Pamelad's New Categories #2

Dies ist die Fortführung des Themas Pamelad's New Categories.

Forum2021 Category Challenge

Melde dich bei LibraryThing an, um Nachrichten zu schreiben.

1pamelad
Bearbeitet: Jul. 19, 2021, 11:53 pm

In the past I used to read mainly crime novels and wanted to add more variety. Using categories was a great success. But this year I let them go and have ended up stuck in another genre, historical romances, so I'm trying again to add more variety.

I've left some spaces for new categories, just in case.

2pamelad
Bearbeitet: Sept. 18, 2021, 5:11 pm

1. Books I own

The Stone of Chastity by Margery Sharp
Concluding by Henry Green
They Were Counted by Miklos Banffy
The Yield by Tara June Winch
The Absolute at Large by Karel Capek
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
The Far Cry by Emma Smith
Shadows Before by Dorothy Bowers

3pamelad
Bearbeitet: Jul. 19, 2021, 11:22 pm

2. Books on the Wishlist

Locos by Felipe Alfau
They Rang Up the Police by Joanna Cannan

4pamelad
Bearbeitet: Jul. 20, 2021, 2:43 am

3. Books I've been meaning to read for years

Ferdyduke
The Case of Comrade Tulayev
Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser Completed
Doctor Faustus

The Transylvanian Trilogy
They Were Counted Completed
They Were Found Wanting Completed
They Were Divided Completed

5pamelad
Bearbeitet: Aug. 14, 2021, 5:46 pm

4. Challenges

(i) 1900 - 1950 Challenge
1. Author from Australia
The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson 1909
2. Author not from Australia
Pending Heaven by William Gerhardie 1930
3. Classic in its Genre
The Iron Chariot by Stein Riverton 1909
4. Not a Novel
A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell, Short Story, 1917
5. References WWI or WWII
Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything by Victor Frankl 1946

1900 - 1910
Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser 1909
1911 - 1920
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 1915
1921 - 1930
Nadja by Andre Breton 1928
Rain by Somerset Maugham 1921
1931 - 1940
Pack My Bag by Henry Green
1941 - 1950
Concluding by Henry Green 1948
The Exploits of Engelbrecht by Maurice Richardson 1950

(ii) Classics Challenge

1. A 19th century classic - any book published between 1800 and 1899. She by H. Rider Haggard
2. A 20th century classic - any book published between 1900 and 1971. They Rang Up the Police by Joanna Cannan
3. A classic by a woman author. My Lady Ludlow by Elizabeth Gaskell
4. A classic in translation. The Vagabond by Colette
5. A children's classic. Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc
6. A classic crime story, fiction or non-fiction, published at least 50 years ago. Murder by an Aristocrat by Mignon G. Eberhart
7. A classic travel or journey narrative, fiction or non-fiction. The Far Cry by Emma Smith
8. A classic with a single-word title. Locos by Felipe Alfau
9. A classic with a colour in the title. The Yellow Room by Mary Roberts Rinehart
10. A classic by an author that's new to you. Lady into Fox by David Garnett
11. A classic that scares you.
12. Re-read a favourite classic. The Castle by Franz Kafka

6pamelad
Bearbeitet: Aug. 1, 2021, 4:54 pm

5. BingoDOG
Second BingoDog

1. One-word title Concluding by Henry Green Completed
2. Marginalised group The Yield by Tara June Winch Completed
3. Dark or light Warlight by Michel Ondaatje
4. Character as friend Murder by an Aristocrat by Mignon G. Eberhart Completed
5. Arts and recreation On Patrick White by Christos Tsiolkas Completed
6. Title describes me The reader by Bernhard Schlink Completed
7. Hearty recommendation The Exploits of Engelbrecht by Maurice Richardson Completed
8. Nature or environment When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut Completed
9. Classical element Inspector Frost and the Waverdale Fire by Herbert Maynard Smith Completed
10. Two or more authors Who Killed Dick Whittington? by E. & M. A. Radford Completed
11. Impulse read The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn Completed
12. Love story Of Mortal Love by William Gerhardie Completed
13. Read a CAT Circe by Madeline Miller Completed
14. Southern hemisphere Wish by Peter Goldsworthy Completed
15. Made me laugh Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P. G. Wodehouse Completed
16. Suggested by another generation A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio Completed
17. New author Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser Completed
18. Somewhere I'd like to visit Mr Rosenblum's List by Natasha Solomons Completed
19. History They Were Counted by Miklos Banffy Completed
20. 20 or fewer members Pending Heaven by William Gerhardie Completed
21. 200 or fewer pages Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything by Victor Frankl Completed
22. Senior citizen Olive, again by Elizabeth Strout Completed
23. Building A House in the Country by Ruth Adam Completed
24. Time After the Fine Weather by Michael Gilbert Completed
25. Magic Here We are by Graham Swift Completed

