Laytonwoman 's Spring Cleaning...um....READING Thread (Thread Two for 2017)

Hi! I'm Linda, a retired paralegal living in Northeastern Pennsylvania with my husband flamingrabbit (a retired broadcast engineer), and our sweet kitty, Molly O'Del, who we rescued from The Barn. Our daughter, lycomayflower, hangs around this group as well. In my first year of retirement (2016), I read 112 books, which is, as it should be, more than I read in any of the previous 10 years in which I was keeping track here on LT. This year, I'm on pace to exceed that total, but it was a reading kind of winter, and nicer weather should mean less time parked indoors, so we shall see. My goal is always to read more of the books I already own, and to acquire fewer books than I remove from the house. As you will see from subsequent posts where I keep track of that kind of thing, I'm rubbish at it. In June of 2016 I became a board member of the Scranton Public Library, so now I'm duty bound to attend ALL their book sales and bring stuff home, eh?
This is what the last one did for me:



I've been keeping track of my reading here on LT since 2007.
Here is a link to my last 2016 thread, from which you can navigate to all my previous reading threads back to the beginning, if you are that crazy.

Here I will keep track of my numbers for reading, RMOS, and culling.

Total Books Read: 75

Reading My Own Stuff: 26

Books Culled from the House: 91

EDIT: Tickers removed due to warning from my anti-virus software regarding TickerFactory.com

This one is for my completed reads for this quarter. My lists for January through March 2017 can be found here.

JULY

*54 Designated Daughters by Margaret Maron

JUNE

*53. Hide & Seek by Ian Rankin
52. Belzoni Dreams of Egypt by Jon Clinch ROOT
51. The Patch Boys by Jay Parini ROOT
*50. The Bellini Card by Jason Goodwin audio and print
49. Last Lessons of Summer by Margaret Maron
48. The Paris Wife by Paul McLain ROOT
*47. Debt to Pay by Reed Farrell Coleman

MAY

*46. The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin
45. Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy by Nicholas Reynolds NF
44. The Cool Cottontail by John Dudley Ball
*43. The Snake Stone by Jason Goodwin
42. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon ROOT
DNF The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
*41. Death in Blue Folders by Margaret Maron
40. The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell

APRIL

39. The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter by Sharyn McCrumb
38. If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O by Sharyn McCrumb
37. Scriptorium by Melissa Range AAC
36. Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood CAC
35. Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp ROOT
34. The Inextinguishable Symphony by Martin Goldsmith NF, ROOT

The Non-fiction Challenge for 2017 includes these categories:
(I will note my own choices here as I read them, in each month.)

January: Prizewinners {Non-fiction books that have won, or been short-listed for, any kind of literary prize.} Finished reading This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff

February: Voyages of Exploration
You define it. It can be a literal voyage (travel) or an imaginary voyage into one's own psyche. The key words here are exploration and voyage -- the book must have some kind of journey, real or rhetorical, toward some kind of goal.

March: Heroes and VillainsPeople you admire or people you hate. Or people others admire or hate, and that you're just curious about.
Finished Hellhound on His Trail by Hampton Sides

April: Hobbies, Pastimes and Passions
Currently reading The Smithsonian's Lords of the Air
Finished The Inextinguishable Symphony by Martin Goldsmith

May: History
Finished Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy by Nicholas Reynolds

June: The Natural World
Another holdover. Anything about rocks, logs, the sea, the air we breathe, what grows around us, animal life, etc. And the pollution of same...

July: Creators and Creativity
Rather than just a category about the arts, I've broadened this. So, writing, books about books would qualify.

August: I’ve Always Been Curious About….
A catch-all category. If the topic of the book can complete the sentence, you can add it to the challenge.

September: Gods, Demons and Spirits
Religion, spirituality of al kinds; read about the Salem witch trials or animism in West Africa if you want.

October: The World We Live In: Current Affairs
It will be a year after Brexit; a year after Trump's election. What does the world look like? What forces are driving us? Find a book about some of the themes and issues that are at the top of the news by then.

November: Science and Technology
Probably self-explanatory, another holdover.

December: Out of Your Comfort Zone
A nonfiction book that isn't something that you would normally gravitate to, about a subject you'd never normally read about, or that is a "book bullet" you'd never previously heard about from another LT reader.

American Authors Challenge

This is the line-up for the 2017 American Authors Challenge, which Our Man Mark msf59 will be hosting once more. I'm looking forward to all of it--yes, even Hemingway. I must be mellowing in my old age.

January-Octavia Butler Finished Kindred
February- Stewart O'Nan Finished The Night Country
March- William Styron gave Lie Down in Darkness a try; main character annoyed me in the first 50 pages (much as with Serena, I couldn't get past disliking the character to see where the story might be going). DNF
April- Poetry Month Scriptorium by Melissa Range; and A Private Mythology by May Sarton
May- Zora Neale Hurston
June- Sherman Alexie Read several selections from Ten Little Indians
July- James McBride
August- Patricia Highsmith
September- Short Story Month
October- Ann Patchett
November- Russell Banks
December- Ernest Hemingway

BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE for 2017; a themed challenge this time, and again hosted by the exemplary PaulCranswick

JANUARY : IRISH BRITONS - Elizabeth Bowen and Brian Moore I will be skipping the Irish Britons this month.
FEBRUARY : SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY -
Mary Stewart and Terry Pratchett Finished The Moon-Spinners

MARCH : A DECADE OF BRITISH NOVELS The 1960s -
With 10 Novels by Men and 10 Novels by Women to choose from I read the only title in my current library: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

APRIL: SOUTH YORKSHIRE AUTHORS :
A. S. Byatt and Bruce Chatwin Currently reading In Patagonia.

MAY : BEFORE QUEEN VICTORIA
10 Novels written prior to 1837 Probably skipping this category

JUNE : THE HISTORIANS (Historical Fiction / Historians)
Georgette Heyer & Simon Schama

JULY : SCOTTISH AUTHORS
D. E. Stevenson and R. L. Stevenson

AUGUST : BRITAIN BETWEEN THE WARS (Writers active 1918-1939)
Winifred Holtby & Robert Graves

SEPTEMBER : THE NEW MILLENNIUM (Great Books Since 2000)
A novel chosen from each year of the new century

OCTOBER : WELSH AUTHORS
Jo Walton & Roald Dahl

NOVEMBER : POET LAUREATES : British laureates, children's laureate, National Poets

DECEMBER : WILDCARD
Elizabeth Gaskell and Neil Gaiman

Canadian Authors Challenge
This is the challenge that challenges me the most, as it includes more authors I haven't previously heard of than the others. I didn't set the world on fire with it last year, and probably won't in 2017, but I am sure I will discover a few new authors thanks to Ilana's suggestions from this list:

January : Anne Michaels & Robertson Davies Finished Murther and Walking Spirits

February : Madeleine Thien & Rohinton Mistry Finished A Fine Balance

March : Anne Hebert & Alistair McLeod tried In the Shadow of the Wind, but did not care for it.

April : Margaret Atwood & Guy Vanderhaeghe
Finished Atwood's contribution to the Hogarth Shakespeare series, Hag-Seed

May : Louise Penny & Leonard Cohen Tried another of the Three Pines series, and decided not to go forward with it.

June : Heather O'Neill & Dan Vyleta Sampled Vyleta's The Quiet Twin, and if seemed to be going somewhere I had no desire to follow.

July : Carol Shields & Wayson Choy

August : Ruth Ozeki & Douglas Coupland

September : Lori Lansens & Steven Galloway

October : Alice Munro & Arthur Slade

November : Gil Adamson & Guy Gavriel Kay

December : Donna Morrisey & Wayne Johnston

Books acquired in 2017 (Trying to keep myself honest, here.)



