Helenliz turns 50 pages

It's no good, I can resist no longer. My idea has formed and my thread is up.

I'm Helen and I'm a quality manager in a small firm that makes inhaler devices for delivery of drugs to the lung. And in 2022 I turn 50. Gulp. That's a nasty shock to the system I can tell you. I don't feel how I think 50 feels (well apart from sometimes when I feel about 150). I'm not sure what to do about turning 50, whether to go all out and embrace it, or ignore it and hope it goes away. Probably the latter...

This year's challenge is taken from other things that were newsworthy, for some reason or another, in 1972. Or they simply happened in 1972, when I got a bit stuck.

The challenge categories have had a bit of a streamline, with a few low counting categories removed and a new one just for 2022 added. I intend to try and read a book from each decade and from as many different years I've been alive as I can in 2022. So this will be fun, I wonder if they've all aged as well as I have (no laughing in the back there).

Currently Reading


Currently reading
Ariadne
Bridget Jones's Diary (audio)

Loans: To try and keep track of the library books I've got out.
Library books on loan:
Demelza
Matrix
The Plague
The Black Prince
✔️The Short, the Long and the Tall (audio)
Ariadne
The Sea, The Sea
The White Tiger
Elizabeth is Missing

Borrowed from Cathy

Book subscriptions: To try and make sure I don't fall tooooo far behind
Tyll (MrB's May)
Winter Flowers (Pierene Press)
Outlandish (MrB's September)
Unwell Women (MrB's October)
Cloud Cuckoo Land (MrB's November)
Conjure Women (MrB's December)

Book Bullets Who got me, with what, things I want to try and find at some point.
✔️A is for Arsenic (Mamie got me with this one)
Love and Other Thought Experiments (The radio & Caroline)
The Man Who Walked Through Walls (Pam)
Death walks in Eastrepps (Liz - and it's one I can get a copy of!)
Why We Sleep (Jackie_K)
The Great Typo Hunt (Cindy)
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Stacy)
Cain (Annamorphic)
I will never see the world again (Charlotte)
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill (Charlotte - again).
Whitefly (DeltaQueen)
Wakenhyrst (Susan) (again)
Play It Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible JackieK
Your life in my hands JackieK (again she's got me with the non-fiction)
A Jury of her Peers (Liz - and this one's not in the library - or at least not the short story)
The Seventh Cross, (Charlotte - a prolific bulleteer!)
Rummage: A History of the Things We Have Reused, Recycled and Refused to Let Go by Emily Cockayne (another hit by Susan)
From Crime to Crime by Richard Henriques (Deadeye Susan) (check title)
Life in a Medieval Village (Tess because it's local)
Endell Street (Susan)
What is not your is not yours (Elizabeth M)
The Dictionary of Lost Words (Richard D)
Light Perpetual (Susan)
A Fatal thing happened on the way to the forum (rabbitprincess amongst others)
Migrations (Caroline)
The eternal audience of one (Richard D)
How Iceland changed the world (RP)
The Echo Wife (RidgewayGirl)
The Fell (Caroline, after she caught me with Moss' previous novel)
56 Days (Richard D)

The List

January
1. Murray Walker Incredible!, Maurice Hamilton, ***
2. To Serve Them All My Days, RF Delderfield, ***
3. The Chalk Pit, Elly Griffiths, **.5
4. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, ****
5. The Girl in the Train, Agatha Christie, ****
6. The Affair at the Victory Ball, Agatha Christie, ***
7. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe, ***
8. The House at Pooh Corner, AA Milne, *****
9. The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, Ken Liu, ****
10. The Incredible Theft, Agatha Christie, ***
11. Romeo & Juliet, William Shakespeare, ***
12. Hamlet, William Shakespeare, ****
13. Royal Escape, Georgette Heyer, ***

February
14. Macbeth, William Shakespeare, ***1/2
15. Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare, ****
16. Black Mamba Boy, Nadifa Mohammed, **
17. The Color Purple, Alice Walker, ****
18. The Winter of the Lions, Jan Costin Wagner, ***
19. Mythos, Stephen Fry, ***
20. A is for Arsenic, Kathryn Harkup, ****
21. Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp, *****

March
22. Richard III, William Shakespeare, ***
23. Revolting Rhymes, Roald Dahl, *****
24. Dirty Beasts, Roald Dahl, ****
25. Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan, ***
26. The Short, the Long and the Tall, Jeffrey Archer, ***
27. My Lord John, Georgette Heyer, ***
28. Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare, ****
29. Letters of Note: Art, Ed Shaun Usher, ***
30. Ariadne Jennifer Saint, ***
31. The Wombles, Elisabeth Beresford, ***

Challenge 1: 50 years of reading

Me, aged 4 months. Taken in 1972.

I probably won't manage to read 50 books, each published in a different year of the last half century, but it will be interesting to see how far I do get. It will also be interesting to see what it tells me about the last half century.

1972 To Serve Them All My Days, RF Delderfield
1973
1974
1975: My Lord John, Georgette Heyer
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981

1982: The Color Purple, Alice Walker, Revolting Rhymes, Roald Dahl
1983
1984: Dirty Beasts, Roald Dahl
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991

1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001

2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009: The Winter of the Lions, Jan Costin Wagner
2010: Black Mamba Boy, Nadifa Mohammed
2011

2012
2013: Letters of Note: Art, Ed Shaun Usher
2014
2015: Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan,
2016
2017: The Chalk Pit, Elly Griffiths, Mythos, Stephen Fry,
2018
2019
2020: The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, Ken Liu, The Short, the Long and the Tall, Jeffrey Archer
2021: Murray Walker Incredible!, Maurice Hamilton, Ariadne Jennifer Saint,

2022: Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp

Challenge 2: Women authors


Rose Heilbron was the first woman judge to sit in the Old Bailey in January 1972. She was a bit of a trail blazer, also being the first woman to lead a murder trial. She retired in 1988 and died in 2005. Her daughter, also a Barrister, wrote a book about her life, Rose Heilbron. Into this category will go my books by woman authors.

1. The Chalk Pit, Elly Griffiths
2. The Girl in the Train, Agatha Christie
3. The Affair at the Victory Ball, Agatha Christie
4. The Incredible Theft, Agatha Christie
5. Royal Escape, Georgette Heyer,
6. Black Mamba Boy, Nadifa Mohammed
7. The Color Purple, Alice Walker,
8. A is for Arsenic, Kathryn Harkup
9. Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp
10. Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan
11. Ariadne Jennifer Saint,
12. The Wombles, Elisabeth Beresford

Challenge 3: New Authors


There are plenty of other people with whom I share a birth year. Some of them are even authors. The gentleman pictured is Jan Costin Wagner who was born in 1972 and is not an author I have read. I will put that right and put other new authors in this category.

1. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
2. The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, Ken Liu
3. Black Mamba Boy, Nadifa Mohammed
4. The Color Purple, Alice Walker,
5. The Winter of the Lions, Jan Costin Wagner (yes, that's him in the picture!)
6. Mythos, Stephen Fry,
7. A is for Arsenic, Kathryn Harkup
8. Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp
9. Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan
10. Ariadne Jennifer Saint,

Challenge 4: Translations


Thomas Cook, the travel agent, started with a rail excursion in 1841 and grew from there. It opened its first shop on Fleet Street in 1865. It was nationalised, along with the railways, in 1948 and returned to private hands in 1972 (which is how come it fits here - I said they might get a bit tenuous). If you're my age you'll remember the jingle for their adverts, "Don't just book it, Thomas Cook it.". The firm went out of business in 2019. For years this was how Brits traveled abroad. I will use this to collect books traveling in the reverse direction - those translated into English.

1. The Winter of the Lions, Jan Costin Wagner
2. Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp
3. Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan

Challenge 5: Book Subscriptions


This is a first day cover. They're a presentation envelope with all of the series of special stamps that are issued for a limited period of time and franked on the first day they were available to buy. I had a whole collection, as my Grandad used to work at the Post Office and he arranged me to receive them by post. As my book subscriptions come by post, this is where I will store those books that I don't pick.

1. Black Mamba Boy, Nadifa Mohammed
2. Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp.
3. Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan

Challenge 6: Heyer Series Read


I'm reading Heyer's romances and period novels in publication order. Lady of Quality was published in 1972 and is one of very few of the Heyers on my shelf that is younger than I am - I inherited Mum's almost complete collection.

Heyer romances:
(r) Set in Regency Period
(g) Set in Georgian Period
(h) Set in prior historical Periods.

Finished
✔️ The Black Moth (g) 1921 Finished 01Jan18, ****1/2
✔️ Powder and Patch (g) 1923 Finished 05Feb18, ***
✔️ The Great Roxhythe (h) 1923 Finished 30Apr18, ***
✔️ Simon the Coldheart (h) 1925 Finished 7May18, ***
✔️ These Old Shades (g) 1926 Finished 31May18, ***
✔️ The Masqueraders (g) 1928 Finished 17Jul18, ****
✔️ Beauvallet (h) 1929 Finished 08Sep2018, ****
✔️ The Conqueror (h) 1931 Finished 25Dec2018, ****
✔️ Devil's Cub (g) 1932 Finished 31Jan2019, ****
✔️ The Convenient Marriage (g) 1934 Finished 12Mar2019, ****1/2
✔️ Regency Buck (r) 1935 Finished 08May2019, ****1/2
✔️ The Talisman Ring, Georgette Heyer Finished 10Aug2019, ***
✔️ An Infamous Army, Georgette Heyer Finished 13Oct2019, ***
✔️ Royal Escape, Georgette Heyer Finished 14Feb2020, ***
✔️ The Spanish Bride, Georgette Heyer Finished 28Mar2020, ***
✔️ The Corinthian, Georgette Heyer Finished 17Jun2020, ****
✔️ Faro's Daughter, Georgette Heyer Finished 25Aug2020, ****
✔️ Friday's Child, Georgette Heyer Finished 10Oct2020, ****
✔️ The Reluctant Widow, (r) Finished 24Jan2021, ****
✔️ The Foundling (r) 1948 Finished 21Apr2021, ****
✔️ Arabella, (r) 1949 ****1/2 Finished 19Jun2021
✔️ The Grand Sophy, (r) 1950, **** Finished 25Jul2021
✔️ The Quiet Gentleman (r) 1951, ****1/2 Finished 24Sep2021

To be Read
Cotillion (r) 1953
The Toll Gate (r) 1954
Bath Tangle (r) 1955
Sprig Muslin (r) 1956
April Lady (r) 1957
Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle (r) 1957
Venetia (r) 1958
The Unknown Ajax (r) 1959
Pistols for Two (short stories) 1960
A Civil Contract (r) 1961
The Nonesuch (r) 1962
False Colours (r) 1963
Frederica (r) 1965
Black Sheep (r) 1966
Cousin Kate (r) 1968
Charity Girl (r) 1970
Lady of Quality (r) 1972
My Lord John (h) 1975

Challenge 7: Non-Fiction


Mastermind is surely a key leader in fact based quiz shows. Not frills or fuss, 90 seconds on a specialist subject, 2 minutes general knowledge - what do YOU know? It was first broadcast in 1972 and is still going strong with Clive Myrie the latest presenter (although Magnus Magnusson remains a soft spot in the memory). I will put all my non-fiction in here.

1. Murray Walker Incredible!, Maurice Hamilton
2. A is for Arsenic, Kathryn Harkup
3. Letters of Note: Art, Ed Shaun Usher

Challenge 8: Short works and other stories


The statue is John Betjeman, and is standing on the concourse at St Pancras station. In 1972 he was made the Poet Laureate. As poems tend to be short works, I will put any poetry, short stories or other short works in this category.

1. The Girl in the Train, Agatha Christie
2. The Affair at the Victory Ball, Agatha Christie
3. The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, Ken Liu
4. The Incredible Theft, Agatha Christie
5. Revolting Rhymes, Roald Dahl
6. Dirty Beasts, Roald Dahl
7. The Short, the Long and the Tall, Jeffrey Archer
8. Letters of Note: Art, Ed Shaun Usher

Challenge 9: CATs


When googling things to do with cats in 1972 I came across this epic piece. IN 1972, Marvel comics launched a new character, The CAT. Not sure how long she lasted, it seems only until 1973, but this was just too good to miss! I will put any CATs and KITs I decide to read into the category.

