives at the mid-heights of the foothills where the rain is made, what to do there requires considerable ingenuity and bravery. Of course, he is successful, and he returns to find his mother sharpening her sword with a grim look on her face. (She was a retired mercenary.) The rain is pounding down all over the village as he greets her, and his familiar, a pet armadillo, is the more precious to him for the help he was throughout the excursion. He is no longer afraid to have missed his mother and to embrace her, and he seems to have become a little more powerful. Will that continue? He still only knows three spells, and one of them controls his allergy to armadillo dander.

Good fun. For older children, but worth the read.

Just stopping in to see what you are reading :-)

11. Fairy Godmothers, Inc. by Jenniffer Wardell A small town in Missouri (not close to me, but it is the right state), is named Ever After. It happens that three sisters, real Fairy Godmothers live there and thrill themselves looking over some lucky few people.

There is a scheme to bump up town revenue with a wedding planning corporation, assisted by the godmothers' magic.

The rest was a little twee, and I don't mind some of that. This was just readable, though.

>47 sallypursell: Vernon is always worth reading IMO - regardless of the age group she is writing for. :) Need to get to these two :)

>50 AnnieMod: I know you will love them! I would read Minor Mage before the baking book.

That's the order I read them in, and I agree.

The sewing is cutting into my reading time. Humph.

12. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel This is the first volume in a trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, the contemporary of King Henry VIII. I read this with the group-read, over the last two weeks or so.

It was delightfully written, apart from an occasional phrase in which Cromwell waxed rhapsodic or philosophical, and which to me seemed to stick out and be a little out of character for him. It begins in Cromwell's childhood, and we have so far progressed to his forties, the periods when he was first, a functionary and friend of Cardinal Wolsey, and then a direct vassel and useful subordinate of Henry VIII and of Anne Boleyn.

Cromwell was clearly very intelligent, and had a highly organized brain, which he used to great effect. He was especially practiced and skillful at finance and diplomacy, and his superiors used him mercilessly. It is clear that he was used to enrich himself with the work he did for his masters, and that they expected this, too.

By the time he was in his forties, Cromwell had become wealthy, and he owned houses in several cities, and estates in the countryside of several nations. He supported his family and inferiors lavishly, and educated them all to their highest ability, so that they might be much as he was. To be truthful, very few of his adherents or relatives had the brains and will-power to become as ruthless as he was, and therefore, as successful. The life he lived was subsumed in his work and in his many social connections, and his network of business connections.

The trajectory of his life is clear in this novel. His character is more sympathetic than I had formerly known it to be, and the interplay he had with his masters, as well. He flirts with women, and has relationships with some, most of them honest, in that he promises nothing. He follows through on his promises to his masters as well as he can. Still, I found him less and less ingratiating as he became more powerful. He is more manipulative and ruthless as he ages, or it appears that he is. He uses people, and that, I find, is more irritating and even creepy as things go on. He plans and is rapacious in the ways that he finds money for the Cardinal and the King. The common men and women are impoverished and sometimes made homeless by his schemes. It is obvious that this is what he perceives his duty to be, and he does no more than follow through on the desires of the Cardinal and the King. Still, there is a difference, in that the King does not truly understand his finances, and does not realize the effects of his schemes. Henry is happy that he can live as he pleases, and give women lavish gifts, which might have been better if somewhat restrained.

In sum, I enjoyed the first two-thirds of this novel a great deal, and liked Cromwell more than I expected. But in the last third I found him more creepy and manipulative than I liked, recognizing, of course, that he is doing as he is expected to do, and doing it very well. His own enrichment was to be expected, and even if it was more lavish, perhaps, than necessary, he has many people to support, and his ability to travel as needed requires supporting wealth.

It is clear that a fall is coming, for Henry, for Anne Boleyn, and even for Cromwell. One can feel it nearing the court and Cromwell, especially in that last third. I don't know very much of his path to his future, and I am very much looking forward to finding it out, even if some people in this story will suffer, and so will Cromwell.

Very Highly Recommended.

13. Hounded by Kevin Hearne This is the first in the Iron Druid Chronicles, a series set in modern-day times, but with a chief character from the time of the acme of the Druidic culture and religion. As far as he knows, he is the only living Druid, and is about 2,000 years old. Unfortunately, living so long, and doing what was needed to stay alive and in possession of enchanted weaponry, requires that he anger some of the old gods of the Celtic Pantheon, and a random member of other pantheons as he has come to know them. All of them, it proves, are real, and still aware, including Jesus.

Atticus O'Sullivan, as he is currently called, has been hiding out from some gods who have grudges against him, and now can no longer do so. He isn't quite sure what the outcome of a conflict will be, but it is time to try the result. With his Irish Wolfhound, his enchanted sword, the staff of the bookshop he owns, and some allies like the Morrigan, strangely enough, he does prevail, and in the process, kills two of the Celtic gods who were seeking his death. It is generally satisfying, and is the first of a series of some length. I'm looking forward to more.

14. Air Awakens by Elise Kova This was a complete series of novels about a young library apprentice, who proves to be crucial to the war effort in her Kingdom. She proves to be an Air mage, something that hasn't been seen in her Kingdom for some time. Fire, Water, and Earth mages are all represented.

There is an important love affair, and the war as well as the love affair is pursued in this story. In general, I enjoyed these, but they were fairly derivative. Still, I have to confess, there were new and creative aspects to the plot, as well.

>54 sallypursell: Great review, Sally. For some reason I'm labouring over the last one hundred pages, but I'll get it finished this weekend.

I also loved Wolf Hall, Sally. Are you going to read the other two right away? I read the first two last year and hope to get to the last one this year.

Happy Friday.

>58 BLBera: The group read planned that we will read Bring Up the Bodies in March and April. I planned to ask in the group thread, and follow through as they wish it. Left only to myself, I would go straight on, although I am reading several other books, and I would prefer not to let them languish. I am reading a non-fiction account of Magellan's Circumnavigation, and the next one in the "Saint" series. I also have another library book called The Great Explorers, one novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett from the library, called The Lost Prince, the first of The Laundry Files, and my eye doctor just loaned me a book about the Fall of Rome. He reads a great deal, and quite variously. I'm not really in any hurry to get back to Mantel, I guess. By the way, I loaned Wolf Hall to that doctor just today.

>57 AlisonY: I had more trouble getting through that last 100 pages, too, Alison.

,

>59 sallypursell: Oh, I love The Lost Prince. It's silly fluff, but good fluff.

Just popping in to say hi, Sally. I’m trying to catch up with everyone. The beginning of the year is daunting when you get a late start.. I should get back to the Wexford series by Rendell. I’ve only read the first, and enjoyed it. I love the Flavia series. I wonder if there are any new ones since the last I read. I’ll need to check. And I’ve decided to reread Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies before reading the third. I’ll do it at my own pace, but that is one plan I have for this year.

>61 NanaCC: Oh, it's good to see you here, Colleen.

Great review of Wolf Hall, Sally! I read and absolutely loved it a dozen years ago. I'll probably wait to join the group read until March, when my work schedule slows down, and read it that month, Bring Up the Bodies (another re-read) in April, and The Mirror & the Light in May.

I am usually reading several books at once, but I think maybe I am overdoing it right now. I can't seem to finish any of them. I may finish them all at once, too.

maybe I am overdoing it right now. I can't seem to finish any of them. I may finish them all at once, too.

Sounds so familiar. :) In my case I think it's well over a hundred books with bookmarks in them.

>64 sallypursell: I tend to declare "finish the books" weeks now and then and actually make some progress through the books I had started... :) Although occasionally I end up just starting more instead... ;)

If you ask me, every book has its time. If it is not now, then it will just wait. :)

>66 AnnieMod: I really like that philosophical note with which you ended. Books are very patient and good at waiting.

>65 LolaWalser: I think I can effectively read a maximum of eight books simultaneously, but if one book remains unread for too long, I have to start reading all over again which feels like a real waste of time, especially if I was already 80 pages in.