11pamelad
Bearbeitet: Sept. 27, 2021, 6:14 am

10. Ten Different Prizes

Possibilities
1. Miles Franklin The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey
2. Booker International/Independent Foreign Fiction Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald
3. Booker Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald Completed
4. Stella The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka by Clare Wright Completed
5. Nobel The Solid Mandala by Patrick White
6. Costa The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins
7. Samuel Johnson/Baillie-Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Stasiland by Anna Funder Completed
8. Edgar The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths
9. PEN Translation Prize Autobiography of a Corpse by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
10. Women's Prize for Fiction When I lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant
11. Desmond Elliot Prize Saraswati Park by Anjali Joseph
12. Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize
13. Betty Trask Award The Liar's Dictionary by Eley Williams
14. Romance Writers of Australia Long Romance of the Year Award The Devilish Duke by Maddison Michaels Rejected
15. Romance Writers of New Zealand Best Overall Romance of the Year Award Ruining Miss Wrotham by Emily Larkin

1. Stella Prize The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka by Clare Wright Completed
2. James Tait Black Memorial Prize Lady into Fox by David Garnett Completed
3. Booker Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald Completed
4. Samuel Johnson/Baillie-Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Stasiland by Anna Funder Completed
5. Romance Writers of New Zealand Best Overall Romance of the Year Award Ruining Miss Wrotham by Emily Larkin Completed
6. Ngaio Marsh Award: Best First Novel The Nancys by R.W.R McDonald Completed
7. Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger The Czar's Madman by Jaan Kross Completed

12pamelad
Bearbeitet: Nov. 2, 2021, 1:21 am

9. Froth Continued, October Onward

Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas 3.5*
His at Night by Sherry Thomas 3*
Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas 3*
Seduce Me at Sunrise by Lisa Kleypas 3*
Tempt Me at Twilight by Lisa Kleypas 3*
The English Witch by Loretta Chase 3.5*
The Last Hellion by Loretta Chase 3.5*
The Duke Knows Best by Jane Ashford 3*
The Lost Duke of Wyndham by Julia Quinn 3*
An Affair in Winter by Jess Michaels 3*
Mr Impossible by Loretta Chase 3*
First Comes Marriage by Mary Balogh 3*
At Last Comes Love by Mary Balogh 3*
Miss Wonderful by Loretta Chase 3.5*
The Companion's Secret by Susanna Craig 2.5*
The Lady's Deception by Susanna Craig 2.5*
No Good Duke Goes Unpunished by Sarah MacLean 3*
Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover by Sarah MacLean 2.5*
Gallant Waif by Anne Gracie 2.5*
A Duke in Shining Armor by Loretta Chase 3*
Simply Unforgettable by Mary Balogh 3*
A Summer to Remember by Mary Balogh 3*
One Night For Love by Mary Balogh 3*
First Comes Marriage by Mary Balogh 3*
At Last Comes Love by Mary Balogh 3*
Then Comes Seduction by Mary Balogh 3*
A Secret Affair by Mary Balogh 3*
Seducing an Angel by Mary Balogh 3*
The Proposal by Mary Balogh 3*
Only a Kiss by Mary Balogh 3*
Enchanting Pleasures by Eloisa James 3*
The Escape by Mary Balogh 3*
Only Enchanting by Mary Balogh 3*
Lord Perfect by Loretta Chase 3*
Not Quite a Lady by Loretta Chase 3*
Only Beloved by Mary Balogh 2.5*
The Unexpected Wife by Jess Michaels 2*
My Sweet Folly by Laura Kinsale 3*
Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale 4*
A Rake's Guide to Seduction by Caroline Linden 2.5*
Mr Cavendish, I Presume by Julia Quinn 2.5*
Fortune's Lady by Patricia Gaffney 2.5*
The Countess by Lynsay Sands 2.5*
Midsummer Moon by Laura Kinsale 3.5*
One Week as Lovers by Victoria Dahl 2.5*
Rogue for Hire by Sasha Cottman 2*
The Hidden Heart by Laura Kinsale 3*
The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas 3.5*
A Dance in the Moonlight by Sherry Thomas 3*

13VivienneR
Jul. 19, 2021, 11:35 pm

Are you open for business yet? Happy new thread! I love rereading your lists.