AphaKIT
January: R and H Murray Walker Incredible!, Maurice Hamilton; To Serve Them All My Days, RF Delderfield; Hamlet, William Shakespeare; Royal Escape, Georgette Heyer,
February: A and B The Color Purple, Alice Walker, A is for Arsenic, Kathryn Harkup, Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp
March: P and S Richard III, William Shakespeare, Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan, The Short, the Long and the Tall, Jeffrey Archer, Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare, Ariadne Jennifer Saint,
April: L and J
May: O and D
June: Q and C
July: E and T
August: M and F
September: K and I
October: V and N
November: G and U
December: Y and W

RandomKIT
January: Home Sweet Home. The House at Pooh Corner, AA Milne; Royal Escape, Georgette Heyer,
February: Cats. The Winter of the Lions, Jan Costin Wagner
March: Hobbies
April: Rain

Challenge 10: Bingo Dog


Having found something so brilliant for CATs, it was only fair that I try the same for BingoDog. And so we have the cover of the last album by the Bonzo Dog Doh Dah Band (yes, really), released in 1972. This will house my BingoDog card.

The categories are:
✔️1. An Award Winning book The Color Purple, Alice Walker,
✔️2. Published in a year ending 2 Revolting Rhymes, Roald Dahl
✔️3. A modern retelling of an older story Ariadne Jennifer Saint,
4. A book you'd love to see as a movie (maybe starring your favourite actor)
✔️5. A book that features a dog The Wombles, Elisabeth Beresford
✔️6. The title contains the letter Z Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp
✔️7. Published the year you joined LT Letters of Note: Art, Ed Shaun Usher
✔️8. A book by a favourite author My Lord John, Georgette Heyer
✔️9. A long book (long for you) To Serve Them All My Days, RF Delderfield
✔️10. A book you received as a gift Murray Walker Incredible!, Maurice Hamilton
11. The title contains a month
✔️12. A weather word in the title The Winter of the Lions, Jan Costin Wagner
13. Read a CAT
✔️14. Contains travel or a journey The Girl in the Train, Agatha Christie
✔️15. A book about sisters or brothers The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, Ken Liu
✔️16. A book club read (real or online) Black Mamba Boy, Nadifa Mohammed
17. A book with flowers on the cover
✔️18. A book in translation Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan
✔️19. A work of non-fiction A is for Arsenic, Kathryn Harkup
✔️20. A book where a character shares a name of a friend Richard III, William Shakespeare
✔️21. A book set in a capital city A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (London)
✔️22. A children's or YA book The House at Pooh Corner, AA Milne
✔️23. A book set in a country other than the one you live Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
✔️24. A book by an LGBTQ+ author Mythos, Stephen Fry,
✔️25. A book with silver or gold on the cover The Chalk Pit, Elly Griffiths

>1 Helenliz: Turning 50, no biggie. You are just getting started on the best part of life, in my opinion! Just enjoy it.

>14 LadyoftheLodge: mmm. I'm feeling 50 a lot more than I worried about 40. But I'm sure it'll be fine. And, anyway, what exactly can I do about it??

What a fantastic theme, so inventive! As someone of a similar vintage, I really enjoyed this trip down memory lane! It occurred to me when remembering "Don't book it, Thomas Cook it" that a possible theme for another year could be based on old ad slogans - I'm sure there are people here who could get a category out of things like A Finger of Fudge..., or Do the Shake'n'Vac..., or a Mars a Day..., or For Mash get Smash, etc. They don't make ads like they used to, do they?

>16 Jackie_K: Thank you! Ohhh! Now there's an idea for putting away for another year. The Nescafe coffee adverts and the Bisto gravy family also spring to mind. No, they really don't write ads like that any more!

>17 Helenliz: Don't forget Ready Brek too!

Congrats for being the first to dip your toe into 2022! Great theme.

>19 DeltaQueen50: Thank you. Nothing like a party where everyone is standing around wondering if they can be first to the buffet. Now you can all dive right in. >;-)

>18 Jackie_K: On breakfast cereal theme, was it Shredded wheat that you couldn't manage 3 of?

>20 Helenliz: Yes, I think it might have been (I couldn't manage 1 of them, but that's another story!).

Happy fifty thread, spring chicken!

Helen, I love your theme! Very fun and look at you leading the way for the rest of us.

I really like the idea of a book for each year of your life. I'll be waiting to see what you pick.

I love the book a year for your life! Looking forward to seeing what you read in 2022.

Congrats! What lovely CATS!

It will be interesting to see how many books you find for those years.

Congrats on the new thread.

>22 pamelad: Thank you. It might look like that, it doesn't feel like it.

>23 Crazymamie: Why, thank you, Mamie. Not very often I'm a trend setter.

>24 dudes22:, >25 NinieB:, >27 hailelib:. I'm not expecting to read one per year, just a sprinkling will do the job.

>26 Tess_W: Thank you. The Cat was a real find!

Congrats on being the first to open a thread, Helen. Such a great theme, too! I'll be interested to see what books you find for those fifty years.

>29 MissWatson: Someone has to be first, may as well be me. I think it was me last year as well, it's clearly a tradition in the making.

Hurray for being first! I'm about 85% settled on my choice of theme but will wait until Remembrance Day probably before setting it up.

Love, love, LOVE your theme, Helen! Well done.

Looking forward to another year following along with you.

>31 rabbitprincess: Happy to fill that role. Looking forward to seeing your thread.

>32 katiekrug: Thank you, Katie. Nice to have you along for the ride.

Great theme! I wish I was turning 50 in 22. I'll be turning 75.

I wish you great reading for 2022!

>34 majkia: Goodness - happy 75th in 2022. Take this how you like, but it's intended to be complimentary - I would never have guessed that from your reading. That probably says more about me than you. The same wished are returned.

Congratulations on being first! Also for a fabulous theme, I just love it - and you were such a beautiful baby! Looking forward to sharing your reading in 2022.

>34 majkia: I continue to be pleasantly surprised when I hear how old some of our members are. I'm also in my 70s, but older than you. I'm turning 78 next month. Billie Jean King and I are very close together in age.

>34 majkia: and >37 sallylou61:

50 sounds really young to me as I am 75. Anyway the first thread started each year is an inspiration for me to decide what I want to do for mine.

Happy 50th, Helen. You are just a babe!

I'll be turning 50 in a few years so I’m not far behind you. It's just a number. Enjoy your birthday for all that it is. I'll enjoy reading along with you. 😊

>36 VivienneR: thank you! I'm always slightly dismayed when people accurately identify my baby photo as being me, then say I've not changed. I should think I have!

>37 sallylou61:, >38 hailelib:, >39 Tess_W: What can I say? 50 feels old to someone whose coming up on it, I imagine it's not to someone whose been there and seen it's not worth the bother.

>38 hailelib: It's nice having posted, so I can enjoy watching all the other threads appear. Hope inspiration strikes.

>40 VictoriaPL: It's odd, 40 didn't phase me at all, 50 is messing with my head. Wont stop me reading though.

>41 Helenliz: I think it's the "half a century" part. It feels so momentous, as if one suddenly were a part of history. At least that's what I thought, and then nothing bad happened and the feeling passed.

>41 Helenliz: I found 30 was my worst birthday: I went back to an old job that day and while I'd been away they had hired a lot of what seemed to be teenagers. I felt like their mother. 40 and 50 were much better.

>42 MissWatson: I think there might be something in that. It is a milestone, no matter how you look at it. I also wonder if it has to do with the fact that both my parents died relatively young (Dad was 56, Mum 64) and at 50 I'm getting close to both of those. I know genetics doesn't actually work out like that and I probably have more than 10 years left, but it's certainly a milestone that's messing with my head, for whatever reason.

>43 VivienneR: ouch, that's not a nice surprise! Glad that 40 & 50 felt better.

My 2022 theme isn't quite as concrete as yours yet. It's still in development. It might be further along if I were not acting program chair for a large state genealogical society. I've told them I don't have time for that position and won't be doing it in 2022.

Love your theme and I'm looking forward to seeing all the stuff from 1972 that you come up with. Enjoy your year! Turning 50 is a lot better than not turning 50 ;-D
If you can believe it, my most anxious birthday was when I turned 22. I felt old that day, but then I was working in Hollywood and 30 there is old.

>46 mstrust: thank you. I was thinking I could just lie about my age for ever more and stick at, oh, 25/26? Maybe??
22! oops!! I had a wibble the year I turned 25, as you've moved up an age bracket, no longer 18 to 24, you're in the 25 to 44 bracket with the actual grownups! But that wasn't the birthday, just later in the year when that nasty realisation dawned.

>45 thornton37814: Hope they find someone to take that role off you. It's incredible how much time voluntary positions like that take out of your life.

I just told people when I reached 40 that I was going to start counting down instead of carrying on going up. So now I'm 52, I can kid on I'm actually 28. Which I probably am in mind, if definitely not in body!

>48 Jackie_K: ha! That's a plan. I've just alternated between 25 and 26 since I hit 40. 25 in odd years, 26 in even, so I'm currently 25. I liked 25/26 ish. I'd worked out who I was, was comfortable in my skin and was enjoying life. I'm still enjoying life, but various bits complain more often than they used to.

>44 Helenliz:. That's exactly how I felt when I turned 50. Such a milestone and my parents had died young. Take it from me, I am now 68, enjoy the milestone!!!

>50 Kristelh: Thank you! I feel better for that. >:-)

>47 Helenliz: I told them I would only seek re-election on the board of trustees IF someone else chaired programs. I told them what I was willing to do from a time perspective.

Great theme Helen. I forgot you guys are so organised! I'm so behind...

Hello Helen, congrats on turning 50! It was a milestone birthday for me as well, and it can be tough. My dad died at 52, and I had several friends die in their mid-50's. It seems to be one of those ages where you are looking backwards as well as forwards. Gives one perspective.

Great site, and look forward to visiting it and you in the new year!

>53 charl08: ha! I'm many things, but organised is only occasionally one of them.

>54 threadnsong: Thanks for the understanding.

Hi, Helen - loving your new thread and looking forward to your milestone reading! :)

Book: 1
Title: Murray Walker Incredible!
Author: Maurice Hamilton
Published: 2021
Rating: ***
Why: Christmas present
Challenge: 50 years, Non-fiction, CAT, BingoDog
TIOLI Challenge #3. Read a book with pictures (photos or illustrations)

Murray Walker, the legendary F1 commentator, died in March of 2021. This books functions as a remembrance of a man who was for over half a century intricately associated with the sport. Told in chronological order, there is nothing much in here I didn't already know the outline of, but it was good to hear the tales from a variety of voices and to have some of his commentary transcribed. I met him once, at a book signing, I admit to being utterly tongue tied.

HI Liz, nice to see you popping by.

Congrats on your first completion of 2022!

Happy New Year -- you have some fun categories here

>59 thornton37814: It feels good to get one under the belt, even if I did read most of it in 2021.

>60 Nickelini: thank you.

Happy new year, Helen and happy birthday.

Just dropping by to say hi. Only 4 January and everyone's threads look dauntingly long to read already.

>4 Helenliz: Sounds like a good challenge - if you don't complete it this year, maybe you should carry on until you do.

>62 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul. Although we all know that I' find abandoning a book well night impossible.

>63 elkiedee: Glad you popped by and were not put off. I must track you down.
>64 elkiedee: I know, I have that on the agenda, seeing how I do and then maybe working backwards through the rest of the century over the next few years.

>8 Helenliz: Ooh, that picture brings back memories. My dad's parents used to buy me collectors' items like this. Stamp and coin issues. As well as Jubilee memorabilia and various versions of the Bible or the New Testament (he was a vicar). I wonder what happened to them all? The Post Office Savings they opened for me rocketed up hugely during the 1980s, but I think I spent them at some point during the 1990s, hopefully not too unwisely. I still have a small set of children's books from my grandmother's mother.