>68 edwinbcn: I think, from observation, that I don't do well above four or five, depending on the material. Otherwise, I too have to start some over. I'm not sure it is a bad thing. I usually understand more on the second read, and enjoy it more. It doesn't take me that long, as i am a very rapid reader. I read one to the end last night, and truly enjoyed it.

15. Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross

Oh, this was fun! It would be hard to give any good summary of the plot, due to its astonishing complexity, but here's a little to hang my hat on.

A secret agent, somewhere closer to Maxwell Smart than James Bond, works in a world where magic can be done by computer programming, and he is a programmer, therefore a sorcerer. He works as part of a government agency, and is sent to two incomprehensible assignments where his skills do come in handy, but he constantly feels inadequate. The reason why he is chosen amount to the fact that a story-related Archetype has chosen him to function as a James Bond character. At least, he *thinks* that's what's going on. The Story is not what he thinks it is, though. He does fulfill his role properly in the end by assuming a character as the Bond Good Girl, instead.

This is absolutely full of inventiveness and more complicated Archetypes that he seems to be functioning in simultaneously. It has enough humor and story for at least two books, and it almost seems profligate to spend all this in one book.

This comes with a problem, though. So much explanation is needed. He does a great job with this, utilizing briefings, debriefings, planning meetings, and introductions to other characters. The computer chatter is hilarious, featuring a couple of his handlers known as Pinky and the Brains, who are also Q figures. The explanations he gets about his new gadgets, including silly gadgets like a flexible keyboard that fits in his cummerbund (he has to wear a tuxedo, of course), and complete with spells that can be invoked by turning his shoe-heel around once, induce giggling, but are a little dizzying. I can see people who aren't comfortable with computers shutting this out completely. Here's a one-paragraph example.

"This board was taken from a GRU-issued Model oneiromantic convolution engine found aboard the K-129...Ellis reverse-engineered the basic schematic and pieced together the false vacuum topology that the valves disintermediated. Incidentally, these aren't your normal vacuum tubes--isotope imbalances in the thorium-doped glass sleeves suggest that they were evacuated by exposure in a primitive wake-shield facility, possibly aboard a model three Sputnik satellite similar to the one first orbited in 1960. That would have given them a starting pressure about six orders of magnitude cleaner than anything available on Earth at the time, at a price per tube of about two million rubles, which suggest that someone in the GRU scientific directorate really wanted a good signal, if that wasn't already obvious. We now know that they'd clearly cracked the Dee-Turing Thesis by this point and were well into modified Enochian metagrammar analysis. Anyway, young Billington concluded that the Mod-60 OCE, NATO-code 'Gravedust' was intended to allow communication with the dead. Recently dead, anyway."

Obviously, this only makes sense intermittently, and it includes both mystical and computer terms, as well as some scientific theory. This is part of a briefing this protagonist hears. If one can make it through this stuff, the payoff is huge.

Highly recommended, for those who can wade through this stuff. This was the first of the Laundry Files books, by the way, and I certainly am glad there are more!

>68 edwinbcn:, >69 sallypursell:

Yes, probably anything over 3-4 is deeply unserious. There are a few circumstances that made it easier for me to read simultaneously all my life (although the hundred-plus is unusual and simply a symptom of my shattered concentration in recent times)--a tendency to read books that are easy to read in a fragmentary fashion (non-fiction; collections of shorter pieces etc.), a habit of "grouping" titles, and--possibly most important--a habit of taking notes. I'd add an excellent memory, but that's weakening.

>70 sallypursell:

I'm glad to hear you liked this, I've heard good things about Stross and your opinion helps further. I have the first book in that series.

Huh. I've been determinedly ignoring The Laundry Files - I didn't like his Merchant Princes series (well, I read the first book and had no interest in going on). But...maybe I will... I like computer talk, even when it's gobbledygook. And computer magic is always fun.

>72 jjmcgaffey: I'd very much like to know what you think about it if you read it. Personally, I can't wait to read the second one, now.

>73 sallypursell: I'm sorry to tell you this but The Jennifer Morgue is the second book, with The Atrocity Archives being the first.

>54 sallypursell: I’m just catching your WH review. You inspired some thoughts...but i might plop them over in the group read thread. I enjoyed your review.

>55 sallypursell: and >70 sallypursell: Hounded and Jennifer Morgue both sound fun.

>74 rhian_of_oz: I knew that at one time. I wonder how I got confused. It's not important, though. I'll happily read that one when I can get it.

I can't believe how many days since I have finished a book. I usually finish one or more a day. Mostly I am working my way through the non-fiction account of Magellan's voyage, and I am just about to get to the place where he is killed by natives of what is now the Philippines. I think it was his own fault, but that is presentism--hindsight is always 20/20, as they say. This is a really good book, but just not quick reading. I am not inclined to start another fiction book right now, as I think I would read it in preference to the Magellan, which I pick up and read in short bursts between other activities.

16. Over the Edge of the World; Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe by Laurence Bergreen

I finished this two or three days ago, but it took some time before I really knew my reaction in toto. I doubt I have it all, yet, but I suppose I am ready to make comments.

At first I thought this was going to tell me only what the fiction book about this topic that I recently read had done. At the same time, there was some additional detail that seemed tedious, and it took me some time to get into the swing of this prose. By the time I was half-finished with this I was beginning to be thrilled, and I realized I had learned a great deal more than the previous book had told me.

One might almost call this a disquisition on what it takes to do something world-changing, and at the same time, on leadership. Magellan is a study in leadership; he was in a remarkably difficult situation. For one thing, he had been unable to convince his own King, the King of Portugal, to finance his venture, or to even listen regarding what outcome this could have. After spending about ten years trying to convince him, he decamped to Spain, where with only a modest outlay of Magellan's energy, the King of Spain was able to see the value of this venture, and was willing to finance it. All the same, the bureaucracy of Spanish sailing personnel and the Church, which had great influence in this time, were greatly against using as the Captain-General of a fleet a Portuguese rather than a Spaniard. Portugal and Spain were at odds over exploration and over what lands each could colonize and exploit economically. A Portuguese captain could never fully be trusted.

Five ships were sent in the Armada under Captain-General Magellan, but the sub-captains of each individual vessel were mostly Spanish, and they were not happy under Magellan's authority. His sometime harshness with the sailors and other officers, and his jealousy of his authority made the other captains unhappy and suspicious, and they made mutiny shortly after reaching the coast of Brazil. His response to this was brutal in the cases of those who were most at fault; it would not be going too far to call them torturous. They were some of the same methods used in Spain at the time, but the captains resented them.

Magellan insisted that the ships be maintained so as to be completely seaworthy. This occasioned delays that were frustrating to others, as ships were hauled up on shores for maintenance. They finally traversed his strait with relatively little difficulty. The fact that this traverse was not repeated for 60 years, despite multiple attempts, illustrates how much it was Magellan's seamanship and care that made the Armada successful.

It was not Magellan's fault that the distance the ships had to travel across the Pacific was so much further than it was expected to be. The deaths of many of the sailors from scurvy and hunger were trying, although Magellan supported most of the same trials with determination. The route chosen meant that no land was struck for over 90 days, while the food supply and drinking water deteriorated to a disgusting degree.

The one time Magellan was truly at fault was when he decided to convert to Christianity some of the natives of the Philippines whom they first encountered, and tried to enforce new social customs too soon. He also felt Spanish fighters were the equal to any natives, and did not plan his encounters with hostile peoples well. It was in one of these that he fell, and was killed by some of the Philippine natives. On that spot there is a monument to the success of the natives against the European's colonial intentions and assumptions of cultural superiority.

This had nothing to do with the intent of the mission, and made almost all members disgruntled. Magellan may have felt that their safety and rescue at the hands of one tribe was Providence in action, and that some acknowledgement was due to Heaven. In any case, it was a misstep, one he paid for with his life.

The details of how the expedition did find the Spice Islands and succeed in loading their ships with cloves and other spices is a fascinating tale. Their further troubles and why only a solitary ship and 18 men made it back to the Spanish port is worth all the foregoing. 280 men left Spain; 18 came home. In a later expedition, 450 men left Spain, and 8 returned on a Portuguese vessel from the Pacific. No one else circumnavigated the world until Sir Francis Drake did it in 1580, fully 58 years later.