14pamelad
Jul. 19, 2021, 11:54 pm

>12 pamelad: Absolutely. Welcome Vivienne.

15Tess_W
Jul. 20, 2021, 2:46 am

Happy new thread! You certainly seem to have variety in your reading cats!

16pamelad
Jul. 20, 2021, 3:01 am

>15 Tess_W: Welcome Tess.

Uncle Dysfunctional by AA Gill

mstrust recommended this book by AA Gill, and it was available on Kindle Unlimited (which I re-joined for Mary Roberts Rinehart books) so I read it. Gill was the Agony Uncle for British Esquire, and this is a collection of readers' letters and Gill's replies, some of which are extremely funny. There are exceptions, because some of these blokes have problems I don't want to read about, but it is an agony column, after all.

17MissWatson
Jul. 20, 2021, 3:27 am

Happy new thread! Any plans for the classic travel book yet? I don't read much in that genre and feel a little bit stumped.

18VictoriaPL
Jul. 20, 2021, 3:34 am

>16 pamelad: happy new thread!
“Agony Uncle” you've taught me something new!

19NinieB
Jul. 20, 2021, 9:12 am

Happy new thread! Your decades look similar to my decades . . .

20pamelad
Jul. 20, 2021, 5:09 pm

>17 MissWatson: Thank you. I'm thinking of reading something by Freya Stark, perhaps The Valleys of the Assassins, or possibly Owen Lattimore's The Desert Road to Turkestan. Some classic travel books I've enjoyed are: Dervla Murphy's Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle; West with the Night by Beryl Markham, who flew solo across the Atlantic; Forbidden Journey: From Peking to Kashmir by Ella Maillart; One's Company: A Journey to China in 1933 by Peter Fleming.

>18 VictoriaPL: Good to see you here, Victoria.

>19 NinieB: Welcome Ninie. I see that you also have a big bulge in the twenties and thirties!

21pamelad
Jul. 20, 2021, 5:19 pm

Classics Challenge - a 19th century classic

Mr. Harrison's Confessions by Elizabeth Gaskell

A newly-qualified young doctor moves into a village and becomes entangled in the matrimonial expectations of at least three women. This novella is delightful.

I am continuing with Mrs Gaskell, and am now reading another novella, Cousin Phillis.

I've also read some historical romances, but have decided to review only those that stand out.

22pamelad
Bearbeitet: Jul. 20, 2021, 7:53 pm

We're in lockdown again because of a Covid outbreak, and it's been extended until next Wednesday. South Australia has just locked down as well, and NSW has been in lockdown for over 3 weeks. It will probably be over soon in Victoria and SA, because they locked down with small numbers of cases to give the contact tracers a chance to catch up, but it looks as though the NSW lockdown will go on for much longer.

It's the Delta variant. The health authorities are finding that people are getting infected and transmitting the disease within 30 hours. With the original Covid strain, this took a few days. It seems to have been transmitted out of doors: people have caught it at football matches and taking the bins out in a block of flats (this is frightening). It lingers in the air, so people are catching it in supermarkets, with no direct contact, up to 30 minutes after the infected person has left, even though masks are compulsory indoors. The problem is exacerbated by the slow vaccine roll-out with Australia, of the 38 OECD nations, having vaccinated the lowest proportion of its population. The main problems are the availability of vaccines and mixed messaging over the risks associated with AstraZeneca.

Adding more about Delta.

It's much more transmissible amongst children and was spreading rapidly through schools, which are now closed. Young people in their 20s and 30s are in hospital in NSW, in the ICU, which didn't happen in past outbreaks.

To put things in context, there are 118 active cases in Victoria and 1300+ in NSW.