Book: 2
Title: To Serve Them All My Days
Author: RF Delderfield
Published: 1972
Rating: ***
Why: It's the same age as I am...
Challenge: 50 years, CAT, BingoDog
TIOLI Challenge #2. Read a book first published in my birth year (1972), your birth year or the last year (2021 or 2022)

This is a peculiarly old fashioned thing. Set between 1917 and 1941 I suspect it would have appeared to be looking back at the life of a school master through rose tinted glasses even when first published. David Powlett-Jones was wounded in WW1 and we first meet him as he approaches a private boys school to be interviewed as a school master. He has no degree, no qualifications in teaching, he's been suggested that he try it by the medical officer at the army hospital as a remedy for his shell shock. After this slightly unusual introduction to education, it turns out that he actually has a bit of a flair for teaching and history is his subject. Through the new boy we meet the existing staff, the rather eccentric head master, the various boys of all ages. You don't meet all of them, just ones that will re-appear multiple times as the book follows him over the next 20 years or so. Along the way he acquires a wife & twins, then tragedy strikes and his life is in almost as big a mess as it was in the beginning.
By the time you reach the ending, the appeal of the various escapades that have taken place along the way have started to pall slightly. David is engaging enough, although his dealings with women cause me to shake my head at him - this is a man married to the school. The cynic in me is uncertain that schools were ever this good - certainly we don't meet enough of the masters that must be needed to teach 400 boys, so what are the other like? We seem to meet the good ones, or the ones that are good but have a character flaw of some description. Thinking back I can remember a few really good teachers, but the majority were mostly going through the motions. - and I think we knew that even then. His longevity might be surprising, except that I was taught by a teacher who had previously taught my mother at the same school, so while unusual, it's not impossible, although probably increasingly unlikely. It is also unrelentingly male, the few women that appear are David's love life, the matron and the occasional female teacher.
The ending is bittersweet. Having fought in one war, David is recording the names of old boys who have died in a second. There is then the death of a long standing teacher and the birth of a child to balance the account. The arrival of a invalided soldier as a new teacher sees the beginning in the end, although you suspect a rather different story will be played out in the next 20 or so years.

So has this aged better or worse than me? As it wasn't contemporary when it was written, I suspect it hasn't aged badly, it would have appeared to have been wearing rose tinted specs when it was new - now they look back at a time and way of life that is largely past living memory.

>66 elkiedee: My Grandad worked for the post office, so I was signed up to receive first day covers since I was very small. I sold my collection, which extended into the 1990s, when we cleared my parents' house. They failed my question test, so didn't make the move to our house. I did seem to come away with a pile of bibles, including the family bible, which as an agnostic is an odd thing to find that I posses multiple copies of!

Helen, was yesterday your birthday? Belated Happy Birthday wishes if so!

>67 Helenliz: I'm gonna take a pass on this one, but I liked your review of it.

>69 Crazymamie: No, I'm an April baby. I'm just taking good wishes whenever I can get them >;-)

Although I have found an advantage of turning 50 - the gym membership drops by almost 1/4. Its the first advantage of age I've found, but I'll take it.

I started it and was sure I'd read it before, but it must only have been the first few chapters, as I didn't remember the rest. I've read some of his series A Horseman Riding By and that has the same rose tinted specs thing going on as well, must be a style. I can't say rush out and read it.

Hey, 25% is 25%.

There was a time when I read a lot of Delderfield, mostly passed along by my mother, but I don't really remember their stories.

Your criticisms of To Serve Them All My Days seem quite fair but I loved the book anyway, I read quite a bit of 20th century middlebrow fiction and memoirs, and would always like to read more, as well as historical fiction. It's one that I probably would have never picked up if I hadn't become hooked on a radio serial of the first book on a digital radio station which sadly folded some years ago.

This was published in the year of the author's death from cancer, aged about 60, and I wonder if this gave his last novel an oddly nostalgic feel. For me, being of its time and place is very much part of a book's appeal.

>72 hailelib: I think that's fair. I can remember a sense of place from the ones I read, rather than a plot.

>73 elkiedee: I enjoyed it - 3 stars for me rates a solid "Good" and it almost got 4, but I didn't love it. And I would agree that it certainly captures something of a time and place - just one that I'm not sure about. The timing is interesting, that would put him as a student in the early part of the time frame in which this is set. Maybe you are right about the source of the rose tints.

I just looked up Wikipedia and apparently he had a mixed upbringing in Bermondsey, Croydon and then Devon - and in Devon he attended first a grammar school and then a small independent school called West Buckland. Apparently in his memoirs he wrote he had used this experience at his last school in at least 3 novels, not counting To Serve Them...., and so it must have earned back his school fees 3 times over. I think that one of the reasons I enjoyed the novel is that I'm really interested in experiences of education - I imagine that his background was slightly more middle class and upwardly mobile than that of his teacher from a very working class background originally and students from much posher origins.

>67 Helenliz: Happy birthday in advance, I will never remember until April! I have that book on my TBR and from what I've heard from other reading friends, I think your assessment is spot on. I will read it when I need a nostalgic read.

>75 elkiedee: The foreword does say that he'd been at a number of different schools and taken something from them. Several novels is an interesting return on investment!

>76 Tess_W: Thanks >:-)

>67 Helenliz: I remember this book being on my mother's shelves probably from the time of its publication. The title was one that I turned over and over in my childhood brain. I'm glad to know what it was all about - thank you for the thorough review!

>78 threadnsong: happy to help. >:-)

Happy Friday, Helen!

Thanks Mamie.

Not a lot going on around here. He had a positive LFT today, although has no symptoms. I have what feels like a cold and had a negative LFT, so I'm going with it's a cold. We both had a PCR test at the local drive in centre this afternoon. That was fun. Both isolating until we know for sure, to be on the safe side.

So lots of not going out. Managed to book a grocery delivery for tomorrow, which is our usual shopping day, meaning we're not going to starve any time soon. Maybe the enforced in time will mean that I finish a book; you never know, stranger things have happened...

I feel like I ought to put a big red cross on the front door, here be plague... >;-)

Crossing my fingers for the both of you, Helen. Hoping it's just a cold for y'all and that you won't be needing that big red cross.

>81 Helenliz: Hope you and he are both feeling better soon!

Here's to good health--well maybe tolerable health!;)

Sending you "good health" vibes, Helen. We have one daughter and her household that has tested positive and are in isolation mode. Luckily they are all vaccinated and have only felt like they are battling a nasty cold.

Crossing my fingers for you that it's just a cold. Staying in is only fun if it's your own choice...

What everyone else said, Helen. Hope you have enough books...

Thanks all.
Yesterday's PCR test positive for both of us. We're both still pretty symptom free, I still have what feels like a mild head cold, while he's a bit tired and running a bit of a temperature. But that's it so far (fingers crossed). Grocery delivery happened OK, so while we might get bored with just the 4 walls for company, we're not going to starve. And I am not, in any way, shape or form, going to run short of books. >:-o Just imagine!! I'd have to isolate for several years before that was a risk. >;-)

>88 Helenliz: Sorry to hear you are both positive. I wish mild symptoms with lots of reading time for you this week.

>88 Helenliz: - Well, poop. I am glad you are both mostly symptom-free, though. Take care of yourself!

Wishing you both a speedy recovery!
I had it last year in March and my version was easier than a regular cold. Hope yours is a breeze too, and that you gets lots of reading in.

I hope it's as bad as it's going to get! With lots of books at least you have some entertainment.

>88 Helenliz: Take care of yourself.

Our family is mostly down with covid. Luckily, Mr Majkia and I avoided them physically over the Christmas Holiday (granddaughter, husband and kids not vaccinated) so we are fine. Not too bad symptoms for them, but I'm now seriously glad we took the safe path, both of us 74, we don't need to take chances.

Sorry that you and your husband tested positive. Take care of yourselves!

Thank you all. It's annoying, but I suppose it was largely a question of when we'd get it, not if. At least we're double jabbed and boosted, so have done the best we can.

In other, more interesting, news, I finished a cross stitch. Unfortunately, due to an amateur error of arithmetic, it is too big for the charity I stitch for, so it has been surrounded with some patchwork and is now a cushion cover. I'm not sorry to see the back of this one; although it is effective design, the pattern was really annoying to actually stitch. But I will do it again, and hopefully moan about it less.

>88 Helenliz: My best wishes for dealing with this situation, and it's good to hear that you were able to have a food delivery!

>95 Helenliz: That is really cute!

It's good to have an excuse to read all day, but no one would choose COVID. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

I feel your pain, Helen. We sailed through, covid-free, but my daughter was in contact with a friend who tested positive and now she has, as well. No symptoms, but she's in her room, putting off her return to college and my husband and I get tested tomorrow.

>95 Helenliz: That cow is delightful!

>95 Helenliz: I love this. It reminded me of the work of an artist near me who has lovely animal pictures including cows, they're really charismatic. I especially like the highland cow. https://jamesbartholomew.co.uk/prints/animal-prints/cow-prints/

And of course, hope that the symptoms are mild and you and the SO have a quick recovery.

Thank you for the cow love.

>97 pamelad: ahh, if only that were the actual case. I will be working from home again. I was always split home and office, covid just sent me home full time. I'd just gone back to twice a week in the office again. Oh well, never mind.

>98 RidgewayGirl: I figured that if he was positive, the chances are I would be too, so we both got a pcr test on sunday even though my lft was negative at the time. Hope that the daughter doesn't get too ill and that you're both OK.

>99 charl08: they're full of character, aren't they?

I enjoyed your comment "So lots of not going out." Hope you both recover quickly.

Thank you for catching the blooper on my thread.

Book: 3
Title: The Chalk Pit
Author: Elly Griffiths
Published: 2017
Rating: **.5
Why: need to return to Cathy...
Challenge: 50 years, Woman author, BingoDog
TIOLI Challenge #1. Read a book in which the title’s first word and last word have the same number of letters

I started this series as I know King's Lynn pretty well. However in this book it turns out to be a disadvantage. Nelson and the Serious Crime squad we follow in these books are based in King's Lynn, however they spend an awful lot of time in this book in Norwich. Which is a city, as opposed to a town, and likely more highly resourced. I find it doubtful that the King's Lynn squad would be dealing with issues in Norwich, and certainly not taking the fire brigade with them, especially considering the time it takes to get between the two places. I also found the crime in this book to be somewhat far fetched - and the starting investigation remains open.
Having said that, time spent with Ruth is never entirely wasted and this was enjoyable enough, despite the reservations above.

Speedy and easy recovery!

Best wishes for a speedy recovery and no lasting after effects!

>103 Helenliz: - If I recall correctly (and my memory is generally garbage), I didn't think that was a very strong entry in the series either.

Get well soon, Helen!

Not going out hasn't done much for the audio book that is currently in the car (am I allowed out as far as the car?!) but a couple of evenings stitching has seen another listen done.

Book: 4
Title: A Christmas Carol
Author: Charles Dickens
Published: 1843 (before I was born!)
Rating: ****
Why: later than anticipated availability from the library app.
Challenge: BingoDog
TIOLI Challenge #7: Read a book by an author whose name has 2 initials or has written at least 22 books

I reserved this from the library app, intending to listen to it over Christmas, but it didn't become available until this week. So I figured why not? Re-listen done. I like it still.

Book: 5
Title: The Girl in the Train
Author: Agatha Christie
Published: 1924 (before I was born!)
Rating: ****
Why: short and available on the library app
Challenge: Woman author, short stories, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #18. Read a book of adventure, fiction or non-fiction

A fun listen, short and to the point.
George Rowland is estranged from his Uncle and so he leaves London in High a fit of temper and decides to take a train to a random location - he chooses Rowland's Castle as it shares a name with him, it could be his place of origin and he could claim his castle (note - it is a real place and the remains of the castle amount to a couple of blocks of masonry near the station - it's not an impressive castle and no-one knows who Rowland was). This train leaves from Waterloo and he takes the stopping train (note - from experience to stop at Rowland's Castle you take a train that seems to stop at every garden gate!). As it is about to depart a girl bursts into the carriage and begs George to hide her, which he does and so begins a wild goose chase of a story that takes place in a provincial hotel in Portsmouth. It's a tale of mistaken identity, criminals, foreign nobility and general ill deeds that George manages to negotiate his way through, more through good luck than any thing else. It all ends back on a train heading in the reverse direction, by which time George's life has changed somewhat - and he is planning a return visit to Rowland's Castle.