This is highly recommended.

>78 sallypursell: Fabulous review, Sally - fascinating. It's difficult to think what it must have been like for those involved in these expeditions. The leaders had much to gain from potential success and were willing to risk their lives in the process, yet many of the sailors in the crew gave up their lives with zero place in history. As I think was mentioned in the Wolf Hall thread at some point, life was cheap back in this era.

Discovering these new lands, people and food must have been incredible, though. Discovering poison arrows, less so.

Superb review of Over the Edge of the World, Sally!

>78 sallypursell: enjoyed this review a lot. Magellan’s journey is fascinating.

Great comments about Over the Edge of the World, Sally. I will add this to my WL.

17. The Lost Prince by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I typed a loving review for this yesterday, and when I came back, I discovered that my computer had restarted itself and the review was gone. Why hadn't I posted it? I think I fell asleep.

Anyway, an abbreviated review:

I wish I had read this book when I was 8 or 10. It is a perfect book for a middle-aged child. Marco Loristan knows that his father carries something heavy, and that he is a Samavian patriot, living in London, and spending his life writing for the cause of restoration of the Samavian crown, which was usurped in a military coup some 500 years earlier. There is a popular legend that the crown prince is somewhere in hiding, teaching his sons all they have to know to resume the throne. The Crown Prince at the time of the Usurpation left the palace singing, and then was lost to the government and the people. But the aforementioned story is important to the people of Samavia, and we are told that patriots live all over Europe.

Marco and his father are poor, and a servant who lives with them and shares their fortunes treats them as important, and does all that he can to make the life less irksome and difficult for the small family. Marco meets a group of guttersnipes in his neighborhood, led by one who calls himself The Rat. He is crippled, but his mind is fully alive, and he drills his followers until they react like army troops might. In addition, the plight of Samavia has caught the Rat's heart, and he spends a lot of time plotting missions to enhance the prospects of the absent royalty. He studies strategy and logistics, and his natural abilities allow him to excel in this.

Marco introduces his father to The Rat, who is impressed by Mr. Loristan's dignity. In time Marco tells his father about the Rat's plans and schemes, and it is Mr. Loristan's turn to be impressed. The boys come up with a plan to use boys like them as the means to communicate with other patriots in Europe, and deliver the news that it is time for the uprising for which they hope. In time, despite his natural fear for the children, Mr. Loristan commissions his son and the Rat to make this trip; they can devise no other plan by which this can be accomplished while avoiding the notice of spies and their enemies in Samavia.

It is not until Marco is taken to join his father after the uprising in Samavia that he learns what was obvious: his father was the Prince of Samavia, in exile while he prepared, and raised his son to be ready for his future position. It is delightful to be shown that being well-spoken and well-mannered are important to nobility. Of course, we are led to believe that gravity and taciturnity are also part of it. Such a beautiful book. I loved it.

>79 AlisonY: >80 kidzdoc: >81 dchaikin: >82 BLBera: Thanks for all the kind words. I enjoyed that book a lot.

18. The Land of the Blue Flower by Frances Hodgson Burnett

This was a book for children, and quite small; far fewer than 100 pp. The pictures were lovely, and were drawn by Judith Ann Griffith. They were also highly colorful, and I presume that they were painted by her, too.

The book is naive, and implies that the sight and fragrance of a native blue flower, as well as its cultivation, are enough to inspire unhappy humans to be more generous and kind to each other, and to give up negative thoughts and actions. I believe a small child would be given a positive feel regarding life if exposed to this book at the right time, and I don't think he or she would be handicapped by this exposure. It was quite a pleasant encounter for me, too.

I am a little tired of the notion that nobility looks a certain way and acts a certain way and can be recognized this way. The poor have no hope of rising to this standard. It is still recognizable as the Divine Right of Kings, and was entirely to the popular taste in Burnett's time.

19. Suddenly Psychic by Elizabeth Hunter

My kindle is full, and they tell me I must prune the files. There will follow a number of free or near-free books, off and on, some of which were good, and some were execrable. Three good friends, all women, go out for dinner for one of their birthdays, and while crossing a bridge, the driver swerves to avoid hitting a deer, and the car goes into the river. They are saved barely in time by a man outside the car, who breaks a window with a rock. All three women develop a psychic power; one has phophetic dreams, one sees ghosts and can speak with them, and one develops psychometry. Don't ask me how this makes sense.

In any case, in the long run the ladies learn a secret in one of their families, get help improving one marriage, and manage to exorcise a malicious ghost in a mansion.

It was readable, and not really bad. Instead, this was simply mediocre, although there was some inventiveness in the plot.

>86 sallypursell: can't you remove the download without permanently deleting the book?

>87 dianeham: It is possible to "Archive" books, but I'm not sure what this function is all about. It isn't well-explained on the website at all. It's no trouble to get rid of some of these books--some are not worth keeping.

Sally, I delete books from my kindle all the time, and can reload if I want something back. Unless it is a library book, of course. If you’ve purchased it, it’s yours. I’ve upgraded to a new kindle, and been able to reload everything. I’m pretty sure that you should not have a problem, unless they’ve made policy changes that I’m not aware of. Have you tried Amazon’s online chat support? I’ve had good luck with them in the past, although it has been quite a while since I’ve needed them.

>89 NanaCC: My Kindle gives me a choice of whether I want to delete a book permanently or just from the device (which keeps it in my Kindle cloud library but opens up room on the device).

I have different subsets of books on my different kindles - as long as they are in the cloud, deleting them from a device is not a problem.

>90 LadyoftheLodge: Yep -- I rarely permanently delete anything - I have a special collection even for things like the "free samples" thingies...

>89 NanaCC: >90 LadyoftheLodge: >91 AnnieMod: This is all very useful information. I appreciate your trouble.

20. Squeeze Me by Carl Hiaasen I think Carl Hiaasen is required reading as an American, and to understand America. Life anywhere here can seen surreal as his novels do, and at the same time, almost inevitable. Most people probably don't encounter the variety of the underground people that are in these novels--there frequently are criminals in the course of their endeavors--but I'm sure we do encounter them, we just don't know it. After all, they must go to the grocery store some times. At the same time Hiaasen has us also encounter both the nouveau riche as well as older money, who are just as ridiculous. I hope there are some "normal" people here, and some intellectuals as well, but they are not much in evidence, or at least they aren't important to the story. Any non-Americans should know that his work is not a real representation of our society. It is surreal and it is satire.

Kiki Pew Something leaves a party at Mar a Lago, although it has a different name in the book, and is swallowed by a large constricting snake which, in a domestic terror plot to take down the center of power, has been smuggled into Palm Beach.

A great fuss is made over her disappearance, as the snake was not suspected, and even Emperor Cheeto (not his name in the book) mentions her, mispronouncing her name "Kike-y". In his speech she is part of his great anti-immigrant rant, as he attributes her disappearance to an Hispanic gang.

We are led to all this by following a woman who runs a service removing wildlife from people-infested buildings and estates. She releases them back into the wild, although she does kill any that come near to killing her or other humans. She begins to investigate the sudden appearance of a number of length-record-threatening constrictors which keep showing up in human environs and startling the high-income humans who live in the "best" areas of Palm Beach Island. Despite living near the Everglades, these people are not fans of wildlife.

Eventually, our heroine finds the probable source of the incursion--a one-eyed rough-living gentleman whom one gathers is the crazy ex-Governor of Florida, who currently is incubating a bird-egg in his eye socket. He greets the woman by name, states he has followed her career, and gives her food and alcohol. He is famous for living primarily on road-kill.

The denouement is fun, but not as fun as the build-up.
I enjoyed this as much as most Carl Hiaasen's works, which is quite a lot.

Highly recommended. An essential satire about Florida, and a certain part of America. Not much like "typical" American's lives, if there is such a thing. It is such a vast country that there is a lot of variety. It is hard to explain to Europeans, for instance, that my house is farther from my brother's house than Madrid is from Moscow, but we are in the same country, and not even in the extremes of distance.