January
1. Yashim Cooks Istanbul by Jason Goodwin
2. Jane Bowles: Collected Writings (LOA)
3. The Cat Who Rode Cows by Frances & Richard Lockridge
4. Darling of Misfortune by Richard Lockridge
5. The Weather in Africa by Martha Gellhorn
6. The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel
7. World War I and America Told by the Americans Who Lived It (LOA)
8. Death on the Aisle by Frances and Richard Lockridge
9. The Wish Tree by Kyo Maclear and Chris Turnham
10. The Gentle Lion and the Little Owlet by Alice Shirley
11. A Story for Bear by Dennis Haseley and Jim LaMarche
12. Joseph Banks: A Life by Patrick O'Brian (Folio)
13. Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne (Folio)
14. What Color is My World by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld
15. On the Shoulders of Giants by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld
16. The Night Gardener by The Fan Brothers
17. Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
18. The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
19. Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse
20. The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins

February

1. The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen
2. The Cool Cottontail by John Ball
3. Stoner by John Williams
4. Butcher's Crossing by John Williams
5. The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese
6. Mary McCarthy Novels & Stories 1942-1963 LOA
7. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (Everyman edition)
8. The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan

March

1. Author and Agent by Michael Kreyling
2. Embattled Freedom by Jim Remsen
3. New Boy by Tracy Chevalier
4. The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
5. If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O by Sharyn McCrumb
6. Novels 1963-1979 by Mary McCarthy
7. One Coffee With by Margaret Maron
8. Death of A Butterfly by Margaret Maron
9. Scriptorium by Melissa Range
10. The Norths Meet Murder by Frances and Richard Lockridge (new PB edition)
11. The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter by Sharyn McCrumb
12. The Gastronomical Me by M. F. K. Fisher (Folio Society edition)
13. Last Lessons of Summer by Margaret Maron
14. Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

April *big breath, and a "Hoooooboy!"*

1. Collected Poems by Philip Larkin
2. The Piano Maker by Kurt Palka
3. The Whistler by John Grisham
4. True at First Light by Ernest Hemingway
5. LaRose by Louise Erdrich
6. The Big Seven by Jim Harrison
7. Prayers the Devil Answers by Sharyn McCrumb
8. House of Earth by Woody Guthrie
9. Huck Out West by Robert Coover
10. Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy by Nicholas Reynolds
11. The Stonewall Brigade by James Robertson
12. The Passage by Justin Cronin
13. West Virginia: A History
14. Some Lie and Some Die by Ruth Rendell
15. A Sleeping Life by Ruth Rendell
16. Wild Swans by Jung Chang
17. The Tongues of Angels by Reynolds Price
18. Delta of Venus by Anais Nin
19. Writers' Reflections Upon First Reading Welty
20. The Odyssey by Homer (Word Cloud edition) Samuel Butler trans.
21. Death on the Aisle by Frances and Richard Lockridge.

May

1. Walt Kelly's Pogo; the Complete Dell Comics Vol. 4)
2. Our Land Before We Die by Jeff Guinn
3. A Wolf's Tale by Eva Montanari

June

1. The Loyal Son; The War in Ben Franklin's House by Daniel Mark Epstein
2. The March by E. L. Doctorow
3. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
4. Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson
5. The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks
6. Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich
7. Susan Sontag: The Later Essays (LOA)
8. Tennessee Williams, Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh by John Lahr
9. The Unquiet Grave by Sharyn McCrumb
10. The Great Swindle by Pierre LeMaitre
11. The Dry by Jane Harper
12. Hassan by James Elroy Flecker (Folio)
13. A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines (Folio)
14. Take Out by Margaret Maron

And the biggest challenge of all....books culled from the house so the people have a little room to move around.

Books culled in 2017



January:

1. Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan
2. My Dog Skip by Willie Morris
3. Life Goes to the Movies
4. Kindred by Octavia Butler

February:

1. Daughter of the Queen of Sheba by Jacki Lyden
2. Until I Find You by John Irving
3. What Color is My World by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
4. No Deals, Mr. Bond by John Gardner
5. The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman (old PB, replaced by LOA volume)
6. In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason
7. The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferre
8. Classic Slave Narratives ed. by Henry Louis Gates (PB replaced by LOA volume)
9. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
10. Christmas Mourning by Margaret Maron
11. The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
12.-26. Fifteen Dick Francis paperbacks
27. Trace by Patricia Cornwell
28. The Body Farm by Patricia Cornwell
29.-32. Four Jeffrey Deaver paperbacks
33.-36 Four Faye Kellerman paperbacks
37.-41. Five Jonathan Kellerman paperbacks

March:

1. Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes (PB copy replaced by LOA Harlem Renaissance volume)
2. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
3. The Quants (JCK)
4. Lightless by C. A. Higgins (JCK)
5. Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky (JCK)
6. Clapton by Eric Clapton (JCK)
7. The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce (replaced by LOA volume)

I've done fairly well with this in the first quarter. I see that I actually did remove more books than I acquired. I don't expect that to continue throughout the year, but I'll take a good start!

April:

1. To A Blossoming Pear Tree by James Wright
2. There Goes My Everything by Jason Sokol

May:

1. Best Evidence by David Lifton
2. The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
3. Sophia: Living and Loving by A. E. Hotchner
4. Townie: A Memoir by Andre Dubus III
5. Cataloochee by Wayne Caldwell

June:

1. Ian Fleming's Commandos by Nicholas Rankin
2.-5. Miscellaneous old math textbooks from attic clean-out
6. Possession and Exorcism
7. Hypnosis, Fact and Fiction by F. L. Marcuse
8. Romola by George Eliot
9. Last Lessons of Summer by Margaret Maron
10. Silicon Snake Oil by Clifford stoll
11. Supernature by Lyall Watson
12. Basic television Revised Second Edition Vol. 1-6
13. The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene
14. Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov
15. The Skeptic by Terry Teachout

well happy new thread. You hopefully will be better at culling than I am - my intake is exceeding my output again.

Happy New Thread, Linda. I'm with Ron - we keep adding bookshelves, but we're about out of space now.

Happy new thread, Linda.

I have no space for more shelves really and am panicking a little as to how I am going to get 8,000 books to the UK without bankrupting myself.

Happy new thread, Linda. Love your topper. I am currently in Montreal visiting my mum but I should be home by Friday and I am hoping my crocuses and snowdrops are in bloom by then! The green shoots were about 3 inches up when I left but showed no buds

Finally! I did not think you were ever going to stop hogging the space :)

Happy weekend, Linda!

Happy new thread, Linda. Looks like you are doing well with the reading and the culling but I notice that you don't have a ticker for acquisitions. Are you too scared to keep track?

Happy new thread, Linda. Nice haul from the book sale.

Another happy new thread!! You are cruising on the books this year. And just a few challenges I see. : )

Happy weekend.

Happy new thread, Linda! Great thread topper!

Happy new thread!

Welcome, welcome, all visitors. I didn't have time to fill in all my opening posts yesterday before we left for a family get together out of town. And today we're having brunch, and then attending a town hall meeting with one of our state senators, so you'll all have to be patient a while longer. I will mention that although I haven't made a ticker for my acquisitions, they are all itemized, along with my culls, and I'm pleased to see that I'm holding the line so far this year!

ETA: I did find a few minutes to finish bringing my data over from the last thread. SO it's all forward from here.

Happy new thread, Linda!

Happy new thread!

April is getting off to a bit of a slow start for me. I'm reading all the time, just not finishing anything. Very chuffed, though, as I sent a message to Margaret Maron through her website, and got a truly personal response back from her. I love it when authors turn out to be nice people who take time for their readers.

34. The Inextinguishable Symphony by Martin Goldsmith. Subtitled "A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany", this is the story of Goldsmith's parents, who as young musicians found employment, a tenuous safety, and each other, performing with the Jewish Kulturbund, the Nazis' highly regulated arts organization for Jews only, which existed from 1933 to 1942, for the purpose of showing the outside world that Germany was "treating its Jews well", and secondarily for giving the Jewish population a hard-to-resist outlet for artists, actors and other performers. This resulted in a false hope for "normalcy" among some of the intellectual community, and kept many from considering protest or emigration. Goldsmith's parents were lucky enough to plan their escape in time to make the necessary arrangements before all-out war in Europe closed off their options and the Final Solution went into high gear. His grandparents were not so fortunate. It's hard to remember while reading all this that, in spite of the openly anti-Semitic climate in Germany in the 1930's, no one could realize at the time how horrific the situation was going to become. Many German Jews never gave up hope that "this can't get any worse" until it did and it was too late to do anything to save themselves; others arranged to leave the country but were caught in the nets that spread into places they had assumed to be safe havens, such as France and Holland. It's a fascinating read, both uplifting and frightening.

35. Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp A light, relatively cozy read to cleanse my palate after spending time in pre-WWII Europe. Sharp never disappoints me, and I enjoyed reading the adventures of orphaned Cluny Brown, who was placed in "good service" with Lady Carmel in Devon after growing up in London. Someone was always asking Cluny "who do you think you are?", and naturally, by the end of this story, she has figured out the answer to her own satisfaction, if not necessarily to that of everyone else.

I especially enjoyed reading this book because I found it among my Aunt's "treasures" when I cleaned our her house before selling it a couple years ago. (She passed away in 2012, and I handle her surviving husband's affairs.) She was a sweetheart, who never had children of her own, but always maintained a child-like joie de vivre. This book was apparently a gift to her from her much older half brother and his wife as it is inscribed "To Madelyn Xmas 1948 From Horace and Kay". Aunt Madelyn would have been about 15 at the time. I have grave doubts as to whether she ever read it herself---I never knew her to read books as an adult, certainly. But she kept it. And now I have it. So it's, y'know, priceless.