Hi, Helen - very sorry to hear you guys got hit, take care!

I wanted to check in with you about TIOLI: I was going to list Royal Escape for #13, no article in the title; does that suit you? If not, it also fits #7 (22+ books) and #18 (adventure).

>109 Helenliz:

Nice! :)

>110 lyzard: Yes, challenge 13 is fine for me. Go ahead, I'll join you in a few days (she says hopefully).

And that'll be two books set where I grew up, as I think Charles ends up in Rowland's Castle while looking for a boat to sail to France, the sailors of Emsworth (my home town) fails dismally to supply. I can't help but approve. >:-)

>111 Helenliz:

Thanks!

Except that (as I notice one LT reviewer said) by then you *want* him to find a boat and just go away. :D

>112 lyzard: *snort* And this is a book I am voluntarily RE-reading so that someone can have a shared read!!

>113 Helenliz:

Excuse me, I recall SOMEONE volunteering! :D

>95 Helenliz: Awww what an adorable pattern! It looks great with the patchwork.

Book: 6
Title: The Affair at the Victory Ball
Author: Agatha Christie
Published: 1923 (before I was born!)
Rating: ***
Why: short and available on the library app
Challenge: Short stories, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge ##7: Read a book by an author whose name has 2 initials or has written at least 22 books

A Poirot short story. Framed as Hastings retelling Poirot early case, this is set the night of a Victory ball. It's a fancy dress ball and the group of 6 we concern ourselves with attend dressed as the 6 characters from Commedia dell'arte. Two end up dead and the who, how and why take Poirot to get to the bottom of. He does so from a verbal report from Inspector Jaap, and a little bit a shadow play with the fancy dress costumes. It's not terribly well fleshed out, I think it relies on knowing Poirot and the way he works. That's not to say it's not enjoyable, though.

>115 rabbitprincess: Thank you. I'll do it again soon, but it's time for something different now.

Book: 7
Title: Things Fall Apart
Author: Chinua Achebe
Published: 1958 (before I was born!)
Rating: ***
Why: 1001 list
Challenge: New author
TIOLI Challenge #4. Read a book that's on some Best of 2021 list

This leaves me feeling sad, no-one seems to come out of it well and you sense a downward spiral from here. Okonkwo is the son of a feckless father and so he cultivates an attitude that contrasts with that of his father - to the point of going too far and being almost incapable of feeling for his family and fellow clansmen. He also has what seems to be a hair trigger temper and an inability to listen to advice - none of which bodes well. He is hard to sympathise with, as he has no empathy for his fellows. I find the ending slightly odd, and I'm not sure it necessarily fits with the man we have followed this far - although the loss of standing may well have been sufficient driver for his actions.
Set at the time of the white scramble for Africa, it shows the start of the disintegration of the clan system and the beliefs of the indigenous people. It is all just terribly sad, at whatever level you read it at.

>118 Helenliz: I also just finished this book and I concur! There has been a debate as to when things begin to "fall apart." ***SPOILER ALERT: I think the author's intended time line is when the white man on the bicycle came to the village. I would argue that it was long before that--I think it started when Okonkwo killed the young man who stayed with his family for three years. Others think it was when Okonkwo was banished to another village for an accidental death. However, the first incident has nothing to do with colonialism, while the 2nd does, as he uses a gun he obtained somewhere. Many critics claim that the Igbo society was advanced and generally peaceful before the arrival of the English. Again, I disagree. The killing of twins was just sickening, amongst other things. But you are correct, all in all, just very sad.

>119 Tess_W: I think that European colonialism in Africa predated the invention of the bicycle by hundreds of years.

I've read 4 books by Chinua Achebe including Things Fall Apart (the title comes from a WB Yeats poem) and I preferred his 2010 essay collection The Education of a British-Protected Child and a volume of short stories (borrowed from the library) to this, but I actually want to try again at some point. It's part of a trilogy and I have at least one of the other books in the series, but I'm not quite sure what I've done with it (there are so many boxes of books in the house since I ran out of shelf space a very long time ago).

>120 elkiedee: This was my first by him. I could be tempted to read more by him - it was well constructed - I'm just not sure I want to read the other two in the trilogy if they are as sad as I found this. I note that Arrow of God is also on the 1001 list. I wonder if they need to be read in order, or if it is a thematic trilogy. And now I'm confused as in LT series Arrow of God is number 3, but the text has it as the second.

>119 Tess_W: At the end I did think of the saying "my end is in my beginning" and wondered if the seeds of destruction were laid very early. Things did fall apart and at many levels. I'm not sure any of it can be said to have had a single cause.

>121 Helenliz: It looks as though Arrow of God is second in order of publication, but third in the sequence of the story. Things Fall Apart was definitely tragic. I gave it 5 stars for the quality of the writing, the historical interest, and because it's a Nigerian author's perspective on colonialism.

>121 Helenliz: I agree! I'm not sure that things would not have fallen apart regardless of the advent of the colonials. I saw Okwonko's anger management issues right off.

>123 Tess_W: That's why it's tragic. The seeds of his destruction are in his character. I liked that Achebe has so much empathy for his flawed main character.

>123 Tess_W:, >124 pamelad: There is something in that. I'm not sure that Okonkwo would ever have achieved his ambitions when he seems to derail himself multiple times.

>95 Helenliz: What a great design! Yes, I bet you did get tired of all that brown. I just love the look on the cow's face.

And since I'm checking in here, how are you feeling? I've had friends all over the US come down with this, and sorry you are having to go through it, too.

>126 threadnsong: It was the pattern as much as anything. The convention is that the lightest shade is a single dot while the darkest shade is a filled square, and the others graduate between. Means you can look at the pattern and get a feel for where you are based on the tone of the pattern and the colours in the piece. This did not follow that convention and I found it made the pattern really hard to follow. Never mind, it's done.

We're both fine. He barely had any symptoms. I had a head cold that I'm half convinced was actually a head cold. He had his second consecutive negative test yesterday, I'm hoping mine follows today, meaning we're allowed out of isolation. Yippeee! Could do with some shopping.

>128 Helenliz: - I can now understand why it would be annoying. I think all the counted cross stitch I used to do used letters to differentiate between colors.

Book: 8
Title: The House at Pooh Corner
Author: AA Milne
Published: 1928 (before I was born!) (This isn't helping my 50 years challenge!!)
Rating: *****
Why: audio
Challenge: Bingo, CAT
TIOLI Challenge #11. Read a children's book published in the UK/by a UK author before 1980

Awww. Re read for the umpty millionth time (I may have lost count). This is special.
As a child one of my favourite TV programmes was Jackanory, an inspired, if deceptively simple idea, where famous names read a children's book and over the course of a week or two, the book was finished. I can clearly remember listening to Bernard Cribbins read this. He does all the voices. Listening again as an adult, this is just so lovely, but you also appreciate the skill in the reader. It is read quite slowly, and the voices are quite distinct. Kanga & Roo both have a distinctly ozzie twang, Tigger sounds a bit like a slightly dense colonel returned from India, rabbit is always in a hurry and piglet squeaks. But my favourite has to be Eeyore, who sounds just like Alan Bennett - a rather dour northerner.
As to the tales themselves, there is nothing to say that hasn't been said already. You can find all of humanity in here and when Christopher Robin faces the prospect of leaving the forest to go to school I admit to getting blurry eyed all over again. Love it. Still.

You've been doing some good reading here! Sorry to hear about your COVID. Hope you are feeling better by now. My colleague who tested positive a week ago was still testing positive yesterday so she hasn't been able to return to work. I have vaccinated family members down with it for a second time too.

>130 Helenliz: - Very nice comments, Helen.

>131 thornton37814: We're fine. Never really had any symptoms, I felt like I had a mild head cold and as I had that before I tested positive, I probably did have a head cold. We tested negative on 2 consecutive days Sunday/Monday, so were allowed out again and celebrated with a trip to the supermarket. >:-)

>132 katiekrug: It was lovely.

Book: 9
Title: The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Author: Ken Lui
Published: 2020
Rating: ****
Why: audio
Challenge: 50 years, New author, Short stories, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #5: Read a book by an author who is new to you

I listened to this, and it seems to be the 200th title I have listened to.
At first it seems to be a set of individual short stories, but as you listen to more of them, it becomes more a series of connected stories, but not in chronological order. Most of them are set in the future, ranging from a not too distant to the far future. A lot of them concern the transfer of human thought from a physical to a digitised form, with the earth having to bear fewer humans as they exist in a purely digital form. There is a danger in this transition and the state of the world after this becomes a recurring theme.
There are a couple of stories that don't seem to fit this arc, both seeming to be set in either a past or a fantasy land. They seemed to knock the collection off it's axis, somehow. Overall it was a good, inventive and thought provoking set of stories.

Book: 10
Title: The Incredible Theft
Author: Agatha Christie
Published: 1937 (before I was born!)
Rating: ***
Why: audio
Challenge: Woman author, Short stories
TIOLI Challenge #7: Read a book by an author whose name has 2 initials or has written at least 22 books

Set in the run up to WW2, Hercule Poirot is called into solve what seems to be the theft of some plans for a bomber. They have been taken from Lord Maybury's house, he's in a position of power in the government and seems to be a fictional figure in a Churchillian mould. There is the obvious suspect - who has a clear alibi, the hard up younger son, the gambling wife, the possible accomplice and a shadow seen crossing the terrace from the study. I had a solution - it turned out to be wrong. It's a tightly packaged little thing.

Oh dear. I took 3 library books back today - and collected 5 more. That wasn't the plan!
I really need to get through the ones I have not not just reserve stuff that's new and shiny all the time.

>136 Helenliz: And if you work out how to do that... what are the shiny new ones?

>137 charl08: They're not all that new, if truth be known.
Hamlet & Julius Casear as part of my project to read (or more likely, listen to) all of Shakespeare.
The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch. Can't remember why I ordered that one.
The Winter of the Lions by Jan Costin Wagner, him who features in my new authors category - we share a birth year
The Short, the Long and the Tall short stories on audiobook for the car.

>138 Helenliz: I see what you mean. Not "old" but "classics"?

Ahhh. The Black prince is on the 1001 list and was published in 1973. That'll be it. Filling in my 50 years challenge.

You're all going to be so proud of me - I've just DNF'd a book! It was The best short stories 2021 : the O. Henry prize winners. I like listening to short stories on audio book, as it is easier to stop and pick them up again when in the car. But I had to give this one up - just could not tolerate the reader, the accent just grated too much to want to spend any time with it.

I do like the idea of the collection, but I will have to read them, if I find them, not listen.

First DNF since 2019.

>141 Helenliz: - Well done!

Who was the reader?

>142 katiekrug: I'm not sure. It was narrated by a number of readers, but the one that did the introduction & foreword just got too much. And you just know that she'd reappear later on and annoy me afresh all over again. So I quit.

>143 Helenliz: - *fist bump*

I've borrowed the ebook (not audio) version of the O Henry short story collection from a library, b but it's only available on 2 week loan and others keep reserving it. So I have it on hold and will borrow again. At least it's very easy to borrow and return stuff, and I suppose I can just read a few stories during my next turn. I read a short story by Sally Rooney, Colour and Light which I'd previously listened to on audio

The introduction is written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie but I don't know whether she reads it herself on the audio.

>145 elkiedee: no, she doesn't. It was read by the annoying voice.

>141 Helenliz: Woo hoo, congrats on the DNF!

Book: 11
Title: Shakespeare tragedies - Romeo & Juliet
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1597 (before I was born!)
Rating: ***
Why: audio
Challenge: CATs
TIOLI Challenge #6. Read a book you acquired in December 2021

Goodness, this is dark, isn't it? What with the focus on the star cross'd lovers you could be forgiven for thinking it a love story. It might be, but it is a blood drenched one. And it is easy to forget with an adult cast that Juliet is not yet 14 when she is married and kills herself. It might be about teenage infatuation, rather than love, with the mood swinging from great joy to the very depths of despair. The cast of adults seem curiously dense at times and so the body count rises. The only positive I think you can take is that at least it appears that the feud between the two families might be put to an end - although the cynic in me doubts even that.
I listened to this as a radio play with a young Ian McKellen as Romeo - and my does he make a lot of bother about it. It's good to have listened to it, and got another one under my belt, but I'm very glad that my love affairs have never proven as tricksy as this one.