21. The Doll House by John Hunt I thought this was suspense, and I did not anticipate the horror aspects. When some captive women, in the course of escaping, discover a cold-room where bodies of women have been hung, obviously the source of food.I read about 100 more pages, but there was so much left, I didn't want to know what happens. All the women who escaped had pieces of them missing, some just digits, but some much more.

>93 sallypursell: I’ve read nearly a dozen Hiaasen novel. There’re highly entertaining. I lived in Florida for a Summer in my twenties and it was a strange place. I lived in an apartment above a stripper and an ex-con - my life could have become Hiaasenesque.

>95 gsm235: I also have read about a dozen of his novels. Highly entertaining is the right epithet. I think I've read Sick Puppy more than the others, probably three times. I think that's the one with the Governor lashing himself to the bridge and living out a hurricane that way. Do you know? I want to read that one again.

>96 sallypursell: I can’t remember which book the Governor rides out the hurricane in. Wikipedia has a page for the character with links to each novel he appears in and maybe that could help to find it. My favorite was Native Tongue when he wears the tracking collar intended for the Florida panther.

>96 sallypursell: Oh, that *was* a good one.

22. Dove in the Window by Earlene Fowler This is the next book in the series about Benni Harper and her husband, Police Chief Ortiz. In this entry, named as the others are, for a quilt pattern, Benni's grandmother, Dove, comes to the forefront. As usually happens around Benni, a body is found, and it appears to be foul play. Also as usual, Benni is busy with a folk museum display where she is curator, and a festival takes place in the town, not coincidentally. In the ruckus, Benni is confronted by the murderer at the museum, and her husband accomplishes her rescue at the last minute. As usual again, I enjoyed this. It's a good series.

23. The book of Etta by Meg Elison

This was the sequel to The Book of the Unnamed Midwife and I enjoyed it just as much. Its author is inventive, and the post-Apocalyptic world is well imagined. This is so much better than the typical book free on Kindle. Now I am looking forward to The Book of Flora the last book in this trilogy.

Etta finds that she is unhappy with the roles that are expected of her in the small and sequestered town in which she lives with her highly-respected mother, and so many women who seem to know what they want out of life. She instead takes up the role of a scavenger, traveling disguised as a young man, and searching all over the general middle of the country for supplies they need in abandoned places, and rescuing women who are enslaved or are breeding stock kept by men willing to be brutal to them. Etty, who travels as Eddy, finds a number of towns where society was invented from scratch, and which differ from each other. Few attract her, as they each suffer from their own societal woes. Eventually Eddy decides she must take over from the area's Overlord-by-his-own-choice, a brutal man living in a compound in St. Louis-that-was, and who is distinguished by his pets of tigers and lions from abandoned zoos in the Mid-West. His men range over the middle of the former US, burning towns and enslaving their women, taking them back to Estiel, as the city is now called. Eddy knows that women will not be able to set up towns and prosper as long as the Lion King in Estiel is still living and still raiding them, so she determines she must lead a raid on his group, and free all his women slaves. She plans to kill his guards, men who have been trained to guard and mistreat women.
Of course,this is easier said than done, and Eddy must risk a great deal to make this attempt. She is captured during the attempt, but eventually escapes, prevails, and takes the women with her to the largest town she has found. She feels they will then be free, and safe.

She also learns a lot about herself and her desired role during her travail and this raid, and must make a large change in her life. Perhaps a little too graphic for some, and certainly has the potential to trigger women who have been victims of violence in their lives. Recommended, with these things in mind.

>97 gsm235: As you might think is logical, I believe, after some reading of Wikipedia, that the book with Skink and hurricane is Stormy Weather.

>93 sallypursell: You've reminded me that I've still never got round to reading Carl Hiaasen, though I keep meaning to and then forgetting all about him. I might try and finally get to one this year. I'm definitely in need of fun books recently.

>102 valkyrdeath: You wouldn't be sorry! There's not much funner.

I’ve enjoyed several of Hiaasen’s books. Even his books for kids are fun to read. I think they are rated YA. I have listened to several of them on long car trips with my grandchildren.

24. The Great Explorers edited by Robin Hanbury-Tenison

This was a beast of a book, heavy and larger than an octavo. In it are explanations of the careers and skills of 40 Great Explorers. Only the best are described here, and it is complete with lovely pictures. Some of these are the works of the great artist-explorers, those who traveled and documented wildlife in the form of flora and fauna, too. These people did not yet have photography to supplement their work, or their talents were such that their paintings or sketches added materially to the understanding of ecosystems and the scenes which were the settings of their collections of material. There are, for instance, paintings of many beetles, or one fine one of the Greater Bird of Paradise. There is one drawing I will always be glad I saw: a self-portrait by a polar explorer, complete with frozen breath on his parka and his beard. It made clear to me what it was like to stay in the Arctic or Antarctic, not just pass through.

Some of these men and women are names you have heard, like Amundsen and Stanley. More of them were new to me, or little-known. They were always pushing the boundaries of knowledge--going yet farther where people had not yet been. What amazing people! Highly recommended, but not quick reading.

25. Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier

This is a story of the conflict between Irishmen and Englishmen during the period before Ireland was subjugated by the English. The Irish are "primitive" by English standards, but the English are by Irish standards, too. Neither has been overwhelmingly successful in the East of Ireland near the coast.

We focus on the one daughter of a noble house of Irishmen. She has six older brothers, so she just missed being the "seventh son of a seventh son", since her father had that happy state. As such, she cannot help but be aware of Faery, hovering near her lands. And Faery cannot help but be aware of Sorcha, as she is called. A Faery Queen/goddess has repeatedly taken a hand in the doings of her great house, and they throw together an aristocrat of England and her, appearing, and charging them with duties they would rather not be subject to. He is looking for a younger brother who ran away to war with his uncle (a snake of a man), and not finding him, and believing this girl to know something, he takes her home with him. It is maximally inconvenient for them to fall in love, and so they do.

At the same time, this is a retelling of the tale of the Swan Maiden, the one with six swan brothers under enchantment, who must make shirts for them from thread she must spin from nettles. She is engaged in this task, and is required to be mute while she is. Her abduction interferes with her task, but in other ways is helpful. As the story tells us, she is to be burned for witchcraft when all but one sleeve is finished (that slimy uncle at work again). She changes back all of her brothers but the last has one sleeve missing, and his one arm remains a wing.

There are no ways the first story can be resolved, but the Englishman makes a way that will cost him, but enable their love to flourish.

I really loved this, and I got the second one right away. It won't be long until my curiosity impels me to go on.

26. The Girl Beneath the Sea by Andrew Mayne

This is a suspense title about a woman who works for the police as a diver in the environs of Palm Beach. She comes from a family of a number of criminals, and is not trusted by every police office or superior officer. Her uncle is currently in prison for a drug smuggling scheme involving a false bottom in a fishing vessel which he lets out for hire to people who want to be ferried around and helped to do deep-sea fishing. Everyone in the family is a diver, and this protagonist has been diving since she was old enough to use the gear.

The other important plot-point involves some group of people who are trying to kill her, which puts her daughter at risk, and this is intolerable. She has an amicable relationship with her divorced husband, and he is very willing to take their daughter for a time. In the long run, a bunch of people including both police and family, help her out of her personal dilemma and solve the murder of a close acquaintance of hers, who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This was just slightly above average, so readable, and I will try the second one in this series before I will know whether I want to follow it or not.

27. Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore

One might think that this is a book like the many books about Dukes and bookish women in the Victorian Age, or sometimes the Regency. But those tend to be pleasant but not very thoughtful, to be truthful. This would not be one of those books. Instead, this is a more thoughtful, but also pleasurable book about the conflict between honest and principled Tory aristocrats and the Suffragist women who were also honest and principled. This, of course, is a more interesting story, without going off the accustomed rails of the romance genre.

Sex is an important topic here. As normal adults, the protagonists want sex in their lives, but have principles which must be attended to in getting their satisfaction. The story of how the Duke and his commoner would-be lover make it work is better than the majority of this type and genre. Thanks, Evie Dunmore, I hope you have more!

BB - that sounds like a very interesting romance. It's much in demand - I finally found a copy available, at the sixth library I tried (ebook, so it's a matter of clicking around).