>23 laytonwoman3rd: - This sounds like a good one, Linda. Good review! Is it a new book or an older one?

>25 jessibud2: The book was published in 2000, Shelley. I think I picked it up at a used book sale several years ago. I entered in into my catalog in 2009, but I didn't make note of where I got it. I'm trying to do better about that now!

Off topic but looking at your topper, those white ones are crocuses, right? I thought they were *safe* from squirrels. Mine are opening now but when I got home yesterday, 2 were broken off at the stem and just laying there on the ground. Who else to blame? The squirrels who visit my yard seem to have no enemies. I have tried everything: cat hair, red hot pepper, nothing seems to bother them. Sheesh

>23 laytonwoman3rd: I just got a copy of that one yesterday. I hope I enjoy it as much as you did, Linda.

>24 laytonwoman3rd: Love the story about your aunt! I am going to have to see if I can find a copy of Cluny Brown.

>27 jessibud2: Those are definitely crocuses. I haven't had any trouble with the squirrels (or anything else) bothering them. Something sometimes eats the tops off the hosta and the tulips that grow in the same bed, though. We have lots of squirrels, chipmunks, occasionally a rabbit or two, and I suppose the odd woodchuck, although I never have seen one of those in the yard.

>28 alcottacre: I hope you enjoy it too, Stasia. I was unaware of the existence of the Kulturbund before I found this book.

Happy New Thread, Linda!

The Inextinguishable Symphony by Martin Goldsmith looks excellent!
Adding it to my wish list.

Happy new thread, Linda!

See, I AM doing some spring cleaning as the un-edited thread title suggests: I have culled There Goes My Everything from my library, after sampling bits of it. I found it poorly organized with no narrative flow. I suspect it may have been a doctoral thesis expanded into a book. It has that "academic" feel to it. Unfortunate, as the subject matter is important, and I really think the author was on to something, positing that "the full dimensions of the civil rights movement can only be grasped if Southern whites...are incorporated into the master narrative." This resonates with current situations in the US too. But off it goes.

Good job with the spring cleaning, Linda.

Or just Happy Sunday!!

>35 DianaNL:, >36 Berly: Thank you! MIL cooked marvelous dinner and we're in a bit of a food coma now!

36. Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood. I've finished this entry in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, for Atwood is the Canadian Author of the Month in our CAC, and I got the book through the LT ER program, and owe a review. It's a hectic week, so not sure when the review will get written, but I will simply say now that I enjoyed the novel waaaaay more than I ever enjoyed The Tempest, which is the play it takes off from.

ETA: MY REVIEW!

Margaret Atwood has done a bang-up job of turning The Tempest into a novel, complete with a Shakespearean “play within the play”, which works amazingly well in her hands. In fact, I like her version of The Tempest much better than the Bard’s, all around. I studied the play in college, and have seen it performed live. It is not my favorite Shakespeare, by far. But Atwood brought me closer to an appreciation of the original with this modern re-telling, in which an arts festival director gets the back-stabbing treatment from his protégé, and determines to pull off the biggest and best “gotcha” anyone has ever seen.
Felix Phillips is already operating under the weight of loss as he throws himself into the production of his concept of The Tempest for the upcoming Makeshiweg Festival. His wife left him shortly after the birth of their daughter, Miranda, leaving Felix to care for, and fall hopelessly in love with, the newborn. Then, at age 3, Miranda died. The Tempest suddenly becomes his obsession, and he is oblivious to the plotting going on behind the scenes until he is abruptly handed his walking papers, his highly annotated script, the slightly bizarre Prospero costume he’s devised for himself, and told “Beat it, Felix; the Board has decided you’re not the man for us anymore”. The Festival will henceforth be directed by Tony, Felix’s treacherous and deceitful assistant. The Tempest production will be scrapped…in fact, Shakespeare will be abandoned in favor of musicals and comedies.
After disappearing from public view, living a marginal existence under an assumed name, and keeping company with the ghost of his daughter as she grows up in his mind, Felix at last gets the chance to set up the ultimate revenge. He has become involved in a drama program for inmates at Fletcher Correctional Facility, establishing himself as a fixture at the prison over the course of a dozen years, until he learns that one of the bastards who brought about his downfall (now the Justice Minister) has taken an unhealthy interest in the program, probably with an eye to eliminating it as part of his “tough on crime” agenda. And whadddya know, good old Tony is also in politics these days, and both men will attend the inmates’ annual production. Time to mount The Tempest, with a vengeful twist. It’s a lot of fun to watch Felix make Shakespeare relevant and appealing to hard cases with names like SnakeEye and HotWire. It’s even more fun to follow his brilliant plotting to kidnap government Ministers inside the walls of a maximum security prison, make them “see reason”, and turn them loose again, all under cover of darkness and drama, with no one else the wiser.

I like The Tempest a lot, Linda (one of my favorites of his), but I did enjoy Hag-Seed way more than I expected. Really good.

I loved Hag-Seed as well, Linda, but I did love the play, too. So far, this was my favorite Hogarth retelling.

37. Scriptorium by Melissa Range An excellent selection of poetry read for the AAC, where April is poetry month. An intriguing combination of Appalachian images and phrasing with medieval theology. A little inspiring, a little subversive, a little quirky. Many of these poems "spoke" to me. Thanks to the warblers who put me onto this book; it was an Early Reviewers selection, but not one that drew me to request it. I'm glad the group didn't let me miss out on this one.

38. If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O by Sharyn McCrumb In the small town of Hamelin in East Tennessee, plans are underway for the 20th reunion of the high school class of 1966. Sheriff Spencer Arrowood, his dispatcher Martha Ayers, and a few others remain in the old home town, but most of their classmates moved away. Gathering them back is stirring up memories that are not always pleasant---cliques and lost loves, boys who didn't make it back from Vietnam, and men who did. There have been the usual number of marriages and divorces, successes and failures, but not necessarily in the combinations that might have been predicted. And to complicate matters, someone is threatening a once-famous folksinger who has come to live quietly in Appalachia to try to write some new songs, and rejuvenate her career. At first the threats are subtle, and meaningful only to her, but they soon escalate in very ugly ways, culminating in the murder and mutilation of a local teenager. The music of the '60's, especially the folk music based on the Childe ballads, threads its way through the novel, cleverly informing the story line. This is the first of McCrumb's "ballad novels", and it was a dilly, with a nifty twist at the end that topped it all off. I've read a couple of these before, without realizing that they were a true series, with overlapping characters and all. I remember enjoying the others, but they didn't grab me the way this one did. I intend to re-read both of those, in order, as I proceed with the series; I suspect I'll like them better for that. McCrumb is promising to fill in the void that will be left when I've finished all of Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott novels, which strum the same reading chords for me.

My copy of Scriptorium came into land today Linda, I'm hoping to read it this week.

>42 laytonwoman3rd: - That sounds really good! I have one in this series - a much more recent one - but haven't read it yet. I did just now go and buy secondhand copies of the first two :)

>41 laytonwoman3rd: That sounds like a wish-list addition!

Silly me: it's already on the wish list. The same warblers who got you seem to have already gotten me, too, but I hadn't remembered that. *grins*

>45 EBT1002: LOL! That's the kind of thing I do all the time.

>44 katiekrug: Yeah, Katie. It was a page turner, and well put-together. I'm really looking forward to the next one, which I'm going to start....right now!

>43 Caroline_McElwee: I expect you'll enjoy it a lot, Caroline.

>41 laytonwoman3rd: Yay! I think Melissa Range is really talented, Linda. I'm glad Scriptorium worked so well for you.

Stopping in to say I, too, loved Hag-Seed -- the play-within-the-play was utterly delicious. Adored the various inmates and other characters. Have been devouring the Hogarth Shakespeare series. Just went back and caught the Winterson's The Gap of Time which started it all off. The only one I haven't liked was the Harold Jacobson My Name is Shylock, but Jacobson and I are estranged for now. I keep trying to like his writing but never can.

>47 jnwelch: A keeper, Joe.

>48 michigantrumpet: I've enjoyed all of the Hogarth series that I've read, too. Even Jacobson...a little. He and I aren't buddies either, but I do think he was the right choice for that play. Haven't read The Gap of Time yet, nor New Boy, which I got from the ER program.

Happy Friday!!

>50 Berly: Thanks, Kim. First day home after being on vacation for a week. I have serious catching-up to do around here, including updating my own thread. Finished another book, still need to review Hag-Seed...OH, and there might have been a few new acquisitions I need to catalog. Our traveling laptop has such good anti-virus protection it wouldn't let me connect to hotel wi-fi, and while we were at our daughter's, there just wasn't much time. Our home internet has been wonky for a few weeks, but I think my husband got it sorted with the provider today---a new modem is on its way to us. I hope I'll be able to rely on the connection not dropping out after that is installed. Let's see if it will allow me to load a photo of my library book sale haul now...