>148 Helenliz: - I had to read R&J in 8th grade (~age 12-13) and all I could think was "Why are all these people so stupid?" I am always amazed when people talk about it as a great romance (same with Wuthering Heights). Good riddance to them all, I say ;-)

>148 Helenliz: and >149 katiekrug:: I can't disagree there. I think Jane Eyre is also quite questionable as a love story in places. I doubt that Shakespeare (in this case) or Emily Bronte saw themselves as presenting a romantic model, though I'm not sure about Charlotte Bronte's view on her story, and looking back, I was a bit obsessed with Antony and Cleopatra at 16 and I did read that as a love story.

>148 Helenliz:, >149 katiekrug:, >150 elkiedee:

They've all been twisted by film and TV adaptation into something their authors never intended them to be. R&J is the easiest to misinterpret, but the other two (focus on Cathy / Heathcliff to the exclusion of all else / elimination of the Rivers material) have been turned into "great romances" against their will.

>149 katiekrug: That's a fair summation. And I'm with you on WH not being a romance either.

>150 elkiedee: Jane Eyre left me sure that this marriage would be unhappy at some point down the line. No HEA there (ironically that stands for both Happy Ever After and is my initials - does that mean I get my very own HEA as HEA?)

>151 lyzard: yup, I agree. if you cherry pick the material, R&J could be a love story, but taken as a whole it's nothing of the sort. I knew that, I'm just not sure I'd realised quite how far removed the image is from the actual piece.

Book: 12
Title: Shakespeare tragedies - Hamlet
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1603 (before I was born!)
Rating: ****
Why: audio
Challenge: CAT
TIOLI Challenge #8. Read a book set in one of the top seven countries from the United Nations 2021 Happiness Report

You know what they say, Shakespeare wrote 2 types of plays - the one you did at school and all the others. This is one I did at school. I remember a trip to London to see a modernist staging (well, modern for the late 1980s!) with almost no scenery and costume from no particular period. Polonius in a pin striped suit is the one that I do remember. Listening to it after a gap of a good many years I was struck by how much was familiar - seems I must have paid at least a little bit of attention! There are lots of good lines in here that catch the ear, it rolls off the tongue and ties knots with words. There really is something rotten in the state of Denmark and that pervades the entire play - you can't help feeling from the beginning, with the appearance of the Ghost, that something has gone wrong and it's only going to get worse. Very few people come out of this very well, in fact very few come out of it alive. It is dark, very dark, but that's not to say that this was not an enjoyable listen.

Oh My Word.
If you are in the appropriate territory, check out the Jay Blades documentary about learning to read as an adult.
iplayer link. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013wcj
As someone who cannot remember ever not being able to read, I cannot imagine life without the written word, it is an integral part of my life, my work, everything. I admire him for doing this in such a public manner. It helps raise awareness of something that I had no idea that was so widespread.

I apparently came home from school in tears, aged 5, because we hadn't been taught to read on the first day. I loved being told stories in any form, and I had obviously understood that reading was a way to access more stories if adults weren't available to tell me stories - whether those were about when they were children or telling me traditional fairy tales. I was apparently rather resistant to a sort of uncle's efforts to alter Little Red Riding Hood into a story with a clearer socialist and feminist message, though once I learned to read, two collections of stories about Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf were among my favourites.

>155 elkiedee: Oh dear, how very disappointing. I'm told I could read before I went to school, but hated writing. Every Monday morning we wrote "News" which was what we did at the weekend. I could tell you what I did at the weekend, why did I need to write it down and then read it out? I basically wrote the same one sentence every Monday morning all through primary school. Rebellion takes all forms. >;-)

My mum had been told she shouldn't teach me before I started school, but at that point I was so sad she thought she had better teach me. 4 months later we went to Beijing for 13 months - my dad sent me book parcels so I had quite a good supply of books to practice my new skills on. Then when we got back I foujnd the way reading was handled at primary school quite frustrating. Middle school had a better policy than primary or middle - a 15 minute silent reading period every day, books of our own choice whether from home or a classroom library (we could "borrow" our book and take it home as well, and I especially remember reading Helen Keller's Teacher with fascination, no reading scheme books or enforced reading aloud - I have a severely dyslexic friend who wasn't in my class or year at school but he remembers the regular use of reading aloud in the whole class as excruciatingly embarrassing. I have memories of it being used at secondary school in place of teaching with lesson plans etc.

At some points in primary and middle school we had Creative Writing and I enjoyed writing stories and "poems". We weren't expected to read it aloud though, and I can imagine that being very dull, or worse, stressful and exposing for some. (Being different, problems at home, reading aloud).

Book: 13
Title: Royal Escape
Author: Georgette Heyer
Published: 1938 (before I was born!)
Rating: ***
Why: Liz wanted company.
Challenge: Woman author, CAT
TIOLI Challenge #13: Read a book without an article in the title

This is a slightly odd book. It tells of Charles II's attempts to leave the country after the defeat at the battle of Worcester. And from that perspective, it is a rip roaring adventure tale. Only there's a few too many occasions when the dialogue is overly florid. And there are just a few too many times when Charles' ugly face is split with his dazzling smile and his charm wins over another person who gets dragged into the mess. It's all very uncritical of him, when at times he makes some poor decisions, or has them made on his behalf. It sounds extremely improbable, but Heyer has a reputation for historical accuracy, so one can't doubt that some version of this happened.
I was pleased to note that my home town got a mention, but came off badly, there being no sea captain considered trustworthy enough to take the King to France. The egalitarian part of me can't but help be mildly pleased that we were not up to scratch.

Re-read. I have very little to add, it remains a very odd book. Less tedious, in terms of battle descriptions than An Infamous Army, but it still gets rather repetitive.

>158 Helenliz:

:D

I can't comment on the smiling but geographically it's apparently as accurate as you'd expect from Heyer.

>157 elkiedee: I don't remember a lot of reading aloud, apart from poetry & plays at secondary school. I was told that at primary school we have a period of the day called "free choice" when you could choose to do reading, sums, writing or drawing. I chose reading to the exclusion of anything else.

>159 lyzard: Her geography - the bit I know - is pretty sound. I'm sounding like a stuck-in-a-closet rebel.

>153 Helenliz: I love Hamlet, it's my second or third favorite, I can't decide between that or Macbeth. Richard III is my favorite, so clearly I like bastards.

>161 mstrust: Macbeth is next up. That's the other one I did at school. I wonder if knowing how it works, how it is constructed and the themes that run through them makes them more enjoyable. I'll let you know after Macbeth.

>153 Helenliz: I love that, 'the one you did at school, and all the others'! So true! Although having said that, doing both O' and A'level English lit, I did three Shakespeare plays, and one of them was so turgid it was instantly forgettable (Coriolanus). So maybe I can change the saying to 'the ones you did at school, and/or the ones where you saw the film or play rather than just read it'. The other two I did at school were Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice, but I also have huge soft spots for Much Ado About Nothing, and A Midsummer Night's Dream which I saw either as films or in the theatre.

>163 Jackie_K: I wish I could say it's original, but I'm not that inventive. I heard it somewhere and it struck a chord. >:-)
I seem to remember studying Macbeth prior to doing CGSE's, when we did Hamlet.

Anyone with an opinion, did I ought to listen to the History plays in logical order (Richard III>Henry IV pt 1, Henry IV pt2, Henry V, Henry VI pt 1, pt2 & 3). The library has Richard III on audiobook, then the set of Henry VI, but not all of Henry iV or Henry V. Just wondering what's the best thing to do.

>164 Helenliz: Watch The Hollow Crown TV series. >:-)

>164 Helenliz: Venturing my opinion, I read in college the plays you mention in historical order, though I think they started with Richard II? He of the child "bride" Isabella of Valois, who starred in a book I read voraciously in elementary (primary) school, The Gentle Falcon. It may help with the timeline and the reference to previous kings, queens, and courtiers.

I second >165 ELiz_M:!

>165 ELiz_M: * >167 rabbitprincess: Thank you for the BB. I love reading books in the era but I'm not familiar with tv shows so didn't know about The Hollow Crown.

>165 ELiz_M:, >167 rabbitprincess: And I have some of those. Doh! That never occurred to me. Thanks.

>166 threadnsong: So it does, the library doesn't have Richard II either then. I think I know the general shape of English history to know the main events, timelines and the such. It was more if specific events in the plays are referred back to in later plays.

>165 ELiz_M: You got me, too!

Hello, Helen. I am following your Shakespeare reads with interest. In high school we read one tragedy per year, so Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth and Hamlet. I can never quite decide if I like Macbeth or Hamlet better - I'm going to reread both of them this year with Abby (whose favorite is Hamlet), and perhaps then I shall have a clear winner. I recently read The Year of Lear, and that has me wanting to read the plays you are discussing here. Now I can start with The Hollow Crown and then jump into the plays! Fun!

Finally watched the documentary with Jay Blades learning to read at 50 something. As you say, impressive stuff.

Book: 14
Title: Macbeth
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1606 (before I was born!)
Rating: ***1/2
Why: I'm going to become well read, if it kills me!
Challenge: ??
TIOLI Challenge #13: Read a book that is at least the 4th book you have read by that author

He packs it all into this one, the three witches, the loyal thane turned tyrant king, the murder, a ghost, that wife, the other wife, the wood that walked. It's a busy thing this. It does make you wonder who wears the trousers in the Macbeth family, him or Lady Macbeth. At times, one drives the other and she certainly seems the stronger of the two, but she suffers the side effects as well, with the sleepwalking and the midnight handwashing things going on. I wonder what the story would have been had Macbeth not met the 3 witches, was he prompted to power by their prophesy, or would he have tended that way sooner or later. Either way the play is pretty brutal and one can only hope that not all regime change takes place like this.

Macbeth is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. I am looking forward to watching the new film version with Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand - it's supposed to be excellent.

>173 katiekrug: It was better than Romeo & Juliet, but I think I prefer Hamlet.

>171 charl08: I doff my cap to him.

>170 Crazymamie: on this listen, I prefer Hamlet. But I can see Macbeth has some serious attractions. Lady Macbeth is something else. I have 4 DVDs of The Hollow Crown, and have never watched them. Must put that right.

>172 Helenliz: My favourite Shakespeare play: Scotland and murder!

>175 rabbitprincess: I can understand that!

Book: 15
Title: Julius Caesar
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1599 (before I was born!)
Rating: ****
Why: Shakespeare kick
Challenge: ??
TIOLI Challenge #17: Read a book with a 2-word title, by an author with 2 names

I listened to this and the murder of Julius Caesar took place as the last act of CD1. So he spends half the play missing in action, but casts a mighty long shadow. Like most people, I knew the outline of the story, this puts some personalities into the picture. The conspirators get involved for a number of reasons. You see them gathering and the sounding out that happens. Then comes the crisis point and the play turns. The second half sees the conspirators fall out amongst themselves and make some odd decisions that turn out for the worse. Mark Antony doesn't come across as an honest upright man, he put me in mind of a modern spin doctor, stirring up the crowd to his point of view. And it ends badly for most of the cast that we've followed thus far. I did wince a couple of times, and that was listening to it. Not sure I'd want to see parts of this - I'd be watching through my fingers.
Having said that, it is quite enthralling, the interplay of morals and ambition. It is interesting that no-one really comes out of it all sparkling, they all stand in shades of grey. There are no heroes and villains, they all seem to be people making flawed decisions.

Great review, Helen! You are flying through the plays. I have not read that one since 10th grade, but I remember it very well - I liked it a lot specifically for the observations you make about there not really being clear heroes and villains.

Friday happiness to you!

It's a good one. Will really shows his ability to write realistic people here, all coming up with good reasons for doing something awful.