>109 jjmcgaffey: I didn't know it was in demand--I just saw the title at Amazon, read a short summary, and bought it on a whim. How about that!

>106 sallypursell: Glad you enjoyed this one. I've loved what I've read of Marillier so far and am looking forward to reading more soon.

I'm in the process of reading several books, still, including Because Internet, but it's time to start Bring Up the Bodies in the Cromwell Group read.

I'm happy to report that I have an appointment for a CoVid vaccination! Finally! It's on the 11th, and on the 9th I will have an honorary grandson born. Yay!

>112 sallypursell: Sounds like this March is shaping to be a lot better than the last one :)

Daughter of the Forest sounds good, Sally. I like that period of history. I'll look for a copy.

Congrats on your vaccine appointment; I just got my first one yesterday. What a relief!

The book about Magellan sounds great. I checked Amazon, and it was only $6.99 for Kindle, so I bought it. Now, I just need to read it.
Since we just moved to Florida, I felt the need to read some Carl Hiaasen, and I recently read Lucky You. Very Funny. I will be reading more.

>93 sallypursell: I have one Carl Hiaasen book on my shelves (Lucky You) to read sometime. I've only ever heard good things about his stuff.

Oh, I'm having another difficult time, with increased symptoms of my chronic problem. I'm reading things that are more genre fiction and kindle free things than things chosen more thoughtfully. It does the job of passing the time more pleasantly than a lot of other pastimes. I knit a little and sew a little some days. Otherwise I am mostly in bed and reading or playing a video game. It sounds great, doesn't it? And that's what it is--relatively great. Oh, it could be so much worse--I could be on a ventilator with CoVid.

My honorary grandson Andrew Alvarez Dinan was born this morning. Blessings to him.

>117 sallypursell: Congratulations!

I don't have that excuse, and I'm reading good fluff too. I've been slogging through some good, interesting, thoughtful books...and I picked up the latest Mercedes Lackey Elemental Masters book and sped through it, lots of fun. So now I'm reading more in that vein (not as good, but still light and interesting) - currently Vicky Peterwald - Target by Mike Shepherd.

For some reason we were talking about hair length in some thread, so here's a picture of my hair. Please note that there was abundant static electricity that day, and my hair is all stuck to my coat, so it isn't as mobile as usual. If you can't tell from the picture, it is hip-length, and entirely white/silver, except the inner-most layer, which is about half brown and half gray.

28. War for the Oaks by Emma Bull

I've read this novel, often said to be the first urban fantasy novel, at least four times, and I enjoy it every time. In this book, a rock musician who leaves a band and her bandleader-lover, and then starts her own band becomes a victim of the Fae. It then becomes an intersection of the Fae and realistic 20th century urban life in Minneapolis when this woman, Eddi by name, is chosen by the Fae to be a witness and stake in a battle between the Seelie and UnSeelie Courts.

The Seelie court is home to the beautiful elf-like and small winged ones of the "Fairies", a name they abhor. The UnSeelie is peopled with the goblin-type Fae, and other, misshapen and "ugly" Fae, both tall and short, more monsters than what we would call Fae. It is tempting to call the Seelie Fae the "good" ones, but that would be a dangerous oversimplification; it is more that they are the privileged few, with the ability and desire to use magic to adjust their appearance, which is called assuming a glamour, just as any spell or magic to change appearance is called casting a glamour.

The Seelie Fae are as cold, manipulative, and uncaring as the UnSeelie. They don't care what effect they have upon humans, and freely use us for their convenience, or on a whim. It is they who have the reputation of taking humans for 100 years and then getting tired of them and dropping them back in the world. It is a Seelie Fae Queen who took Tam Lin, if you know that story, and says quite coldly that if she had known the outcome of his story she would have turned him to a tree, due to being thwarted.

In order to protect their interests, the Fae send representatives to watch Eddi, and they show up as people trying out for the other positions in the band. Naturally, they are supernaturally good, and are chosen for the band. There is also a "phouka", sometimes known as a "pooka" to baby-sit her. If you remember Harvey, the 6-foot invisible rabbit in the Jimmy Stewart film, he was a pooka.

These Fae are there to make sure that Eddi shows up at the battle as she is supposed to. It is not clear why her presence makes the battle "real", but it is clear that it does; they require a human to raise the stakes and witness the proceedings for this to serve as the ritual performance that will subsume a whole war in this one battle.

The band has a meteoric rise, as the Fae cast glamours to entrance audiences and make the Rock and Roll music they play seem to be the entrancing agent. Life is exciting for Eddi, and she finally takes the Phouka as a lover.

Eddi does make it to the battle, and then remembers very little of it afterwards, except fright and blood. The band falls apart when Eddi learns that two that the guitarists were Fae, and were manipulating the human members of the band, and the audience. The end of the story is bittersweet, and only the Fae were really satisfied.

29. The Family Trade by Charles Stroll

The is book One of the Merchant Princes series. Someone mentioned not liking them very much, and I wanted to see why. I liked it very much, though, and I am enthusiastic about going on in the series.

A woman learns that she is able to walk between two worlds, and that her mother was fleeing "the family", a group related by blood, who have the ability also. When she is learning her way with her family, she finds she is expected to participate in the family method of generating funds for their own purposes, and to be wealthy. Unfortunately, she determines that the method amounts to a lot of smuggling, including drug-smuggling, and she begins to think about methods to undermine this trade. It is complicated by the fact that she begins to have relationships with some family members near her age, cousins, and uncles whom she really likes.

This first book primarily concerns her experiences learning the ways of the family, and then working out how their business makes them money, what they are smuggling, and how the trade is interfaced with human partners and human functionaries and bureaucrats. It doesn't sound very interesting when I explain it, but it was extremely interesting in the working out.

I really liked this, and I wonder if it goes on in a similar vein.

30. The Book of Flora by Meg Elison

This was the third book in the trilogy which began with The book of the Unnamed Midwife. As her mother, Etta, did, Flora spends the time of her youth scavenging in the outer world, looking for useful and crucial things. She is unhappy with the way gender politics is managed in her home town, and she is also on a personal quest to observe how this is handled in other towns. We are able to see several variants of handling the differences of male and female, and all informed by the long period after the crash of the United States, when women were commodities and slaves, treated primarily as pleasure slaves and as brood stock.

Both Etta and Flora were unhappy with their own genders and how they were viewed by the people she meets. Flora is best pleased by one town, to which she takes the refugees and victims she finds or liberates. Even there she is unhappy with the treatment of men, and the treatment of men and women who prefer sex with their own gender.

The adventure, which was the burden of the second book, begins to fade back in this third book, to a treatment of gender politics, and Flora cannot find a place to feel at home. Towards the end of the book we learn that she is participating in making yet a new colony with more equality between the sexes.

I did not find this book as interesting as the first two books, and in time I realized that I like the first book, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife so much the most of
the three. I am sympathetic to the aims of the other two, and to the frustration of those who are not treated as well as whatever is the "favored" pattern of gender assignment and gender roles. Still, the less the adventure was to the fore, and the more the struggle about gender roles came to be the topic, the less I enjoyed it. I don't have any difficulty with "non-standard" gender roles in real life, so I think it was the book, not the topic. It was a shame, because I liked the first part of this trilogy so very much. The author has the right to aim her work as she likes, of course. She doesn't have to please me.

31. Knight Templar by Leslie Charteris

This is the next entry in the very long "Saint" series, about an episodic criminal and, simultaneously, a swashbuckling Robin Hood-like man of the world. It was the fourth "Saint" book published, and it came out in 1930 under the British title The Avenging Saint.

The previous books strayed into purple prose only rarely, but this one seems full of it. In addition, Charteris' near-worship for his character is evident.

He lounged against the binnacle, a fresh white cylinder between his lips, his lighter flaring in his hand. The adventure had swept him up again: she could read all the signs. The incident of which he had returned to speak so airily was a slight thing in itself, as he would have seen it; but it had turned a subtle scale. As languidly as he lounged there so lazily relaxed, so easy and debonair, it was a dynamic and turbulent repose. There was nothing about it of permanence or even pause: it was the calm of a crouched panther. And she saw the mocking curve of the eager fighting lips, the set of the finely chiselled jaw, the glimmer of laughter in the clear eyes, half-sheathed in languid lids; and she read his destiny again in that moment's silence.