Looks like I am going to have to find a copy of Hag-Seed from somewhere!

Hi, Linda. Happy Friday. Hope you are doing well. I am glad you enjoyed Hag-Seed. I liked it a lot too. For some reason, Scriptorium didn't speak to me. I know you and Joe liked it, so I will blame my novice state.

>51 laytonwoman3rd: Nice book haul! I have Huck Out West saved on audio. It looks good.

39. The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter by Sharyn McCrumb This second installment in McCrumb's "ballad series" introduces a recurring character, Nora Bonesteel, a woman who is blessed or cursed with "the Sight", which tells her things she often would rather not know. A hideous family massacre, in which a teenager kills his parents, his little brother and then himself, brings Sheriff Arrowood and the pastor's wife, Laura Bruce, into the lives of the two surviving teenaged siblings. I had a few reservations about the set-up in this one, but the story played out well, and I know from prior reading of later entries in the series that Nora Bonesteel is a force to be reckoned with.

>52 alcottacre: Hunt it down, Stasia!

>53 msf59:, >54 msf59: Yeah, poetry is like that, Mark. So personal, even at its most universal. Tricky to recommend. I think I'll be getting to Huck Out West fairly soon...I'm intrigued.

>51 laytonwoman3rd: Impressive book haul, Linda! I hope your wifi treats you kindly.

>51 laytonwoman3rd: like that book haul Linda.

>57 Familyhistorian:, >58 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, ladies. Now tell me where they're all going to live!

>38 laytonwoman3rd: My review of Hag-Seed is finally posted.

40. The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell *sigh* I will have some fairly unkind things to say about this one shortly.

ETA: Samantha Whipple, purportedly the last living descendant of the Bronte clan, leaves Boston to attend Old College, Oxford (which, as near as I can determine, does not exist), after the death of her father. Tristan Whipple had been somewhat obsessed with his ancestry, the novels of the Bronte sisters, and their literary reputation. He was rivaled in this obsession by another scholar, Sir John Booker, who has dedicated much of his energy to finding lost artifacts and remnants of the "vast Bronte estate" which he believes have been purloined and scattered, or quite possibly hidden by the descendants for generations. Poor Samantha (and initially I did sympathize with her) has lived with this nonsense all her life, relishing her father's love and attention as he home-schooled her through her youth, but a bit underwhelmed by the whole 19th century intrigue, and quite through with Gothic novels, thankyouverymuch. Unfortunately, she has found it very difficult to escape her "famous name" and the periodic flare-up of media interest in that missing legacy. At Oxford she is assigned living quarters in a neglected tower (come ON), studies with a one-on-one tutor who is naturally a heart-throb in great need of soup (*groan*), and everyone she meets seems to instantly know who she is. Although she is 20 years old, she has the attitude of a spoiled, bored, self-absorbed 14 year old, and she never even begins to grow out of it. There's a mystery, there's a sort-of romance, there are secrets of the past revealed. The mystery is a fizzle, the romance is unbelievable and the secrets unremarkable. I didn't meet a likeable character until Samantha's mother appeared over half way through the novel, and turned out to be the only sensible person in it. As the end approached, I began to think Hunky Professor was going to turn out OK, show a little moral fiber (oops..."fibre"), do the Right Thing, but then the author committed her worst offense, and I almost displayed a fit of temper myself. Taking on the classics as the basis for modern fiction is tricky business, but if it's well done I can appreciate it, even when there are liberties. And the Brontes are not even great favorites of mine, so I'm not that picky. Nevertheless, this just did not work for me.

Hi Linda - Nice book haul.

You got me with the McCrumb and Scriptorium. Off to check to see if my library had a copy.

I enjoyed The Madwoman Upstairs - I think it hit me at just the right time.

>60 laytonwoman3rd: I'm eagerly awaiting you review!

My favorite McCrumb remains the wonderful and funny If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him.

>61 BLBera: You should buddy up with my daughter, Beth. She recommended the book to me, and is terribly disappointed in her mother!

>62 Matke: Oooh...there's a funny one? ETA: Ah, I see that's one of the Elizabeth McPherson series, which I haven't sampled yet. Looks like there is a lighter tone and more humor in those, going by the reviews I looked at. Pleasures yet to come!

Well, life would be boring if we all liked the same things, right?

>64 BLBera: So very true!

>60 laytonwoman3rd: smh

>66 lycomayflower: OK, I wasn't going to mention the rogue apostrophe on your thread, but now I just might.

>67 laytonwoman3rd: I'm sure I don't know *what* you're referring to.

41. Death in Blue Folders by Margaret Maron No. 3 in the Sigrid Harald series. Nifty story of a retiring lawyer who ends up shot dead in his office, surrounded by scattered and partially burned "special" files. He seems to have been engaging in some creative and selective blackmail, setting up a tidy retirement account off-shore. But which of those special clients finally decided enough was enough? I love how Maron reveals all the dirty little secrets and then lets her detective turn a blind eye to the harmless ones as she eliminates the victims as suspects. Until the last one, of course. This one ended with an unconventional bang, which I thought was mildly brilliant.

>60 laytonwoman3rd: Good to know about The Madwoman Upstairs - I was wavering the other day between buying and not. I chose the not, so I think I'm glad I did.

>69 laytonwoman3rd: Been meaning to read something by Margaret Maron one of these days.

>71 rretzler: Thanks, Robin! Good to see you here. Do try Margaret Maron. She's become a go-to author for me.

DNF The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George A half-hearted recommendation from lycomayflower, who gave it a go, didn't finish it, and told me I might like it. I didn't. I loved the set up---a middle aged man who lost the love of his life 20 years back now runs a floating bookshop on a barge in the Seine. He calls it the Literary Apothecary, and tries to sell books to his client based on their needs as he perceives them. Books as medicine...sure. But he carries it a bit far, getting too authoritarian about who should be allowed to read what, and then the plot takes a weird turn when he finally reads the letter his beloved left behind when she bolted. I was nearly half way through when I gave up; I'm not sure where the author was going as Jean Perdu (do you love it?) sailed his barge down the river in search of....something, but I wasn't enjoying the voyage.

>73 laytonwoman3rd: - I also wanted so much to like this one but did not - at all. The title, the premise, it all had potential but I just never felt any connection to the characters, who mostly felt one dimensional and phony. Oh well, win some, lose some

>73 laytonwoman3rd: Yes, Shelley, it disappointed me, and I kept reading longer than I might have out of hope it was going to get better.

>60 laytonwoman3rd: Full commentary on The Madwoman Upstairs now posted.

>76 laytonwoman3rd: smh

>77 lycomayflower: Come on...I finished it, didn't I? I tried, god knows. You can still love it. I'm fairly sure I love some romantic stuff that wouldn't suit you at all.

>78 laytonwoman3rd: *throws glass on the floor* Challenge accepted! Lay this romantic stuff on me.

Linda, I've read and enjoyed a number of McCrumb's Ballad novels, but not the first. It is on my list to read, and I really should get to it!

eta to add I actually have it on my shelf! Why have I not read this yet?

>79 lycomayflower: Gone With the Wind, to begin with.
>80 tymfos: Oh, a handy treat is in store for you!

I am always pleased when I stumble in here to see mother and daughter being so feisty!

Have a great weekend, Linda.

*Quietly shuffles in with a dust brush and tray, mumbling about perfectly good glasses gone to waste*

*makes Amber a tray with tea and a plate of cookies and wee scrumptious cakes for when she's done sweeping up*

>84 lycomayflower: Oh, lovely! It's so nice to be appreciated.

>60 laytonwoman3rd: Actually, your review now makes me a little more intrigued than I was before...

>73 laytonwoman3rd: hnnn, its in the pile, and may stay there. Thanks for taking a hit Linda.

>78 laytonwoman3rd: >79 lycomayflower: LOL. Loving your honest review of The Madwoman Upstairs and the resulting temper tantrum. I enjoyed the back and forth discussion of the Bronte books more than I did the characters doing the talking, but I was able to put that aside and I did enjoy the book. We'll see if I do even better with the new release of Mr Rochester, which I just ordered.

>88 Berly: I believe lycomayflower has succumbed to the temptation of Mr. Rochester as well.
>86 rretzler:, >87 Caroline_McElwee: If either of you read it, I will be most keen to hear your reaction. Friendly disagreement is so much more interesting that "Umhmmm....exactly what I thought".

>89 laytonwoman3rd: Can't really blame her though - even Jane Eyre couldn't evade the charms of Edward Rochester.

Have a great weekend, Linda.

>90 PaulCranswick: There's no accounting for taste!