Thinking about my vague memories of reading the play I do remember not much liking Mark Antony.

Book: 16
Title: Black Mamba Boy
Author: Nadifa Mohammed
Published: 2010
Rating: **
Why: Shelterbox book club
Challenge: New author, woman author, subscriptions, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #4. Read a book with an uneven number of words in the title

This is a case of "it's not you it's me". I cannot get my head around the idea of a fictional memoir. Feels like the author should either have written an account of her father's life, or written fiction. This, as a genre, makes no sense to me.
The story it tells is broad enough in scope to be interesting. Jama is a street child in Aden, but his mother is from British Somaliland. How she came to be there is never explained, but when she dies, he returns to his homeland, then travels North, arrives in Egypt and joins the British Navy before seeing the world. Along the way he witnesses the Italian actions in Africa and the way that they treat the natives. It is all perfectly interesting enough to stand on its own merits, I don't see why it needs to be made fiction. I spent too much time wondering how true each story that was told was. At times she tells of things that our main character cannot have known, a case of I want to tell this, where can I shoehorn it in. At others there was a massively high level of co-incidence. It feels like a series of vignettes rather than a cohesive life story. And it ends rather abruptly, just as Jama's horizons have expanded, so they seem diminished by the ending.
I feel this is a story worth telling, the format to tell it just doesn't work for me.

>178 Crazymamie: It's the ones I can get from the library on audio book, once that source runs out I might be in more trouble! Weekend loveliness back at ya!

>179 mstrust: It was. If rating them this is a close second to Hamlet, for the reality of the cast.

>180 hailelib: Slimy was the word that sprang to mind, an eye for the main chance, that kind of thing. Nothing you could actively dislike, but not nice. You know, politician.

I read through your thread with a lot of interest - so many great postings since my last visit!

I loved the discussion about Wuthering Height and Jane Eyre as love stories. I remember that I was so disappointed when Jane married Rochester because I had firmly believed that she should stay independent and I was really angry at this outcome. I don't remember WH well enough, but I hope to reread it this autumn.

And I loved the description of free reading time at school that some people gave here.
I was able to read quite fluently when I was still in kindergarten, but I couldn't write very well, and found learning to write orderly in primary school tedious. It wasn't fun to "draw" the same letter over and over again just to get it perfect. It didn't make sense to me and I wanted to go on to the next letter!

I am also in awe of all your Shakespeare reading and hope to make more time for Shakespeare this year, too, although the problem is that I have too many reading projects altogether. I definitely want to watch the Hollow Crown at some point! Listening to Shakespeare is something I had never thought of, but it sounds like a good idea.
To be honest, I was never really a fan of Shakespeare. I have read many of the plays, but don't remember a lot and I didn't particularly enjoy reading them. Last year it dawned upon me that I should accompany my reading with DVDs and secondary lit or retellings, which worked well for Much Ado, so that is my plan!

It's decision time again. Which of these appeals:

The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama
Farahad Zama's debut novel is a light-hearted comedy of manners. Mr Ali becomes bored with retirement almost immediately and desires more distraction than his garden. So, he opens a Marriage Bureau and sets to work matchmaking. He puts up a sign, puts an ad in the newspaper, and soon a colourful array of characters start showing up. With Mr and Mrs Ali's help, they, and those closest to The Ali's, search for a perfect match.
The Marriage Bureau for Rich People brings to joyful life the port city of Visakhapatnam in the Bay of Bengal. Farahad's vivid writing won him the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance, and the book was shortlisted for the Muslim Writers Awards. This is a feel-good frolic of a story with love at its heart.

Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
Ayad Akhtar is a Pulitzer prize-winning playwright. His second novel Homeland Elegies has been heaped with praise, not least being chosen as one of Barack Obama's favourite books of 2020.
This deeply personal novel follows an immigrant family in America as they acclimatise. That is, before the ostracisation and personal reckonings that come about because of 9/11. Part memoir, part history book, this boldly self-explanatory work addresses identity, and the decisions taken in anticipation of judgement.
It is a fragmented collection of stories, personal essays, and episodic adventures. At its heart Homeland Elegies is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home. It provides a snapshot into a sense of belonging often set aside.

We Are Displaced by Malala Yousafzai
Malala is best known as the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Her resolve to stand up for girl’s education in Pakistan and around the world, has inspired most.
In this beautiful book she shares various stories of displacement, including her own. We learn how her family fled violence in the Swat Valley, years before she became globally synonymous with strength in the face of terror. And then, she passes the baton to nine other extraordinary women to share their stories.
Part memoir, part communal storytelling, the magic of this book is that it builds a global picture of hope in adversity. We Are Displaced is a powerful collection that acts as a potent reminder of the very human stories behind the global statistics of displacement.

I'd go for We Are Displaced because: the author is worth knowing about; it's about the real world.

I'd reject The Marriage Bureau for Rich People because it sounds twee, though if you want something light-hearted it could be a good choice.

I'd reject Homeland Elegies because: elegies; fragmented; self-explanatory work addressing identity.

>184 Helenliz: I'm adding The Marriage Bureau for Rich People to my own TBR list! I agree with >185 pamelad: that it sounds twee, but then I have a fairly high twee tolerance. :)

>184 Helenliz: I think light-hearted is the way to go--The Marriage Bureau for Rich People!

>184 Helenliz: I really liked The Marriage Bureau for Rich People. It was a lot of fun and that is an excellent reason to read something. I have Homeland Elegies on my wishlist and every review I've seen says it's fantastic. And how can you go wrong with something by Malala? A hard choice, but whatever ends up being chosen, it's bound to be good.

>184 Helenliz: All three look like good options but The Marriage Bureau for Rich People does sound like a lot of fun!

I already had the first two in my TBR, and need to investigate the new book by Malala. As usual, it sounds like a hard choice. If as I think I remmeber this program includes a sub to the chosen book, I would go for #3 because I don't have a copy already, and otherwise I would go for what I have (#1 or #2) and possibly #2 because it's Kindle and I'm not sure where my paperback #1 is.... Apologies for refusing to help you decide as usual!

I like the sound of all of them, Helen. Although I think I'd probably read the first one first, given it's billed as light hearted. Who doesn't need that right now?

Book: 17
Title: The Color Purple
Author: Alice Walker
Published: 1982
Rating: ****
Why: 50 year challenge
Challenge: New author, woman author, CAT, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #8. Read a book first published or set in the 1980s

I came to this knowing very little about the details of this book. I knew it was ground breaking, I knew it was a prize winner, but that was about it. Until late on in the book I struggled to place it in time. I'm still not exactly sure of the duration of the book, but it certainly takes place over several decades. It is told in a series of letters, whether actual or metaphorical is not always clear, initially from Celie to God and later between Celie & her sister Nettie.
Celie is the oldest daughter and she is raped by her step-father, the resulting children taken away and she ends up married to an older man whose wife has died. He wants a wife to replace the previous one and to take care of his children. He is noticeably not named, being referred to as Mr _____ through the majority of the book. He wanted to marry Nettie, as the prettier sister, but is persuaded to take Celie, and Nettie disappears. Celie's life is pretty grim and she initially appears to be quite meek and down trodden. She is, however, a survivor and she grows through the book, coming into her own. There is an array of various characters and relatives that come and go through the book. It is noticeable that the most engaging are the women. I got somewhat confused at times with who was related to who, with most characters seeming to have multiple partners, legalised or not. It felt somewhat at odds with the writing to God and the religion embraced by Nettie.
I found it took a little while to get used to the dialect used by Celie in her letters. It was interesting that Nettie's letters had a different language and usage, reflecting the apparent extended schooling and the environment she subsequently found herself in. It took a while to get my eye in, to "hear" Celie, rather than read the words, as written. I thought it was worth the effort.
I thought that there were several areas that I thought were rather too neatly tied up. I'm not sure how Nettie and her rather more traditional approach to marriage & religion would sit alongside Celie and her relationships. Nettie and Samuel leave Africa and the village they lived in for a decade (it's unclear how long exactly) is barely mentioned again. The relationship between Sofia and Eleanor Jane was particularly interesting, the way that relationship ebbed and flowed felt to be well represented. This could have been a more substantial exploration of race relations.
I appreciate that this was a ground breaking book in its time, it remains a book worth reading. The most rewarding aspect being the way that Celie changes and grows, she comes into her own and establishes herself in the world. The scene towards the end when she is sitting on the porch with her husband and he is referred to by his first name feels to me to be a huge step from the Celie we meet at the beginning of the book.

>185 pamelad: your reasons for rejecting Homeland Elegies are exactly the ones that I think draw me to it.
>186 christina_reads: my twee tolerance is variable. I like twee for a change, but find things like cosy mysteries too twee for comfort.
>187 Tess_W:, >189 mathgirl40:, >191 charl08:. That's fair. Fun can be worthwhile.
>188 RidgewayGirl: I think part of the key to this is not get too attached to any of them, that way I'm not disappointed which one is chosen. The idea is to get me outside my comfort zone a little bit.
>190 elkiedee: yes, I get a copy of the book chosen. Choosing the one you don't have would be a reasonable approach.

After reading The Color Purple, you deserve something lighter, so I'd vote for option #1 :)

>194 katiekrug: the vote closes Monday, and I expect the book sometime around the end of the month, so it's certainly not a next up read.
I'm debating something completely different for my next read.

>184 Helenliz: I have We Are Displaced on my shelf because the topic of displacement is close to me, both because of my family history and because I teach many young people who were displaced from Syria and other countries. On the other hand I am postponing the read because I know that it will make me very emotional and I don't have the strength for that right now.

This is a difficult choice, I would probably go with the first one as I am finding a need for light-hearted books right now but I can see reasons for each one to be "the" choice!

I've only read one of the choices and loved it - The Marriage Bureau for Rich People. I also read a sequel or two and enjoyed them but thought the first the best. The fact that his wife made him set up his marriage bureau on the porch because she didn't want him in the house after he retired was a good start!

Wow, you definitely have a lot of choices, Helen! Right now, I would go for "twee" #1 but I've also really wanted to read a book by Malala so #3. I live in an area where there are a lot of re-settled families and I wonder what their stories are.

Book: 18
Title: The Winter of the Lions
Author: Jan Costin Wagner
Published: 2009
Rating: ***
Why: 50 year challenge
Challenge: New author, CAT, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #4. Read a book with an uneven number of words in the title

Took me a while to get into this one. I'm not a fan of the staccato writing style, lots of short chapters. It's a bit like exercise: I prefer spin, where you start, and carry on until you get to the end over HIIT, which is lost of stops and starts. It's a mentality, I suppose. As we got to the final third and the two strands of story drew closer the switching bothered me less.
the main character detective seems to someone who has half grasped ideas, but seems unable to articulate them and explain to his colleagues why something is important. This got a bit wearing. He'd make a great private detective, it makes for a difficult trait in a team environment. The expression of grief for his dead wife permeates the book, although there are signs of life, he cares about what happens to a colleague with a gambling problem, even if he is unable to take any effective action. The relationship with the woman who comes into his life is slightly bizarre and potentially somewhat unprofessional at its beginning, but it all points to a life that will go on. This wasn't so much solved as came to an end, which felt rather odd.
It's not a bad book, it just isn't my cup of tea.

Helen, did you get a copy of Marzahn, mon Amour?, the new Peirene? I really loved it, it was perfect for my love of books about other places and of memoir.

I've never thought >200 Helenliz: about links between exercise and reading. Your parallel works well.

>201 charl08:, yes, on the shelf. I will look forward to it.

It's a mindset thing. I much prefer starting something, giving it the attention it deserves, getting to the end (or a natural pause point) and then go on to something else. I don't like stopping and starting things, it just doesn't sit right. The difference between Spin & Hiit is just an easy way to explain it.
I like having done Hiit, once I've got home, but I really don't enjoy actually doing it. Although after last night I might be about to reconsider the statement that I like Spin. First time in 4 months and that hurt - a lot.

In other news - the Malala book won the vote, so I will be reading that one in a month or so time.

>202 Helenliz: Never heard of Hilt!

I must investigate the Malala book and find out if any of my libraries have copies available.