Then he straightened up; and it was like the uncoiling of tempered steel.

And the villain:

All the giant's composure had come back, save for the vindictive hatred that burned on in his eyes like a lambent fire. He had been secure in the thought that the Saint was dead, and then for a space the shock of seeing the Saint alive had battered and reeled and ravaged his security into a racketing chaos of raging unbelief; and at the uttermost nadir of that havoc had come the cataclysmic apparition, of Sonia Delmar herself, entering that very room to overwhelm his last tattered hope of bluff, and smash down the ripening harvest of numerous weeks of brilliant scheming and intrigue into one catastrophic devastation; and he had certainly been annoyed....

It goes on in the same vein for a further half-page, and the Saint appears "a poised and terrible Colossus," who "looked at him and laughed gently."

The plot concerns a defense of the British Crown from a fiendish plot, of course. Here's what Amazon says:

For weeks the Saint had been hunting two men across Europe...and one of them at least he had sworn to kill. Face-to-face with his quarry in London, Simon Templar takes his own side in a nightmare game of international conspiracy, rescues a beautiful pawn, checkmates a fiendish plot...and saves his king.

As is customary for romantic criminals and villains in England: (because I can't resist.)
From Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert & Sullivan

(all sung)

POLICE:
We charge you yield, we charge you yield,
In Queen Victoria’s name!

PIRATE KING:
(baffled, spoken) You do?

POLICE:
We do!
We charge you yield,
In Queen Victoria’s name!

(Pirates kneel, Police stand over them triumphantly.)

PIRATE KING and PIRATES:
We yield at once, with humbled mien,
Because, with all our faults, we love our Queen.

POLICE: Yes, yes, with all their faults, they love their Queen.

ALL: Yes, yes, with all their faults, they love their Queen!

(Police, holding Pirates by the collar, take out handkerchiefs and weep.)

32. Starship Mage by Glynn Stewart

In this universe, hyperspatial travel is only possible with a certain type of gifted person who can seize space with his mental ability, and move the ship thereby. Inadvertently, his ship must become rogue, and must move its shipping business to the outer planets, where pirates and other criminals and war lords live and work.

Through bravery and with clever handling, the ship is redeemed, and the intercession of a minister plenipotentiary is instrumental in getting the criminal charges against them dropped. The exceptional ability of their mentat is recognized, and at the close of the book he is introduced to the most influential member of the human's space empire, another person who can do what this young man can do. His way to training equal to his ability is assured.I obtained the next book in the series immediately.

33. The Last Star and Other Stories by D. L. Orton

This author wrote a time-travel trilogy which I read earlier in the year, and when this book of her stories was available in Kindle Unlimited, I leaped to borrow it.

Unexpectedly, her stories were, I think, better than her novels. Some were fantasy or science fiction, some autobiographical, and some whimsical of other kinds. I particularly appreciated the story of her tragic miscarriage at the time of the 9/11 tragedy. Living in New York, as she does, it was a difficult time to be hospitalized, and suffer such a loss, with decreased attention from care-givers, and insensitive treatment from some who should have known better.

Recommended.

34. The Lacemaker by Mary Kingswood

A fairly ordinary Regency Romance novel, but marred by some failures of logic, and with an enemies to lovers plot which works, although barely.

What stuck out for me was the story that this woman could make a living at lace-making, although the addition of two weaving sisters did help some. Still, this is very hard to believe. Also, there must have been very few families of young women who were saved by a legacy. Most surely became prostitutes, went into service, or starved.

35. Jinx High by Mercedes Lackey

I just learned that this was the last novel in this series. What a disappointment! I really like these. There is an explanation, in post 131 below, which explains what happened. I hear also that these books did not make enough money to be worth the trouble with the story line involving witchcraft.

There has been a little belief in my past that I might be a witch. I do not practice Wicca, and I have no control over any magic I may accidentally wield. My husband seems to believe it, but I don't know how serious he is. He says I control rain and traffic lights, but I just think I don't care if I get wet, or if I have to wait at a red light, so it is more likely a lack of testosterone that he is noticing. I am German, Irish, and have a little Viking in me (I know that use of Viking is not correct, and I should say Scandinavian, or perhaps, Norsemen.) I think likely the influence would have been from sailing Vikings who raided and raped on Irish soil for a long time. There are some fine witches in each national tradition. ;)

In this novel Diana Tregarde, the witch, is called by an old friend who is a "gifted" individual, and who believes his son, a High School student, is under magical attack. Diana must follow her profession and aid all who ask her for magical help. The magical problem is worse than expected, and some deaths disturb the High School, but together the group of adepts and friends prevail. It wasn't altogether a happy ending, but a quite satisfactory one, I avow.

36. Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier

This was the sequel to Daughter of the Forest, and, once again, is about a people who own the estate Sevenwaters, and are influenced by continued interaction with the Fae who live in the forest hard by. They might rather be sans this influence, but their family is blessed or cursed with this relationship with the Fae.

Each of the family is in some way remarkable, for their ability at telepathy, for a natural way with the forest, and therefore Druids, for knowledge of healing, or any other skill. They are more educated than their neighbors, and more privileged as well. As others do who live around them, they farm and herd animals, and they share this lifestyle with the folk who live on the estate.

This book moves to the younger members of the last generation we knew about, and the children of the protagonists of the prior book. Traumas and exciting times come to them in their turn. A daughter of the previous main character is raped, taken captive by bandits, and falls in love with a man who will live in Britain rather than Ireland as she is used to. This is in one way parallel to her father, who fell in love with her mother, and moved to Ireland from his home in Britain.

Just as in the first book, there is betrayal and ill dealing with the family by neighbors and former allies.

Also, as in the prior book, the main character's adventures are absorbing and fascinating. I very much enjoyed this book, and will continue with the Sevenwaters series.

>120 sallypursell: Nice - and static was never fun :) I cut 2 feet off mine in September - after 25 years of long hair, decided I wanted a change :)

Impressive hair!

>124 sallypursell: Ah, I was wondering - I love the Saint books, and this was one I'd never heard of. But I have read The Avenging Saint (not that I remember which of the Saint stories this is...). Charteris does have an odd style (or the Saint does); if I'm in the right mood, it's great. If not, not.

>128 sallypursell: I love this one too. Diana is so much fun - and I like a lot of the people she encounters here. Really pissed at the idiots who made Misty stop writing it - some people decided she was a "real witch", based on these stories, and half of them tried to attack her and the other half started showing up begging her to connect them to the Guardians. Ghahh.

>130 AnnieMod: And do you like the change? Every time I donated my hair, I hated the short hair. It just didn't feel like me.

>132 sallypursell: Surprisingly - yes. I was worried about that - had been thinking of it a few times in the last years and always convinced myself not to... And it does not take just a few months to grow back.

The last time I had short hair, I was 14. I do not miss all the weight for sure - or the attempts to strangle me if I do not plait it overnight. And it is curling again - it looks almost straight when it gets too heavy - although it was starting to curl as soon as you wet it even when it was all the way down. ;) It felt weird for a few weeks but I never regretted it even for a minute so I guess it was time.

>132 sallypursell: I had a Pixie cut, which was fashionable, in 1965. That's the last time I intentionally cut my hair, and even then I grew it out as soon as I could.

Actually, my hair grows really fast, it only takes about 4 years to grow from my chin to my hips.

My hair wouldn’t grow that long if I grew it forever. And I wish my hair would all be one color.

This is long hair, Sally. Do you usually wear it loose? Mine is long, for me, now, and I usually tie it back. I don't like it in my face.

Gorgeous elfin hair, Sally!

I typed a message answering the questions above, and acknowledging the compliments, and it's gone. I hope it shows up again.

>120 sallypursell: I love seeing photos of CRers - even if it is from the back! That's seriously long hair; I don't think mine grows further than the middle of my back. I never imagined you with long hair. It always tickles me that I have these mental images of what everyone in CR looks like, and I know I'll be 100% wrong on all of them.