>51 laytonwoman3rd: Great book haul. I see the delightful LaRose in there as well as a couple of Ruth Rendell's. I love her! I read some of her before I found LT and honestly, I'm not sure I know which ones I have read and which I have not. She is an author who I might have to explore and see if I can create some order regarding her oeuvre, maybe ambitiously think about trying to read it all.

I did finish The Little Paris Bookshop but found it wanting. The concept was so much better than the execution.

>92 EBT1002: I've read a few of Ruth Rendell's novels---2 of the Inspector Wexford series (No. 1 and No. 11!) and two stand-alones, which I actually liked better.--Heartstones and The Crocodile Bird. There's a good list here. Unfortunately these two Wexfords I just bought are No. 8 and No. 10, and I'm determined to read the series in order, so I need to track down several of the earlier ones.

There does seem to be a consensus about The Little Paris Bookshop, doesn't there? Too bad.

>93 laytonwoman3rd: just in case you didn't know Linda, Rendell also wrote as Barbara Vine, darker psychological crime novels. There was a great tv series of the Wexford books, with George Baker as Wexford. I've only read a few of the books, but like you, will probably read them all sometime.

I did know about Rendell's Barbara Vine pen name, Caroline. I have at least one of those, but haven't read it yet either!

>92 EBT1002:, >93 laytonwoman3rd: - Hehe. About The Little Paris Bookshop. Yep... ;-)

42. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon The setting is Barcelona, in the summer of 1945. A young boy, Daniel Sempere, is introduced by his father, a bookseller, to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a sanctuary for books "consigned to oblivion", "lost in time", no longer remembered by anyone but waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader's hands. Daniel is instructed to pick one book to preserve forever, and sworn to absolute secrecy about the existence of this amazing library. He chooses, completely at random (or so it seems) a novel entitled The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax, an author even his father has never heard of. The book grips Daniel's 10-year-old imagination, and once he finishes reading it he is determined to find all the other books Carax has written and read them immediately. This turns out to be an impossible quest, as no other books by this author can be found in any of the libraries or shops in the City. It is suggested that someone has been systematically collecting and destroying Carax's work for years. As Daniel pursues the mystery of what has become of books and author, he is drawn into a gothic tale that unfolds in an eerily familiar way...The Shadow of the Wind appears to have told the story of Carax's life, but the final chapters have not yet been written, and Daniel himself may be instrumental in bringing it to a close. As the years pass, Daniel meets a number of people who knew Julian Carax, and from their reminiscences he puts together the tale of the "ghostly odyssey in which the protagonist struggled to recover his lost youth, and in which the shadow of a cursed love slowly surfaced to haunt him until his last breath." Although this was Daniel's description of the novel's action, it perfectly describes Carax's life as well. Daniel also meets the demonic Inspector Fumero, one of the companions of Carax's youth, whose recurring presence in his own life never brings good fortune with it. The structure of this novel is challenging; the narrator changes frequently, as one after another of Carax's former friends and acquaintances fill in the bits of the tragedy they know. To quote Daniel again "As it unfolded, the structure of the story began to remind me of one of those Russian dolls that contain innumerable ever-smaller dolls within. Step by step the narrative split into a thousand stories, as if it had entered a gallery of mirrors, its identity fragmented into endless reflections." Yes...well...he warned me early on. But still, occasionally I lost track of who was "speaking", and I had some issues with the pacing of the novel. There were times when I felt I was pushing myself on, but I never lost interest in the Story. Most likely, I would enjoy a second reading more fully, and I might then give the book 4 stars, but for now, I'll settle on 3 1/2.

Oh, Linda. Shadow of the Wind is on my all-time favorite list. I found it haunting--and beautiful in a dark way--and I've never forgotten it. I agree that it has, er, difficult moments and some trouble with too many voices, but what a magnificent effort. I read Marina earlier this year. It takes place in Barcelona as well, but closer to the present. It's a simpler and less engrossing book, but well worth reading.

I do like some very odd books, I have to admit.

Hi, Linda. Good review of The Shadow of the Wind. Thumb. I loved this book, but it has been many years so it is hard to address your issues. Glad you are considering a reread. I know I would like to revisit it.

43. The Snake Stone by Jason Goodwin This is the second in Goodwin's series set in 19th century Istanbul. A visiting French archaeologist reveals that he thinks he knows the location of long-lost Byzantine treasures...the cup and plate being used at Mass when the Ottoman Turks entered Aya Sofia in the 15th century. (In the confusion, the priest and the relics, rumored to be those used at the Last Supper, disappeared.) Suddenly, people start turning up dead, and the archaeologist appears at our man Yashim's door, terrified, begging for help to leave the city at once. Yashim books passage for Dr. LeFevre on an Italian ship bound for Palermo, and sees him to the shuttle craft that will ferry him out to the ship. After the ship has sailed, however, a mutilated body identified as Dr. LeFevre turns up, and Yashim is noted to have been the last person to see him alive. Long attached to the royal household, Yashim knows he can look for no help from that quarter; Sultan Mahmut lies dying, and the future is uncertain at best. Yashim realizes he must find out for himself what happened to LeFevre, before the official report of the investigation into the death leads to his own arrest. Yashim's inquiries take him to many parts of the city, across the Golden Horn into Greek and Jewish neighborhoods, and even underground into the maze of ancient tunnels and cisterns providing water to Topkapi palace and the surrounding area. These books are great escapes...an intriguing main character caught up in a nifty story, wrapped in painless history lessons about an endlessly fascinating time and place.

I enjoyed The Crocodile Bird, as well, Linda. I also enjoyed another stand alone called A Sight For Sore Eyes. I read From Doon With Death earlier this year, and know I will keep going. I just need to find them.

I read The Shadow of the Wind a long time ago, and remember really liking it. But that is about the extent of my recollection. Your review brought much of it back.

>97 laytonwoman3rd: Book bullet!

I have to get back into reading more Rendell - I started the Wexford series years ago, but somehow dropped it and never picked it back up...perhaps because they were hard to find, and I like to read things in order.

>98 Matke: Thanks for the recommendation for Marina, Gail. I am definitely not done with Zafon. The farther I get from the reading of Shadow of the Wind, the more I'm sure I want to read more of him.
>99 msf59: I think I neglect re-reading, Mark. There are several books I know I ought to revisit, and a few more I just want to go back to because I enjoyed them so much.
>101 NanaCC:, >102 rretzler: I'm tending toward the stand-alones, because I do find Rendell's early Wexford books hard to find in the library, and I hate to read a series out of order too.

44. The Cool Cottontail by John Dudley Ball This is No. 2 in the Virgil Tibbs detective series. Until I picked up one of the later entries a year or so ago, I had no idea there was a series about the amazing Mr. Tibbs of In the Heat of the Night fame. I enjoy him as a character very much, but I quibble a bit with the author's handling. In this outing, Virgil is at home in Pasadena, where he is called upon to investigate the death of an unidentified man whose body turns up in the pool at a nudist park. The man is appropriately naked, but not a member of the club, and not recognized by anyone. Furthermore, he is obviously a "cottontail", i.e. someone whose untanned nether region betrays him as not a nudist. This set-up has a lot of potential, and Ball (who was a nudist himself, I understand) makes the most of it, introducing us to a lovely normal American family who rarely put on clothes. After facing the unmitigated racism of the Deep South in In the Heat of the Night, Virgil is on his home turf, wrestling to act natural in the presence of naked white women who aren't a bit bothered by his color or his gender---the irony is juicy indeed. Unfortunately most of the detecting goes on off the page, and the reader has no idea what Virgil is thinking, or even what leads he's following much of the time. He explains it all to us after the fact, so there's too much telling; I'd rather be shown. Still a worthwhile read for the social commentary.

I am another who liked Shadow of the Wind a little better than you did, Linda. I wouldn't put it into a top ten or even top twenty list of my favourites but I did like it quite a lot.

>1 laytonwoman3rd: love the new Iris (flag) at the top Linda.

>106 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. I haven't had a blossom on those in years and years, although the leaves come up every spring. I was thrilled to see this one.

>105 PaulCranswick: I haven't put it too far away, Paul. I do hope to re-read it one of these days.

45. Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy by Nicholas Reynolds. This is a fascinating take on Hemingway's political self, and Reynolds does a fine job of distilling the background needed to grasp where Papa was coming from at any given time from the Spanish Civil War through the Cold War without drowning the reader in detail. I've read a number of other biographies of Hemingway, and have always found his personal life more interesting than his fiction. This one may turn me back to the iconic novels I've brushed aside since my 20's, because now I feel I may "get" them better. I'm sure I'll still find them a bit too macho for my taste, but I've never been entirely comfortable with my attitude toward his work. The premise of WSSS is that Hemingway flirted with spying for Russia, even while he was doing some low-grade espionage in an unofficial capacity for the US. Although he was demonstrably never a communist, or even a sympathizer, he was fiercely anti-fascist, and believed for decades that the United States needed to have better relations with Russia for the good of Europe and North America. He was most definitely contacted by the NKVD (pre-cursor to the KGB) as a potential spy, and the FBI kept a file on him, without actively investigating him. These two facts weighed on Hemingway's mind in his later years, and fear of eventual consequences of his activities may have contributed to the paranoia he suffered before his suicide.