23RidgewayGirl
Jul. 20, 2021, 10:08 pm

>22 pamelad: Ugh, I'm sorry, Pam. Once the vaccines roll out, you'll have it under control in no time. Over here, there are so many people who are refusing to be vaccinated, even as the delta variant explodes. As someone on twitter said, "Dudes will look you dead in face and say stuff like "I'm not getting that vaccine. I'm not putting unknown toxins in my body." while sipping their 5th Red Bull of the day." Anyway, I share your frustration.

24rabbitprincess
Jul. 20, 2021, 10:14 pm

>22 pamelad: Ugh, the thought of it lingering in the air in common areas creeps me out about having to do the laundry -- we don't have in-flat laundry so we have to use our building's laundry room. I already stand outside and wait if someone else is in when I want to go...

Our vaccine rollout is going pretty well, but I'm really worried about the under-12s. Would not be surprised if we were back in lockdown shortly after school starts (I was predicting 2 weeks, but who knows, might be sooner).

Stay well!

25DeltaQueen50
Jul. 20, 2021, 10:38 pm

It is scary to see the numbers on the rise. We were told that we could drop the masks as of July 1st but with this Delta varient around, I am still masking up. Until everyone gets on board with the vaccines, we are most likely to be seeing these outbreaks occur on a regular basis.

26MissWatson
Jul. 21, 2021, 4:11 am

>20 pamelad: Thanks, that's giving me ideas. I'm thinking Vol de nuit which I actually own.
>22 pamelad: That is scary. Stay safe!

27Tess_W
Bearbeitet: Jul. 21, 2021, 4:56 am

Sorry to hear about the lockdown. I'm sure the US is headed that way as people are refusing the vaccines. I think as a nation we are at 49% and my state is 56%. My county has vaccines that they have had to pitch because of expiration date. Even though I'm vaccinated I'm still wearing a mask at the grocery (optional) and any medical facility (required).

I look forward to your review on Cousin Phillis as I have it on my ebook (free) TBR pile.

28pamelad
Jul. 21, 2021, 5:56 pm

>23 RidgewayGirl: Victoria is going OK, with most of yesterday's cases already in isolation because they'd been identified as close contacts. We wouldn't have needed this lockdown at all if the federal government had managed to meet its vaccination targets. End of the year, they tell us. At least they've vaccinated the people living in aged care now. A friend visits his mum often and has got to know a lot of the old people and some of their families. He tells me that some families are refusing permission for their frail and vulnerable parents to be vaccinated. Sickening.

>24 rabbitprincess: Take care, RP. Is the laundry well-ventilated? Some blocks of flats here have been strictly locked down because Covid has spread through the building, with no direct contact between people. Occupants can't leave at all. The state government is paying people to walk the occupants' dogs! Schools are going to be a huge problem. Not so much now, in the lockdown capital of the world, with the goal of no cases in the community, but when, like Canada, we are relying on vaccinations and herd immunity to protect people. I worry that some people will never be able to leave their homes because they have medical reasons for not being vaccinated and are at high risk of dying if they become infected.

>25 DeltaQueen50: I suppose that, being fully vaccinated, you'd be unlikely to become very ill even if you were infected, but by wearing a mask you're protecting other people by reducing the spread.

>26 MissWatson: Enjoy Night Flight!

>27 Tess_W: With low rates of vaccination, your wearing a mask is one of the few contributions you can make to reducing the spread. How can people refuse to be vaccinated? Do 609,000 deaths mean nothing to them?

I have been briefly distracted from Cousin Phillis by a library hold of Lord of Scoundrels becoming available unexpectedly.

29pamelad
Jul. 21, 2021, 11:19 pm

Classics Challenge - 19th Century

Cousin Phillis by Elizabeth Gaskell

Phillis Holman is seventeen, a gentle, obedient young woman living on a farm with her religious parents. She shares with her father, a minister, a love of knowledge. The narrator, Paul Manning, a nineteen-year-old trainee railway engineer, is working in the area. He visits the Holmans at his mother's request, despite being disinclined to spend his leisure time with religious people, because Mrs Holman and his mother are cousins. But Paul and the Holmans end up liking one another very well, so Paul visits often. He brings his boss, Holdsworth, a charming young man only a few years older than himself, to meet the Holmans, and when Holdsworth is recuperating from a serious illness, the Holmans invite him to stay at the farm. Unbeknownst to Phillis's parents, who think she is a child, an unacknowledged affection grows between Phillis and Holdsworth.