>Here's a picture from 1988, so you can see the front. I look awful at the moment because I'm sick.


And the other picture is from 2018.

Well great to put a face to the name, Sally! I hope you are feeling much better soon.

I'm at a daughter-in-law's house, because I have a new grandchild. She had a c-section, and the baby is jaundiced, and not feeding as well as we would like. He is still losing weight at two weeks old.

>142 sallypursell: Hope everybody starts feeling better and better.

>142 sallypursell:

oh no, poor mite. Best of luck.

>142 sallypursell: I'm sorry to hear about the baby, Sally. I'm sure you know that neonates should regain their birth weight by the time they reach 14 days of age, and they should gain 20 to 30 grams per day, on average. Hopefully the jaundice is only due to inadequate oral intake, which should resolve once the baby begins to eat, stool and urinate normally.

>143 dianeham: >144 LolaWalser: >145 kidzdoc: It's such a weird thing to be both a clinician and a hopeful grandma. I do know those parameters, Darryl, and it is agonizing watching my DIL trying so hard, and the baby beginning to look scrawny instead of fattening up. Her milk is beautiful, creamy and seemingly plentiful. Baby Andrew is a little lazy at the breast. Mom is feeding and then pumping to stimulate her milk, and then we feed the baby by bottle whatever she gets by pumping. There seems to be lots of baby pee and poop coming. It's a little mysterious. Mom doesn't want to give him any formula, which is understandable.

Being at their house is a little weird. No one reads! I never cracked open a book, either, because the TV is on ALL DAY, and the kids are loud, and I was holding the baby most of the time, so Mom could shower and nap, and do all the things Moms really need to do. The kids even do school with the TV on! I hated that part.

Oh the tv would drive me crazy. My parents used to have the news on while they were eating. I stayed there a while in my 30s and couldn’t eat dinner while hearing the news.

Hope the baby improves.

>136 BLBera: I don't like my hair in my face, either, Beth, so I wear it down only when I go out. At home and at work I often put it up in a Mrs. Santa Claus type of bun. It rather suits me. I don't have to plait it when I go to bed, unlike Annie, and in fact, I like the easy-care I use. Wash and hang dry, then brush. Terrifically easy, and my hair only breaks at the ends when it gets caught on doorknobs and latches. I usually keep it trimmed even, but right now I am letting the ragged edges grow to see how long it gets. I think it is as long now as it has ever been.

>137 LolaWalser: What a nice compliment, Lola.

>146 sallypursell: It drove *me* crazy while I was there. I didn't think anyone in the family had a lifestyle like this. I am not really her mother-in-law: it is honorary, because she is married to my nephew whom I delivered, and whom I had a role in raising, because his parents had a troubled marriage. He and his little brother were so often at our house. I then was the celebrant at this marriage, and that was fun. It was a pagan ceremony, because that is his belief system.

She is 43 years old, and it was her second marriage. The baby was a little unexpected, but very welcome. It is their first child together. He has a daughter from an earlier relationship, and she has two from her first marriage, so it is a blended family. The children are thrilled with the new baby, and both parents seem thrilled, too. There is no lack of baby care, and no reason I can think of except the jaundice to make him feed poorly. I have my fingers and toes crossed for them, and I appreciate all the nice wishes for little Andrew.

I have a wonderful nephew named Andrew who will be 42 this year. Hope your Andrew has a wonderful and fulfilling life.

37. Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis

This was the first in a series of mystery novels with an unusual detective. Marcus Didius Falco is a middle-class Roman of small means, living in the first century. He calls himself an "informer", but he does all the things one would expect of what we would call a "private eye".
He lives with a small income from this, and a large family, who all need help of some kind. Some of them find him a disgrace, since his dress and manners are barely acceptable. He has some true friends, most from his time in the army, when he was stationed in Britain. This was a place he despised, for the weather and the frustration of his lowly position. Still he is a Roman citizen, an envied position to many.

In this novel Marcus becomes employed by a Senator's daughter, and must go back to Britain to determine how someone is smuggling ingots of mixed lead and silver, from the official silver mines to the streets of Rome itself. To do this he has himself delivered as a slave to the mine to be worked there, so that he can find the weak places in the chain of possession of these same ingots, marked with a symbol of their ownership by the Empire of Rome.

Being nearly starved and worked to death is the cost of this imposture, and he is rescued barely in time. After recovery he is hired to escort the Senator's daughter back to Rome from Britain. It is a dangerous trip, and they bond to a certain extent. Finding the rest of the story in Rome is also dangerous, but very captivating.

Of course Didius Falco is successful in his quest to determine the guilty parties in diverting the metal ingots to sell for their own wealth, and in becoming intimate with the Senator's daughter. He also becomes known to the emperor, and is employed by him.

Falco is a charming lout, but also more intelligent and principled than is convenient for him. He suffers in his genteel poverty, but manages quite often to quiet his pain with drunkenness, something that adds to his air of loutishness. Still, his better qualities make him hard to resist, and I want to read more of his adventures.

>151 dianeham: Thank you for your lovely wish, Diane. My nephew Andrew is 39 this year. Delivering him and marrying him were very gratifying to me.

38. To the Stars and Back by Camilla Isley

I listened to this by invitation from the author (mass emailing). It was terrible, featuring a sweet physics professor and a sweet Sexiest-Man magazine choice, who is a celebrity actor. He wins an Oscar at the end, by which time they are married. I don't read many contemporary Romance novels, because it is hard to find good ones among the dross.

39. Written in Red by Anne Bishop

I've just realized what is my favorite topic to read about in genre fiction, illustrated by this book. It is the out-of-control nature of a human life in close contact with the paranormal.

That sounds like a light read, but there was little that was light about this book. Like the best fairy tales, this book illustrates the complete vulnerability of humans encountering the Fae or otherkind, by which I mean banshees, vampires, ghosts, werewolves, gorgons, and Elementals, creatures who are neither Fae nor human. They have the power to overwhelm us, to to use us for their whim, as it seems to us. In truth, the Others do not value humans as we value each other, and their way of thinking so differently means that we can never anticipate their actions. The more so the Glamour, their ability to fool us completely, and for some of them, the ability to compel us to love and adore them without any wish or liking in us. People can be horrified and frightened of the Other, but still be entranced by them.

A woman seeking shelter after running from captivity takes a job as the liaison between a compound of Others and the human world. Since the compound is organized something like a portion of a town, with the human-occupied portion nearly adjacent, this takes the form of the post officer. She is to receive any shipments meant for anyone in the compound, sort their mail, and see to it that they receive it. She also handles the distribution of compound newsletters and official interdepartmental mail. In this case the departments are aggregates of one type of Other, for example the werewolves. There are stores and businesses owned by some members of the Others who purvey to the compound, and some to the humans nearby. There is even a gym patronized by both.

This woman, Meg, has limited knowledge of the world, and clearly knows some of it academically, but not from experience. She interacts well with both the Others and human deliverymen and mail carriers. She becomes friends with some of the Other businesswomen, like the librarian and the owner of the cafe, may meet them for coffee or for lunch, and once has a movie sleepover. She charms the elder statesman of the vampires, a creature who actually comes out of his tomb to meet her when she goes to the trouble to hand-deliver to him some old movies he has ordered. Old movies are the chief delight of his old age, and her thoughtfulness causes him to interact with her more than any other human in recent memory. Meg's tendency to even treat the Elementals like "Winter" as equals and valued customers, and potential friends, has charmed even them, and they are extremely dangerous when they have decided to be irritated. Meg brings Winter some library books she wanted directly to the frozen pond that is her haunt, because she has no way to call her to find out how the delivery is usually managed. Once again, her thoughtfulness manages to bridge the gap between Winter and her so that they can achieve a wholly unexpected species of attenuated friendship, something unique and original to this pair.

Of course, a climax must arrive. Meg turns out to be a "cassandre sangre", a woman who has visions of the future when her skin is cut, and she has escaped from slavery where she had been confined in an institute which sells her services and which cuts her over and over for her visions to be sold. She is herself an "Other", but does not know it, and she manages to make an alteration in the relations between the Others and the humans in her own town. They have flexed a little to let her into the group of people for whom they care, and this causes a slippery place of learning to allow well-meaning humans into their society.