46. The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin This is an early novel from Toibin, whose rather quiet explorations of human interaction and emotion sort of sneak up and clobber you. Helen, a married woman with two small sons, learns that her brother Declan is desperately ill and has asked for her. When she arrives at the hospital in the company of her brother's friend, a stranger to her, she realizes the nature of Declan's illness, and what it means about his life. Declan is dying of AIDS-related complications; he is a gay man in Ireland in the 1990's, and has no permanent partner...just a good many loving and caring friends. Declan and Helen have been estranged from their mother and grandmother for years, (in fact her husband and children have never met her mother) but he insists that she must go inform their mother of his situation. Furthermore, he wants to spend time at their grandmother's home on the coast, where they were "abandoned" as children one summer while their father--unbeknownst to them at the time--was dying. In the course of a difficult few days, Helen shares stories with Declan's friends, Larry and Paul, who have been caring for him during his bad patches. She learns a good deal about them, about Declan's life, and of course, about herself. Eventually she and her mother are able to find some common ground in their love for Declan and their desire to help him. There are flashes of brilliant humor, both the wry and the raucous sort. There are also moments that unexpectedly knock the wind out of your chest and make your eyes a bit leaky. I loved it.

>109 laytonwoman3rd: whose rather quiet explorations of human interaction and emotion sort of sneak up and clobber you
I love that. I've only read The Master, but really enjoyed it for the same reason. I really must read more of his work and this looks like a good one.

>110 lauralkeet: I have read Brooklyn and The Testament of Mary. I wasn't greatly impressed with either of them upon reading them, but I have to admit they stayed with me, and I will continue to read his work. (I have The Master and Nora Webster in the TBR stacks. ) Looking back on those other two books after appreciating Blackwater Lightship so much, I feel I may not have been quite "getting" what he was doing before. And this is one of his earlier books, so he should have been better at it later, right? (I liked the movie version of Brooklyn quite a lot, and it made me think I might have short-changed the novel.)

>108 laytonwoman3rd: This sounds like a book I am going to have to read one day. I've been nibbling away at a Hemingway short story collection (Men Without Women) and there is definitely some muy macho going on. Even a story or two that I don't care for. But when Hem's good he is good and that's why I like his unique voice.

>111 laytonwoman3rd: I forgot I've seen the movie version of Brooklyn. It was lovely!

I loved The Master Linda, thought Nora Webster very good too, and read one other of his earlier novels. I've got his latest House of Names at the top of the tbr mountain.

I saw a very fine dramatisation of his novel The Testament of Mary.

He's also written a fine appreciation of Elizabeth Bishop.

>112 RBeffa: I think it's one you'll enjoy, Ron.
>113 lauralkeet: Wasn't it good?
>114 Caroline_McElwee: Since I liked the movie version of Brooklyn better than the book, I wonder if the same would be true of Testament of Mary. Was it a BBC production, Caroline?

47. Debt to Pay by Reed Farrel Coleman Well, I asked for it, I suppose. I grumbled in my review of the last Coleman outing, The Devil Wins, that he didn't follow up in any way on the terrifying loose end he left at the conclusion of the first Jesse Stone novel he wrote, Blind Spot. He made up for it here, but man, I did not like it. I'm going to get spoilery here, and I'm not going to hide it, so if you think you're going to read this novel, maybe don't read any more of my review. Or maybe better, if you love Jesse Stone, don't read this novel. I'm serious. Coleman has gone to places Parker would never have gone, and it isn't pretty. It looks to me like he means to discard just about everything that was distinctly Parker, and run his own Jesse Stone franchise without regard to the fundamentals. The only thing he seems to want to keep is Jesse's alcohol problem, and he's even changed the dynamics of that. The old Jesse never lied to himself about his addiction, nor to anyone else, really. Coleman preaches to us about how no drunk can be trusted not to lie to himself and deny he has a problem, and then he makes Jesse illustrate the sermon. This is not my Jesse Stone. What I loved about him was that he was not a typical drunk. He had a problem, he wrestled with it with varying degrees of success, we never expected him to completely lick it, but we were rooting for him. Coleman seems to want us not to care for his Jesse the way we cared for Parker's, and dammit, by the end of this novel I almost didn't. The story line here involves a sadistic killer who means to punish Jesse by hurting the people closest to him, starting with ex-wife Jenn, whose upcoming wedding is the perfect opportunity for revenge. I did not enjoy watching this psychopath torture and kill, and I felt Coleman was doing much the same thing to Parker's loyal readers--every time I saw a bad thing coming, and said "Oh, don't do that to him/her", he did it. Coleman has pretty much ignored Dix, one of my favorite characters, and implies that Jesse doesn't intend to see him anymore. He has eliminated Gino Fish (and I wonder how Ace Atkins is going to deal with that in the Spenser series he's writing). He gets Luther shot again. He has given Jesse a new love, who was introduced a book ago, was mostly absent from the last one, but now turns up here as if their relationship has been going on and heating up behind our backs. She is a match for Jesse in almost every way, but Coleman senselessly kills her off, and leaves Jesse in guilt-ridden stuporous misery on the last page. I hate to give up Jesse, but I'm done with Coleman. I give the novel one star, only because I did think the Gino Fish episode rang true, and it happened early in the book, before the extent of the authorial treachery became apparent.

>116 laytonwoman3rd: Oh, gross. Sorry Jesse has been wrecked for you. (I hate. it. when a show or book series does the "serial killer/sadistic bad guy who succeeds in doing awful things to the main's loved ones" thing. It is *never* entertaing.)

>115 laytonwoman3rd: It was on the stage Linda. Hmmm, not sure how they would have achieved it on screen. It had quite a physical impact.

>117 lycomayflower: Absolutely true. That's why I stopped reading the Alex Grecian books. I liked them at first, but then it became clear the main character's pregnant wife was going to be the target of a madman, and I said "NOPE, not going along for that ride". Putting the protagonist's nearest and dearest in jeopardy is a cheap trick, and I hate it, even when the really bad thing doesn't actually happen.

>118 Caroline_McElwee: Ah. Well, I would give it a chance if the opportunity ever presents itself.

I went to a library book sale today, and was fairly restrained. I only bought 5 books. (The one on the bottom is an ER win that just arrived today.)

I loved that Doctorow title. Excellent historical fiction.

Nice haul Linda.

Oh, nice haul!

>122 katiekrug: It's funny, Katie. I almost didn't take that one, because I was fairly sure I'd already read it. If I did, it must have been shortly after it was published, in 2005, before I was keeping track of my reading here (I started that in 2007). At any rate, it definitely wasn't in my library before, and Doctorow is a favorite, so I'm good with this purchase!

>123 Caroline_McElwee:, >124 scaifea: A small one, but every book in it was an "Ooooh!" find for me.

The ER selection, The Loyal Son, is about the contentious relationship of Ben Franklin with his illegitimate son William, who outshone him in London Society, supported the Crown during the American Revolution, and was ultimately jailed for treason by the Continental Congress. (Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.)

I read "The March" about a year and a half ago. I'll be very interested in your reaction to it.

Hmm, I'm not familiar with that Kate Atkinson. Must investigate.

>127 lauralkeet: No, I had never heard of it either. It's an early one, and doesn't get great reviews, but it looks like she might have been flirting with what she did in Life After Life.

>126 RBeffa: I'm sure I read your review, Ron, but I won't go back to it now, until I have read the book myself.

>97 laytonwoman3rd: shadow of the wind is one I'm going to try again. I've been to Barcelona and tried reading it both before and then after my trip but just could not get into it. I too had difficulty with the pacing and the voice. I'm determined to try one more time, but probably not just yet.

>129 tututhefirst: It's funny how some books draw you back, even though you didn't get caught up in them the first time. I trust that instinct, as it has led me more than once to enjoy a book I had previously set aside.

48. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain I think reading Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy made me finally get around to this novel. Well-written, but oh, so sad, this is the story of Ernest Hemingway's first marriage as told by Hadley herself, and I loved her voice. Even knowing it was all going to come to grief, I was rooting for Hadley and Ernest in their early years. I could feel her attraction to his charm and good looks; the yearning for love fed by his attention. And she was "right" for him then. Her unwavering support and encouragement, her willingness to put his needs ahead of her own gave him freedom to write. Together they were "the same guy", and inspired their friends to believe they did marriage like nobody else, that they were "tethered to something higher" that made them indestructible. Hadley was a woman slightly out-of-time, surrounded by early feminists, yet clinging to her own more traditional take on marriage and determined not to turn into the kind of woman who ruled the household "with iron fists", like her mother and Ernest's had done. Although she never quite fit in with Hemingway's hard-drinking free-loving crowd, she held her own among them, and she did make fast friends there. Ultimately she sparked more loyalty among them than he did, precisely because true loyalty meant something to her that her platinum plated bastard of a husband could never quite grasp. In the end, she rose above the dual betrayal by Ernest and their friend Pauline, finding the strength to learn who she was and what she could bear. Despite a loss that she would never stop feeling, she made a new life for herself and faded into the background of his, where she became "just the early wife, the Paris wife" of the "most important writer of his generation".

>131 laytonwoman3rd: Oh gosh, you may make me finally read The Paris Wife after that wonderful review. I know Hem was a jerk, a terrible ass about it all and i need to face up to it.

>131 laytonwoman3rd: I really enjoyed that novel too Linda. Added to because I have wandered the part of Paris they lived in, so I could really visualise it.

>132 RBeffa: I recommend it, Ron. I feel I've known a couple men like Hemingway, and never understood his appeal to women because I have no patience with that particular brand of "manhood" based mostly on bluff. Seeing him young, through Hadley's eyes, gave me a little sympathy for the man he could have been.

>133 Caroline_McElwee: Paris really is a character in the book, isn't it, Caroline?

Nice book haul! Well, actually, any book haul is a nice one. : ) I have only read Death of a Salesman, but I love Atkinson and Erdrich, so I'll look for your reviews.

>135 Berly: "any book haul is a nice one" My sentiments, exactly, Kim!

Linda, just stopping by to say Hello!

49. Last Lessons of Summer by Margaret Maron Pure indulgence, read in two sittings, some of it on the front porch. This is a stand-alone novel, but a couple familiar characters do appear. Amy Steadman, principal heir to her grandparents' fortune, which includes controlling interest in the family publishing/marketing business, heads for North Carolina to clear out her grandmother's house before selling the highly desireable chunk of land it sits on. Her local family members have been eager for this sale, as they all own adjacent properties that will be included and they all have plans for "when the money comes through", but Grandmother was a hold-out. Now, she's dead, and it looks like murder. Complicating matters further, this house is where Amy's mother supposedly shot herself when Amy was just 3 years old. Amy has no memory of the event, nor even of her mother, so she's asking a lot of questions, trying to fill in a missing hunk of her past, but the answers don't add up. Above average, page-turning escapism.

>138 laytonwoman3rd: Nothing at all wrong with indulgence, Linda. xx

A long overdue visit here. You got me with a couple of book bullets, notably "The Hagseed". The Tempest is one of my favourite plays by the Bard.

>138 laytonwoman3rd: Every time you post a review of a Maron book, I keep wondering why I haven't started. No excuses, I have the first book. (Thank you!). This summer for sure.

Hey! The Paris Wife. I have it. My wife read it and liked it. So I should read it. After completing The Underground Railroad and then breezing through Tree of Smoke, which I'll be reading with Mark-eMark. Hooo hoo. Good things happen when I read your thread, Linda.

>142 weird_O: Why, thank you Bill. I've noticed a similar effect from visiting yours.

>141 NanaCC: What ARE you waiting for? She's a sure thing.

>140 tiffin: Wonderful to have you drop by, Tui. I hope you get your hands on Hag-Seed. And I hope it doesn't jangle your wires because you love the original. I thought I got a kick out of it partly because I don't. Please share when you get a chance to read it.

>139 PaulCranswick: I may have to quote you on that, Paul!

I've only read the first 60 pages of Paris Wife and I'm liking it a lot. A real love story. I hadn't realized this happened quite so close to Ernest's broken heart from nurse Agnes in WWI.

I finished The Underground Railroad and started The Paris Wife. Ron's way ahead of me, but I'm impressed with McLain's writing so far.

>144 RBeffa:, >145 weird_O: I'm loving the fact that both of you are reading and enjoying The Paris Wife. I'll be looking out for your final reports.

Hi! Have to get my hands on The underground Railroad. Looking forward to it.

>147 Berly: I hope to get to it this summer, Kim.

50. The Bellini Card by Jason Goodwin Narrated by Stephen Hoye.
The cover says "Investigator Yashim goes to Venice." Well, he does eventually, but for nearly half of the book he isn't in it much at all. His friend, Palewski, former Polish Ambassador to the Ottoman Court, goes to Venice in Yashim's place on a mission for the new young sultan, searching for a painting which may or may not exist. I couldn't seem to get caught up in this story. This often happens to me in Venice--I don't think I'd like it there, and am not susceptible to its intrigue. Much of the time I found myself zoning out, but it didn't seem I ever missed much of consequence. Lengthy descriptions of fencing in the sport's unfamiliar lingo left me bewildered. The segments involving the Venetian police didn't have much bearing on the story, as far as I could tell. I think there was too much book for the amount of story here. And the narration sometimes distracted me. I understand the need to distinguish character's voices on audio, but I think there's something fundamentally wrong with using stereotypical accents to accomplish that. All of the narrator's Italian accents struck me as cheesy; his women always sounded whiny, even when they were threatening someone at sword-point; and then there was that beggar who sounded like Stanley Holloway's Alfred P. Doolittle. Hoye also tended to be melodramatic with dialog, especially with the Venetian characters. He did better when the story line took us back to Istanbul, as did I. I don't think it was entirely the fault of the narrator that this book did not captivate me as the first two Yashim adventures did. I took a print copy out of the library so I could look back to see if I had missed things while listening, and I read the last third from the page. I didn't care for the setting; parts of the story were overdone, tedious, or even pointless; there was too much Palewski and not enough Yashim. The foodie bits were wonderful, though. I'll give this series a rest for a while now, but I will continue.

>146 laytonwoman3rd: Well I finished up Paris Wife a little while ago - I stretched it out a bit towards the end, and found myself constantly looking things up on the net and re-reading at least half of A Moveable Feast along the way. The two books work very well together. As you warned and as I feared, Hemingway does not come off well here and I was a little saddened that his jerkiness was evident so early. I guess he was always damaged, esp by the war. For a while the two of them healed each other. Hemingway didn't deserve a girl as good as Hadley, but he also gave her a way to escape from the unsatisfying life she had.

I'm not sure I can add anything to what you and others have written about the book. It is a very good one, one of those rare books where I feel like I lived in it and really got to have a true sense of the people. Some books you forget - I won't forget this one. I'm going to be reading more. It might be logical to start with The Sun Also Rises, which is almost where Paris Wife ends - I read that many decades ago and have wanted to re-read it, although I don't remember it as a favorite at all. But I think I will be reading other Hem related stuff before that.

I was reminded of the song that Mary Chapin Carpenter wrote about Hadley some years ago - you can check youtube for "Mrs. Hemingway."

>150 RBeffa: Great comments on The Paris Wife, Ron. I let this one languish on my shelf for so long, I was nervous about reading it at last, but I was not disappointed. And, like you, I intend to read more Hemingway now with fresh (albeit older) eyes. I'll go check out the Mary Chapin Carpenter song when there aren't roofers thundering away above my head!

51. The Patch Boys by Jay Parini This book has been on my shelf for close to 30 years. I'm sure I discovered it in a local bookstore when it came out, bought it because it was set in my "patch" of NE Pennsylvania, and that it was the first I had heard of Jay Parini, who I now consider one of the finest Americans writing today. I would swear that I read The Patch Boys immediately after buying it, because that's what I did in those long-ago, pre-LT, days. Buy a book and read it. I didn't have massive TBR piles yet then. But having just finished it this morning, I find that not one word or scene rang any bells with me. *sigh*

It's the summer of 1925 in the anthracite region of Northeastern Pennsylvania, and 15-year-old Sam di Cantini is looking forward to long days of swimming in the river with his friend Will, camping out as often as his mother will stand for it, and maybe making some time with Ellie Maynard, daughter of the high school principal. His uncle and older brother Vincenzo work down the mines, but Sammy has plans to finish school, leave home, and maybe become the first boy from the patch to go to college. His mother approves; with two men in the household working, a house owned free and clear, and a son "in business" in New York who occasionally sends money, the dream has legs. But since their father's death in a mine cave-in, Vincenzo has become an agitator for better working conditions and more safety regulations in the mines, and the summer begins heating up in more ways than one. This novel has some very minor first novel issues, but Parini's roots in the region lend credibility to the setting, Sammy is a very sympathetic protagonist, and the writing is lovely, often verging on the poetic. I loved this book, and highly recommend it. It was named a 1986 Best Book for Young Adults by the Young Adults Services Division of the ALA. Fair warning, however, it contains a good bit of profanity and adolescent sex talk.