>203 elkiedee: You don't want to! High Intensity Interval Training. It's short bursts of exercises with a short rest between them (like 30 seconds exercise 15 second rest - not enough rest to actually recover, but enough to have stopped) and then a longer rest (maybe 2 minutes, if you're lucky) between sets. It's horrible, I hate every minute of actually doing the class. But I get home and I like having been. I also know it does me good. I'm too undisciplined to push myself that hard on my own - I have to be shouted at!

I will report back when we have read it.

That sounds awful. I should do it but I won't.

*Sad trombone*

Daily Quordle #29
6️⃣9️⃣
🟥7️⃣
quordle.com
🟨⬜⬜🟨🟨 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟨🟨🟨⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨🟨⬜🟨
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩⬜🟨
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

>:-(

Book: 19
Title: Mythos
Author: Stephen Fry
Published: 2017
Rating: ***
Why: Audio
Challenge: New author, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #10. Read a book with an animal in the author's name

I listened to this and it made for an enjoyable experience, being read to by Stephen Fry. Here he tells a selection of the Greek myths, starting with the creation of the world from chaos. He does it an engaging way for those new to the myths, with asides along the lines of "and that's where we get our word xxxx from". It's all very chatty, although he has a way with words, there's quite a lot of noticable use of alliterative triads.. The chatty style is, at times, at odd with the nature of the story being told. There is no shortage of gore and wotnot going on in here! Also quite a lot of unacceptable behaviour.
He makes no attempt to analyse or interpret the stories, he is treating them as stories to be told with the emphasis he chooses. The last 20% flagged a bit, a case of just a bit too much of the same one after the other, I suppose. Also the mortals come and quickly go, making it hard to develop a relationship with them.
It was an enjoyable listen, but I'm not going to rush out for the follow on books.

Book: 20
Title: A is for Arsenic
Author: Kathryn Harkup
Published: 2015
Rating: ***
Why: 50 years
Challenge: New author, Non-Fiction, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #??

This is an enjoyable and informative read. It takes 14 of the poisons used by Agatha Christie in her books and looks at them in more detail. This covers the origin of the poison, how is it extracted and made and how it works on the body to cure (if it has therapeutic use) and kill. All of which is told in down to earth language such that the non technical specialist can follow what is being described, although not so much that you could necessarily extract the poison yourself!
From there is looks at cases involving the poison that occurred before and after the relevant books' publication. Some of them were inspired by a case, in others the book may have inspired use. The most interesting one from this perspective was where the book helped solve a poisoning case, as the nurse recognised the symptoms of her patient from the description in Christie's book. At times she was following old paths, at times her use of the poison was contemporary and in other quite novel.
There are 14 different poisons in here, and that felt like about enough.

>209 Helenliz: That's one I would like to read someday.

>208 Helenliz: I have this waiting on my Kindle. I saw the name Stephen Fry and had to.

>209 Helenliz:. For someone who wants to know how far from the truth the depictions are, it is very interesting. As the tag line on the back says (I may paraphrase slightly; this is from memory) "Just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's all made up"

>211 mstrust: I can understand that. It was one of the reasons I listened to it, he has a mellifluous voice.

Book: 21
Title: Marzahn, Mon Amour
Author: Katja Oskamp
Published: 2009 (2022 in English)
Rating: *****
Why: 50 years
Challenge: New author, Woman author, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #4 : Read a book with an uneven number of words in the title

Maybe it's the fact that I'm also approaching a significant milestone, but this spoke to me.
Our narrator was a writer, but in her mid-forties, retrained as a Chiropodist. This is then a series of portraits of her various clients, most more elderly than herself. they are usually surprisingly tender portraits, the care of the feet is, it seems on part of the service offered, there is the listening ear. It is bookended by a chapter about her retraining and the works outing. the training seems to have been largely peopled with women at a crux in their lives, turning to travel in a new direction. By the conclusion of the book we can feel that the optomisitic statement at the beginning that "My middle years, working as a chiropodist in Marzahn, will have been good ones." has turned out to be the truth.
The portrait of the older people are all finely wrought, their cares, their physical difficulties, their history are all outlined in sympathy. But it is quite unflinching as well, there is no sugar coating of the discomforts that aging presents. And there is something in the routine conversations that present a routine - that regular small talk that goes on at the haridressers, the nail salon etc. you see these people regularly enough to get to know them and to be more than just a service.
Maybe it's my age, maybe turning 50 has left me adrift in the middle of life's lake and I'm splashing around trying to work out what I want to achieve. This description and some of the turns of phrase within it drew an answering note within me.

"You're almost fifty and you've realised that the time for you to do the things you want to do is now, not later. It might be an old self-help-book platitude, but it's true all the same. You're almost fifty and you're even more invisible that you were; ideal conditions for doing those things, be they terrible, wonderful or peculiar."

>213 Helenliz: Lovely review Helen. I thought this book was wonderful. I loved the idea that it was the Berlin city book (I'm not sure which year) and the whole city (or at least those who read it) discussed the experiences in the book.
I thought the swimming analogy made a lot of sense to me - getting quite far out and not being quite sure if you're going to get where you thought you were heading for.

I really hope this book finds lots of readers. I've recommended it to the book group at work too.

Hello, Helen! I agree with Charlotte that you wrote a lovely review - adding that one to The List.

>213 Helenliz: Great review! And wise words from the author. After fifty it might seem like it's too late to make big changes. Rest assured, it's not!

Book: 22
Title: Richard III
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1594 (before I was born)
Rating: ***
Why: Project Shakespeare.
Challenge: CAT, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #3. Read a book whose plot/story revolves around family relationships

Listened to this on CD. It helps to have a vague appreciation of the events of the Wars of the Roses - although that does mean that you know how this is going to end...
There's a saying that History is written by the victors and that seems to have had a certain influence here. Richard III is painted really very blackly. That's not to say he was necessarily a good King, but he's presented here as deformed, murdering, devious and not above some pretty dark deeds. He gets disowned by his mother. Even the ghosts of his victims turn up and revile Richard while providing balm to the slumber of Henry Tudor. It's all a bit thick.
The timeframe is clearly much compressed, the events take place over a few years, not the 3 hours of the play's duration. Having said that, there's plenty to catch the attention and enjoy in here.

>217 Helenliz: "Richard III is painted really very blackly."

But that is what makes it fun! Richard tells the audience exactly what he is going to do and then he methodically carries out all his evil plans.

>217 Helenliz: Shakespeare was giving his audiences the Richard they wanted?

Shakespeare didn't just write his plays - he did everything including organing putting them on, and to stay in business and please those wealthy and powerful enoguh to give financnail support beyond a few pence for theatre tickets and refreshments, he very much did need to think about giving certain audience members the Richard III they wanted. That is, Elizabeth I was a Tudor, the granddaughter of the man who won the battle for the throne, so there was good reason to portray Richard III as a villain.

>217 Helenliz: This Richard III, represented as blacker than Satan, legitimizes the Tudors as the saviors of England. The Soviets did not invent propaganda (neither did the Tudors - that had been going for a very long time - winners write the history and all that) ;)

That's one play where I love the story but hate the history representation...

>221 AnnieMod: That's one play where I love the story but hate the history representation... That's a great summation of my feelings for it. It is dramatic and compelling - and just wrong! Apparently Napoleon said "History is a set of lies agreed upon".

>219 hailelib:, I think >220 elkiedee: sums it up. It was telling the people in power what they wanted to see - that they were descended from the good guys and the others were the bad guys. Telling truth to power is a dangerous sport.

>218 ELiz_M: I think that >221 AnnieMod: describes the conflict I feel about this one. It just felt a bit tooooo OTT. I get the attraction, though.

Book: 23 & 24
Title: Revolting Rhymes and Dirty Beasts
Author: Roald Dahl
Published: 1982 & 1984
Rating: ***** & ****
Why: I felt in need of some light relief...
Challenge: short stories, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #8. Read a book by an author whose biography or autobiography you've read & 12. Read a book with a five letter word in the title that you might find in Wordle

Revolting Rhymes
I listened to this as light relief - and it was perfect. It tells 6 fairy tales with somewhat different outcomes than usual. The beginning of the first explains that you might think you know the story, but that's not what actually happened - that's just the story for children.
All in rhyme, it is just perfect in audio format. The turn of phrase is just brilliant, and, at times, laugh out loud funny. There are the twists on the tale you think you know, and just the use of language that takes you to unexpected places. It's not all in trivial language either, and I think that adds to the appeal. I can see this being fun to read to a child - enjoyable for adult and child. This left me with a smile on my face.

Dirty Beasts
Another listen for light relief. There are 9 different stories here, each a different animal. All in rhyme, these are quirky and inventive. At times rather unexpected, at times rather dark, I can see them appealing to the cheeky chappie style child. I enjoyed the turn of phrase and the use of language.

Book: 25
Title: Three Apples Fell from the Sky
Author: Narine Abgaryan
Published: 2015
Rating: ***
Why: Shelterbox book club
Challenge: Woman author, new author, subscriptions, translation, Bingo, CAT.
TIOLI Challenge #17. Read a book for a themed group read

This is an odd story. It starts with Anatoliya deciding that she is about to die and settling down to meet it. From there we go backwards into her and the village's past. The village seems to be on its last legs as well, there are no young people left; they have all moved away or died in the troubles, famine and landslide that have all afflicted village, slowing taking their toll. Through this filling in of the past with the continuing of Anatoliya's life lets us meet the neighbours, to understand them and their state of mind and way of life.
As it becomes evident that Analoliya isn't going to expire on cue, life in the village goes on. The ending took me entirely by surprise, but it makes a certain kind of sense, with life going full circle. That sense of closing a circle or of the present mirroring or fulfilling the past recurs several times.
It's a gentle tale, while there is a lot of pain described, there is a sense of having lived through it and survived, despite everything.

>224 Helenliz: - This one is often on sale for Kindle here and I've been tempted by it, but haven't succumbed. Not sure I ever will.

Sorry I haven't been by for a while (I know you've been quietly devastated). My star became unglued from your thread... It's back on now.

>225 katiekrug: Jackie liked it more than I did. It was good, but it didn't knock my socks off.
>:-o How did I manage to loose my star! Glad to know I have it back again.

>224 Helenliz: Good review, you're much better than me at summarising the nub of a story! You're right, I was more enthusiastic and gave it 4.5* - as someone who's not a big fiction reader that reflects how accessible and delightful I found it (even amongst all the misery).

Some of us use star ratings quite differently - from previous explanations of the star rating system here, I think Helen's 3* is much more like my 4*,

>228 elkiedee: I think that highly likely. I use 3 for a good, solid read. 4 are great and 5 blow my mind or change my life, sometimes both. Which might explain why I don't give out 5s very often.
Going down, 2 can be best described as "meh" with 1 being something I probably finished just to see how bad it got.

>227 Jackie_K: Thank you. I review to remind me that I've read it and what I thought of it, but that can be really hard to do without significant plot spoilers. Sometimes that balance does elude me and the review turns into a spoiler ridden plot summary. If they are at all of use to anyone else that's a bonus.

Hello Helen! Like >225 katiekrug:, haven't been on for a while, and so have some time this weekend to check with my reading buddies here on LT.

And I agree with >227 Jackie_K: - your reviews are well-thought out and provide the gist of the story.

It's been interesting to see the threads on Richard III. I agree they paint him very, very darkly, and for political reasons. When they went into the car park that covers Bosworth Field and found his body, they did discover he had scoliosis. So the disfigurement was true, just exaggerated for political gain.

And was it Alison Weir who wrote the book on the Princes in the Tower?

>229 Helenliz: I was looking at the chart thingy for different LT stats, and found that I pretty much only gave between 3.5* and 4.5*, which made me think it was a pretty pointless exercise as far as 'my' gradings were concerned. I still feel really mean giving anything less than a 3.