Humans and Others work together to save members of both from a severe winter storm. Subsequently, some ill-meaning humans band together to kidnap Meg and return her to her former captors, all for a large cash payment. Unexpectedly, Elementals, Others, and humans work together to foil the plot and preserve Meg's freedom.

A little bit pollyana-ish in the climax, perhaps. (Why can't we all just be good to each other!), but none the less a fine work. The sense of danger from the Others is palpable, and the lack of cohesiveness of intention in the humans is a clear weak point. Meg has managed to confound many of both kinds of folk by her simple friendliness, and this is a little simplistic, as it seems to me.

The best thing here, perhaps, is the world-building. A world where humans exist only in tolerated enclaves, under the domination of the great strength and rapacity of the Others is different indeed from any world I have encountered before. I loved this, and I got from it that same feeling of terror, living on the edge of "Anything can happen!" as I did in childhood in a haunted house. This, I think, is the reason why I am so constantly intrigued by any vision of a human encountering what seems to be the whims of the supernatural, but with the added frisson of real danger really possible.

I really loved this, and I hope there are more about this world.

40. Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch

I love books on usage, grammar, and languages in general, and after hearing so much good about this book, I was all set to love it. But ... I didn't.

I found the first two or three chapters a little tedious, and I had to just work my way through, a little at a time. She defines some groups early on, groups which she felt were clear in their different ways of coming at computer use of language. That seemed worth doing, but while my husband and I fitted into the category of early adopters--not what she called them--her statements about the consequences of this didn't really seem to gel. We have seldom used the jargon that she points to as the type of language used by her early-use groups, and our kids, which fit into a different category of hers, didn't really seem to use the language she identified as likely to be theirs. I am quite accustomed to not fitting peoples' expectations of me, but this didn't seem to be right anyway.

As things moved on, I did enjoy this book more. The chapters on emojis and memes were enjoyable for me.

All in all, I believe I am happy that I made the effort to read this, but I didn't learn much. I enjoyed more of it than I didn't.

41. Shadows in Bronze by Lindsey Davis

This was the second book in the M. Didius Falco detective series. He is a detective in the first century in Rome. I enjoyed this one, too, but it wasn't as revelatory to me as the first one was. That one was so new to me, and so unlike other mysteries, that it woke me up. This one was more of the same, and not as much fun as the first, because there was more sadness in it. Additionally, it was hard to imagine development in his love affair, about which I really did care. He is unlikely to be successful in love, because his lady-love is so far above him socially, although she seems intent on making it work somehow. Pretty obviously, she doesn't know how that will happen, any more than he does.

This took place in a town that was eradicated by the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius. It was in the environs of Herculaneum, and not far from Pompeii. It seems there is a famous villa in the town which has been partially excavated in modern times. That part was very interesting, and I suppose it must have left some room for this author to imagine more.

I will certainly read yet another of this series, but this melancholy mood would not be fun to show up for many times.

42. The Valley So Low by Manly Wade Wellman

I don't read a lot of short stories, because I don't find them enjoyable. Any atmosphere engendered is quickly dispersed by the next story, and the net result is confused feelings.

This is an honored exception. Manly Wade Wellman was a well-known fantasist in an earlier time--an early to middle 20th century writer. His stories in this collection could easily be called horror, and I don't read much horror. But like the previous book, this book talks about that pear-shaped place where humans must encounter and manage the occult. Unlike the previous book, though, this features one of Manly Wade Wellman's hero characters. They are simple men, of simple virtue, and they have the knowledge and courage to handle encounters with evil Others. His heroes are well-known to fans of this era's fantasy--Silver John, a traveling balladeer and occult expert, Judge Pursuivant, the veteran of many occult encounters, and John Thunstone, a scholar of the occult.

The stories follow a general pattern. One of the heroes arrives in town, soliciting local stories of strange occurrences, or buys land that other people seem unwilling to buy. Each makes some friends or acquaintances in the area, and eventually goes to a site that has been identified as a problem for an occult expert. Here the hero encounters a malevolent spirit of some kind. He is able to vanquish it due to his piety, godliness, knowledge, courage and willingness to do this to save others or to cleanse an evil site.

A story outline may follow a pattern, but the stories seems to me quite individual. The heroes are different from each other, and although all the places are near the Appalachians, the places vary, too. I don't think this author won a World Fantasy Award for nothing--skill and creativity count.

This was stellar, and I highly recommend it.

43. Championship Ball by Clair Bee

This was book Two in the Chip Hilton series that I read as a child. If you are unfamiliar, Chip Hilton is a High School boy who plays football, basketball, and baseball for the high school team, Valley Falls. His family is saddened by the loss of the dad of the family, who was killed in a factory incident. He was a ceramicist--an engineer. Mom and son, Chip, struggle a little to make ends meet, and Chip has to work. He is a little bit serious about life because of it, but High School is important, and he makes every minute of his time count.

"Big Chip" was also a gifted athlete, a champion in three sports like his son. When I was young I learned everything I knew about those ball sports from these books. I was very far from being a gifted athlete, but I admired the way Chip was a straight guy with good ethics and morals. It was a very mid-20th century feel.

In this second book Chip is student manager of the basketball team. He is temporarily sidelined by an ankle injury, and can't play until baseball season. He make this work, though, and his hard work and fairness to all make him popular in this role, too. There is a crime to solve, as their often is in his books, and of course Chip figures out this as well.

These aren't great books, by any means, but I enjoyed them as a child, and it is pleasant to read them again.

Thank you all for your good wishes. Baby Andrew is now gaining weight. Thank goodness.

I’m glad to hear the baby is doing well, Sally. And look at all the reading you’ve done.

I'm so glad to hear the baby is doing well, Sally. You have been doing some reading.

I'm having a terrible time catching up reading other threads since I took a week off helping with the baby. Please forgive, I will get there eventually. Equally I am having trouble getting caught up here.

"It is maximally inconvenient for them to fall in love, and so they do.

Enjoyed catching up. I was so far behind. Certainly you are entirely forgiven for falling behind. Glad Andrew is doing well, after a tough time. Love you pictures and your hair. And, hope you find refuge from the blaring tv.

44. The Sweetest Fix by Tessa Bailey (ebook)

This was a contemporary romance, because I wasn't feeling well, and just wanted something completely undemanding. A dancer goes to New York for an important, hard-won audition with a famous dance company master. Travel problems make her miss her appointment, one she has waited for all her life. She determines that it is time to give her all for her art--and she decides to stay in New York, going to open casting calls and auditions, in the hopes of getting her break. In the meantime she remembers that the auteur has a son who owns a bakery in New York, and she makes a plan to go there and see whether she can scratch an opportunity.

As one might guess, she sees the baker, who happens to be shy and not good with strangers, and falls for him right away. He succumbs to the same feeling, and in their first conversation she forgets to bring up his father or her need of an introduction to him. Two weeks go by and the dancer fails to get a dance job. She knows her money will run out and she will have to go home. He offers her a place to live with him, but she declines, believing he will resent it in time. How it works out you might rather read for yourself.

A little better than average, with likable characters.

45. One of Our Own by Jane Haddam

I read someone's comments about this book, which is the last of a series about a detective of a sort, Gregor Demarkian, and her praise was enough to convince me to try it. Now that I love it I will want to go back and read them in order.

There is a mystery in this book, but it is not really "about" that. Instead, as the title implies, this is a book about inclusion and exclusion, and what belonging to an area or a neighborhood means. A woman falls, dying, out of the back of a van in Demarkian's neighborhood, encased in a trash bag. He is a man who worked for some time for the Behavioral Sciences Bureau of the FBI, and is as astute as that suggests. He also has an interest in both justice and mercy, something we don't always find in FBI agents.

I won't tell you much about the mystery or how it works out. I won't tell you how he draws out the natural history of "belonging". I will tell you that this book struck me as quite fine, almost as far as extraordinary. If you read any mysteries, try this.