52. Belzoni Dreams of Egypt by Jon Clinch Jon Clinch continues to astound me. This book is so different from Finn and Kings of the Earth, both of which I loved. And yet I loved this one too. Clinch is on Facebook, and in response to a comment I made there, he called Belzoni his "silly novel". Well, it isn't silly, but it is certainly more light-hearted than the other two, and there is much in it to chuckle at. I'd love to see it made into a movie, à la Indiana Jones, or Romancing the Stone. Clinch has taken much of the substance of what is known of the actual man Giovanni Battista Belzoni's life, and turned it into a fictionalized autobiographical account from the deathbed. Belzoni was a very large man, with strength and resourcefulness to spare; his interests included hydraulics and Egyptian archeology, and he made his mark in the world in both fields, in reality doing what we would probably call grave-robbing today. He "gave the world" the 7-ton head of Ramesses II, the way Lord Elgin "gave the world" those marvelous Grecian marbles. He also performed in circuses, traveled throughout Europe, married a remarkable woman, wrote about and exhibited his findings, and attempted to travel to Timbuktu. Unfortunately, he died along the way, perhaps of natural causes, perhaps of foul play as suggested by Sir Richard Burton. I was only vaguely aware of Belzoni before reading this novel, but Clinch has made him an irresistible personality, if one whose narration of his own life we might suspect to be somewhat unreliable. Highly recommended.

>153 laytonwoman3rd: I really enjoy your enthusiastic reviews! You must have mentioned this writer before, because I've had him in the back of my mind to watch for. Our local library has Finn on the shelf (I just checked online) and Kings of the Earth is in the system so I could request it. If I wasn't being so insistent with myself about trying to focus on books off my shelf I'd go grab Finn this weekend. I won't forget him and the Belzoni book sounds great.

>154 RBeffa: Don't miss out on Finn, above all, Ron. I suspect that if you read that one, you won't need further encouragement to seek out the rest of his work.

>155 laytonwoman3rd: Linda's enthusiastic ravings got me to read Finn, and it really was excellent.

I am impressed with all the reading you are doing in your retirement. I have a yaeer and 1/2 to go. I'd like to retire now, but 1) after 32 years in academia i am finally making a very good salary 2) The benefits are incredible and 3) I like what I do. The flip side 1) I would like to have more energy 2) I would love to be able to sleep longer each day 3) I need health care and prescription plan.

Kate Atkinson is fabulous. The PI, Jackson Brodie, in her earlier books (sort of a series of three or four books) is captivating -- worthy of a Fan Club. BBC did a short series too, which was pretty good. The two Life books are my least favourite of hers.

>158 sibylline: I've read all the Jackson Brodie books, Lucy, and I wish there were more of them. I saw some of the series too, but I think I may have missed a bit. I should revisit that. I really enjoyed Amanda Abbington's Louise Munroe in the show...loved seeing her again in Sherlock too until it went slightly off the rails for me. (What I think of Jason Isaacs should go without saying!)

>157 Whisper1: Hang in there, Linda. Retirement is lovely, but as long as you enjoy your job and it's compensating you well, you're way ahead of many people on the planet!

The Patch Boys sounds interesting.

>97 laytonwoman3rd: Most likely, I would enjoy a second reading more fully, and I might then give the book 4 stars, but for now, I'll settle on 3 1/2.

>129 tututhefirst: shadow of the wind is one I'm going to try again.

If you ever decide to do a second reading of The Shadow of the Wind, I heartily recommend the audio version. I absolutely loved it.

>160 tymfos: Patch Boys gets a pretty strong recommendation from me, Terri.

53. Hide & Seek by Ian Rankin This is Rankin's second John Rebus novel. I read Knots & Crosses years ago, probably near the time I joined this group, because I do remember someone in it put me on to the series. I guess I wasn't enormously impressed at the time, as it took me so long to get to another, and while I read through this one quickly, it didn't make me love either Rebus or Rankin. The Edinburgh setting is interesting, and Rebus is complicated enough, but I felt like the story lacked something. A young man is found dead of an apparent overdose in a squalid empty house where homeless and hopeless users often crash. But it turns out he had injected himself with adulterated heroin---someone wanted him dead. His last words send Rebus on the hunt for reasons and the elusive "Hyde" who may have been responsible. Just a bit overly grim and depressing---and then the author did the unforgivable by dismissing a whole cart-load of investigation with a "that's not where this is going" wave. I really hate that...not just misdirection, but more like he changed his mind about what really happened, and didn't bother to edit the story to accommodate that. I'll probably let Rebus go rest in the back of my mind with Alex Grecian's Walter Day, and possibly even Ian Rutledge, who I may give another chance.

I've read the first 4 Inspector Rebus books and haven't been "enormously impressed," but Colleen (NanaCC) has read tons of them and says they get better. I agree with the issues you had with it, and I also tired of Rebus (who is supposedly geeky and unattractive) always bedding some woman he meets in the course of the investigation. Blech.

So I dunno; it's a low priority in my series reading.

>163 lauralkeet: I think reading some of Colleen's recent reviews is what made me seek out the second Rebus at the library, Laura. Didn't she tear through several of them just recently? He didn't hook up with any woman in this outing, although he came close, and a fairly young girl latched onto him in a way that he could have taken advantage of. He just isn't all there for me. I understand that it takes an author a while to flesh out a recurring character, but I usually find something appealing in the first or second book in a series that makes me want to follow along with that process, and here, I don't see it.

I get that, Linda!

I understand your reservations, Linda, and he just may not click for you. I believe it was Lois (Avaland) who turned me on to this series when I first joined LT. The first couple were ok for me, but I felt that they kept getting better. I like his partner Siobhan. She adds a bit of a steadying hand. I can't remember when she showed up. Was she in the early books?

>166 NanaCC: were your ears burning, Colleen? :)

Siobhan is not in the first four books ... or wait, maybe she turns up in the fourth book but is not Rebus' partner yet.

>167 lauralkeet: Must have been, Laura. :-)

I do lurk a lot without commenting, but wanted to chime in here. We don't all like the same books, and that's ok. In the 17th book, Rebus is set to retire, and he isn't happy about it. Rankin started another series (Malcom Fox), with a very straight by-the-book detective in a department called The Complaints - they would be called internal affairs here in the states. The first two are called The Complaints and The Impossible Dead. I'm not sure if Rankin's plan was to completely retire Rebus and start a new separate series, but the 18th Rebus book is also the 3rd Malcom Fox book. The combination of the two is quite good, as these two guys are polar opposites. Who will influence who?

>167 lauralkeet: "were your ears burning, Colleen? :) " Exactly what I thought when I saw on the feed that Colleen had posted on my thread, Laura!

>168 NanaCC: I remember that discussion about Malcom Fox, and the new direction Rankin might be going in, Colleen. And I'm pretty sure it was Lois who got me started on Rebus too. It sounds like what you're telling me is the Rankin may have resolved some of my issues---apparent lack of character development and back-story, the things that keep me reading a series as much as the main storyline itself--as he wrote more books. That being the case, I won't write him off completely just yet. This is why I love discussions here. "They get better", coming from a trusted reader, means a lot.

>169 laytonwoman3rd: I won't write him off completely just yet. This is why I love discussions here. "They get better", coming from a trusted reader, means a lot.
Yeah, me too. I haven't completely written him off either, thanks to Colleen. I just haven't gotten around to trying another.

>169 laytonwoman3rd: I need to get back to reading Ian Rankin. I read the first ten or so of the Rebus series and have most of the remainder on the shelves scowling out at me for my lack of due and proper attention.

>171 PaulCranswick: "the first ten or so of the Rebus series " Yikes! You made me go look to see how many there are...21. Good news if I decide I do love them.

54. Designated Daughters by Margaret Maron Deborah Knott, family and friends, are called to the hospice bedside of her father's sister, Rachel, who has begun talking a blue streak. As they gather round to listen one last time to her sweet voice, they hear some puzzling scraps of ancient history, some of which imply secrets long buried. Which of those secrets gets the already-dying woman smothered with a pillow? There's the usual fun with family, wisdom from the bench and lots of red herrings. And, as always, Deborah is not about to let either political expediency or the Code of Ethics stop her from doing the right thing.

It's July, so it must be time to start a new thread for the third quarter. Let's see what I can do about that.

>174 laytonwoman3rd: Oh, good. I gotta go mow. I'll look for your new thread when I get back inside.

Whoopee!

>175 weird_O: Sorry Bill---still working on it!

OK...ready for visitors in the new back yard----follow the continuation link and come on over!