Book: 26
Title: The Short, the Long and the Tall
Author: Jeffrey Archer
Published: 2020
Rating: ***
Why: Audio
Challenge: Short stories
TIOLI Challenge #2 Read a book with at least a 4.00 LT average rating

A selection if previously published short stories selected for the author's 80th birthday. Some of them were quite good, some of them were un-dated and have aged really very badly. The one about the woman driver and not stopping on the hard shoulder takes on an entirely different turn once you throw mobile phones into the equation.
The story with the 4 different endings was an interesting exercise, with a variety of different scenarios, each one subtly different - a different make and model of car each time, for a start.
Sometimes you get some background as to what triggered the story, which serves to make it more interesting. None of them were awful, but none of them were stand out brilliant either. Although the joke about Joists and Girders made me laugh out loud - even if it did take quite a while to get there.

Hello, Helen! Almost to the weekend - any fun plans?

>233 katiekrug: I *should* do a mountain of ironing, but you asked about fun plans. Not a lot, no. >;-)

>234 Helenliz: - Yeah, me either. I was hoping to live vicariously!

A lazy Saturday morning (seems like an age since I had one of them!) sees another finish. It looks nice out there, but I'm still in my dressing gown. >:-)

Book: 27
Title: My Lord John
Author: Georgette Heyer
Published: 1975
Rating: ***
Why: Liz wanted to read it
Challenge: 50 years, woman author, Heyer series read (out of order!)
TIOLI Challenge #6: Read a book in which a character's name (first or last) is in the title

If Georgette Heyer had decided to write historical fiction rather than inventing the Regency Romance genre, it could have turned out rather well. This is a portion of the life of John, third son of Henry IV. And he is an engaging enough character to carry a book. This starts with his childhood and ends just prior to the death of Henry IV, by which time he is Warden of the North and Constable of England. There is quite a lot about his relationship with his brothers, which gives you a view of Henry V (to be) that doesn't necessarily feature in the histories.
If one were to quibble, she has a couple of annoying habits. The first it to use archaic language overly much. I can understand it in speech (just about) but to use it in description as well just makes reading it difficult as you either have to look up the word (there is a glossary) or guess its meaning from the context.
The second slightly annoying trait is to use different names for the same person in the same paragraph. I understand that they have a first name and surname and then a title bu which they are known, meaning that they do have multiple legitimate ways they could be referred to, but it does make for a slightly confusing read. I'm trying to remember how other authors manage this, as I don;t remember it being this noticeably annoying in other historical fiction I've read.
And the story arc could have dome with some polishing. A number of times you start a chapter with John bieng at place X in year Y, then he sees someone and you get their backstory over the last 5 years. It made for following the timeline slightly problematic.
I can't say that I agree with the cover blurb that this is her greatest novel. I think it would have needed a bit more polish that this, but it was unfinished. Part of me worries how big it would have been, at ~350 pages there is still quite a lot of John's life to tell and it would only have got busier.
It was enjoyable, but I really wouldn't suggest you start here.

Love a lazy morning. I hope you reveled in it :)

>236 Helenliz:

I knew it. What was the bet again? :D

It wasn't meant to be one novel: she started out to write a trilogy about the House of Lancaster with John as its central thread, but this is as far as she got; and there was no chance for her to polish what had been written. I think most of the issues you raise (and the name-thing is mind-boggling!) can be attributed to that, sadly.

Anyway---thank you very much for finally giving me the shove to get through these!

BTW, are you still interested in picking up the Albert Campion series?

>239 lyzard: I think there is interested and belief if I can keep up. Those two probably have a different answer.

>238 lyzard: I think that this could have been an excellent book, it just hadn't been polished. It does make you wonder what she would have written had she concentrated on historical fiction and not the regency romances. We'd have missed out on the romances, but what might she have produced?

>240 Helenliz:

And that was increasingly what she wanted, but her publishers and her family's financial situation wouldn't let her do it: she did the research, but every time she tried to write, she had to stop and turn out another romance. She had reams of notes but this was as much as she ever managed to get written, and even this was left unfinished when she died. :(

Re: the Campions, I'm a bit ahead of you so go at your own pace and just let me know when you're up to The Case Of The Late Pig. After that we can do the one-every-two-months thing that Julia and I were using for the Miss Silvers, if that suits you?

>241 lyzard: As long as you're not in a hurry for me to catch up, that sounds like a plan. Will have to see what we've got and what we're missing. Then see what the library can supply.

Book: 28
Title: Much Ado About Nothing
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1598 (before I was born)
Rating: ****
Why: Project Shakespeare
Challenge: CAT
TIOLI Challenge #11: Read a book where the author's name includes a plant or plant product

This is genuinely charming and just such fun. Two couples of very different tone are united after a different wooing. Beatrice & Benedict are a warring pair that spar with each other throughout until their friends decide to bring them together for their own good. The other couple feel to be younger and are far more prone to the winds of fate. Hero & Claudio come together when the Prince woos Hero on Claudio's behalf, only for him to rebuff her and then marry her unknowing.
This could be overly sweet and sickly if we just had Hero & Claudio to concentrate on, but the rift adds that touch of spice to break up the sweetness. Running alongside you have the barbs exchanged by Beatrice & Benedict. And for the final element there is the bumbling Dogsberry and the watch who accost the malefactors and interrogate them in their inimitable style.
This is genuinely endearing and sparkles.

The film version with Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh as B & B is absolutely wonderful. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it!

>244 katiekrug:. Agree with you there. It is a delight. >:-)

Dang, I was hoping you hadn't seen it, so you would love me forever for introducing you to it...

>244 katiekrug: I went to see that as a teenager to appreciate Shakespearean theatre.

>247 charl08: That'll certainly give you an appreciation of Shakespeare.
>;-)

Mmmm hmmm.

Decision time again, gang. Any thoughts on this lot?

Dial A For Aunties by Jesse Sutanto
What happens when you mix one (accidental) murder with two thousand wedding guests, and then toss in a possible curse on three generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family? You get four meddling Asian aunties coming to the rescue! This fun and truly chaotic story bursts with energy, humour, and love. When Meddy Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her mum and aunties come to her aid. Unfortunately, this coincides with the over-the-top billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working on, at an island resort on the California coastline. But things go from inconvenient to downright torturous when Meddy's first love—and biggest heartbreak—makes a surprise appearance amid the wedding chaos. Is it possible to escape murder charges, charm her ex back into her life, and pull off a stunning wedding all in one weekend?

I'm Waiting For You by Kim Bo-Young
Two novellas told in four parts. This is a stunning collection of short fiction by one of South Korea's most treasured writers, available in English for the first time.
In the title story, an engaged couple working in distant corners of the galaxy plan to arrive in Seoul simultaneously and walk down the aisle together. But small incidents wreak havoc on their vast journeys, pushing the date of their wedding far into the future. As centuries pass on Earth and the land and climate change, one thing is constant: the desire of the lovers to be together.
The second tale is a mind-bending philosophical exploration of life by two amorphous prophets discussing the ways they inhabit earth.
Kim explores the driving forces of humanity - love, hope, creation, destruction, and the very meaning of existence. In addition to the stories we are treated to generous notes from the author and translators that bring new meaning to both stories.

Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa
Sentaro believes he has failed. He has a criminal record, drinks too much, and his dream of becoming a writer is just a distant memory. With only the blossoming of the cherry trees to mark the passing of time, he spends his days in a tiny shop selling dorayaki, a type of pancake filled with sweet bean paste. But everything is about to change.
Into his life comes Tokue, an elderly woman with disfigured hands and a troubled past. Tokue makes the best sweet bean paste Sentaro has ever tasted. She begins to teach him her craft, but as their friendship flourishes, social pressures become impossible to escape and Tokue's dark secret is revealed.
Sweet Bean Paste is a moving novel about the burden of the past and the redemptive power of friendship. Durian Sukegawa's charming tale of friendship, love and loneliness in contemporary Japan has captured hearts all over the world.

Book: 29
Title: Letters of Note: Art
Author: Ed: Shaun Usher
Published: 2013
Rating: ***
Why: Audio
Challenge: Non-Fiction, Short works, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #4. Read a book with the numbers 0314 in the ISBN

This series is always an enjoyable listen. Each letter has a short piece introducing the author and the situation that lead to the letter being written (if in response to a specific event, for instance). The artists vary from the well known to those I've not heard of before. They were all writers, painters, sculptors, so it's not repetitive. Each letter is them read by (usually) an actor, and they bring the letter to life. They are tender, touching, angry, the whole range of human emotions are here. Its interesting how current some of the older items can feel. These are a reliably good selection.

>250 Helenliz: - i'd go with the middle option, just because Korean lit is not something I see a lot of.

>251 Helenliz: - I'll have to look to see if my library has any of this series on audio.

>252 katiekrug: I'll have to look to see if my library has any of this series on audio.? Oh I hope they do. There are books on a variety of topics:
Letters of Note (Vol.1)
Letters of Note (Vol.2)
Letters of Note: Love
Letters of Note: War
Letters of Note: Mothers
Letters of Note: Fathers
Letters of Note: Cats
Letters of Note: Dogs
Letters of Note: Art
Letters of Note: Music
Letters of Note: Grief
Letters of Note: Sex
Letters of Note: Space
Letters of Note: New York

I've listened to Love, Mothers & Art. I know my library app has Cats. Now that could be fun!

One library system doesn't have any, and the other has Fathers and War on audio (probably the two I'm least interested in - but I'll put them on my library list).

>250 Helenliz: I'd vote for the middle one as new to me.

Dial A For Aunties I saw lots of positive stuff for this one, but I didn't finish it. Maybe I read too much crime but I think crime and humour is hard to do together, and this didn't make me want to stick with it.

I read Sweet Bean Paste and wasn't overwhelmed, but did like it. My mum's family has a history with something linked in the book leprosy treatment, so I found it interesting from that perspective.

>251 Helenliz: Sounds good, and might give me some more ideas for my category artists.

Book: 30
Title: Ariadne
Author: Jennifer Saint
Published: 2021
Rating: ***
Why: I'm a sucker for a retelling.
Challenge: woman author, new author, CAT, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #4. Read a book with the numbers 0314 in the ISBN

This is good, but that's all it is. It is presented a a feminist retelling of a Greek myth, in this case featuring Ariadne and her sister Phaedra. Told in the first person, parts 1 & 4 are all Ariadne, the middle two parts involve chapters from both sisters. It works to a certain extent, in that the sisters' voices are sufficiently different, but the story telling lets it down too often. Theseus & Dionysus get far too much air time and that uncritically. The women have agency on occasions, but those occasions are too few (it is when it suits the men in the story - as usual) and there is too little exploration of the emotions of the women for this to be enlightening. Phaedra appears to suffer from post natal depression, but after that you barely hear of her feelings on the subject or her relationship with her boys.

This is might be quite good if it did not have such brilliant works to stand as a comparison. It falls down when compares to Madeline Miller's Circe and Natalie Haynes A Thousand Ships. Go read one of them instead.

>250 Helenliz: You know, I'd pick the middle one. If it's available for the first time in English, maybe that's a sign!

Book: 31
Title: The Wombles
Author: Elisabeth Beresford
Published: 1968 (before I was born, but this is a plan)
Rating: ***
Why: The later books were published in the 1970s, so I'm going to fill in the early years of my 50 years challenge - but I need to start at the beginning.
Challenge: woman author, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #5. Read a book originally published in the 1760s, 1860s or 1960s

Looking at the state of this book, this is a many many time re-read - but probably not in quite some time. It's lovely and engaging. It introduces a number of the Wombles and gives each of them a separate personality. Bungo is the main thread that pulls this together, with the stories taking place over the course of a year, which starts with Bungo picking his name and going out onto the common to tidy for the first time. Thoroughly pleasurable.

>258 Helenliz: And now I've got the Wombles theme as an earworm. Thanks Helen!

>259 charl08:. >:-D Happy to help there.
I will admit to humming it to myself more than once while reading!

>258 Helenliz: What a lovely blast from the past!

>261 Jackie_K: there's more where that came from as well. >:-)

A cross stitch finish. Just needs a wash and iron and she can go to be made into a quilt.

Pretty!

New thread up - some and join me here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/340885

>263 Helenliz: Lovely...beautifully stitched.

>263 Helenliz: Gorgeous!!

Thank you all. She was a pleasure to stitch, which is not always the case for good looking pieces.