Mrs Gaskell is brilliant at describing how people live. Here she is describing the interactions between the people on the farm: the Holmans, their labourers and the house servants. She places everyone clearly in a social sphere: Mrs Holman and Paul are of a slightly lower class than Mr Holman, but Paul has raised himself because of his father, a remarkably intelligent working man who has gained recognition for his inventions; Holman and Phillis are intellectuals, studying Latin and Greek; Holdsworth is of a higher class again, well-educated and well-travelled. Phillis leads the passive existence of a young woman of the time, mid-nineteenth century. She cannot make her wishes known, and must do as her parents wish.

I enjoyed Cousin Phillis, but it's not as cheerful as Cranford, perhaps because we see Phillis's predicament so clearly. Cranford's Miss Hattie suffered from the same powerlessness as Phillis, as did Sophie in Mr. Harrison's Confessions, but the latter two books were comedies.

30Helenliz
Jul. 22, 2021, 5:38 am

Happy new thread (late, I know).
I've not read any Gaskell, your reviews make me think I should get to her at some point. The TV series always looked a bit twee, which I think put me off.

31pamelad
Jul. 22, 2021, 4:26 pm

>30 Helenliz: Thanks Helen. Perhaps a tiny bit twee, but not cynically and tastelessly sentimental. Elizabeth Gaskell is an acute observer.

32pamelad
Jul. 23, 2021, 7:00 pm

Decade: 1951 - 1960

The Swimming Pool by Mary Roberts Rinehart was first published in 1952 but harks back to the twenties, when the Maynard family was wealthy and the swimming pool at its summer residence was full of young men paying court to the beautiful Julia Maynard. Those carefree days ended with the stock market crash of 1929, and the suicide of Julia's father. But bankruptcy wasn't enough to cause Mr Maynard to take his life. Something else happened. It involved Julia and her mother, and Julia has never been the same.

The story is narrated by Lois, Julia's much younger sister, who lives all year round at the summer residence with her brother Phil. Julia arrives, frantic and fearful, then a murdered woman is found in the swimming pool.

This is a classic had-I-but-known with a lot of portentous build-up and plenty of reflection on past mistakes. I enjoyed it, despite having zero sympathy for the Maynards who were down to their last two servants.

33hailelib
Jul. 23, 2021, 8:48 pm

You seem to be just about to complete your bingo card.

The Gaskell book sounds good.

34pamelad
Jul. 23, 2021, 9:28 pm

>33 hailelib: The last squares are the hardest. I keep starting books that fit then discarding them because they're not what I want to read right now.

Elizabeth Gaskell is definitely worth trying, and the ebooks are free!

35rabbitprincess
Jul. 24, 2021, 8:57 am

>28 pamelad: The laundry room does have windows that can be opened, but I'm not sure how good the ventilation is. I try not to think too hard about the possibility of Covid spreading through the building without direct contact, because it would make me crazy.

Great work on being so close to completing your bingo card!

36pamelad
Jul. 24, 2021, 5:59 pm

>28 pamelad: It hasn't happened often, and it's summer where you are, so you'd have to be really unlucky. Take care!

Cadenza by Stella Riley is the last book in the Rockliffe series. I've enjoyed all the books in the series, and this was a good one. Belle and Lizzie are invited to London for the season by the wife of the Duke of Rockcliffe, but Lizzie's austere vicar father won't let her go so, rather than moulder away at home for ever, she finds a position as a governess/housekeeper. Belle persuades Lizzie to change places, so Lizzie goes to London and Belle finds herself in charge of three bastard children who have been given a home by an impoverished, impractical earl who has had to give up his dreams to become a concert harpsichordist. In London, Lizzie falls in love with a man with a dark past. Entertaining.

37pamelad
Jul. 25, 2021, 8:15 pm

I've just had my second Covid injection so have made a grateful donation to the Immunisation Coalition: https://fundraise.unicef.org.au/t/immunisationcoalition

The Covid outbreaks in South Australia and Victoria appear to be under control so SA is opening up again and it looks as though restrictions will be eased in Victoria by Wednesday. Unfortunately, in Sydney the case numbers are still increasing so there's no end in sight to its lockdown.

38RidgewayGirl
Jul. 25, 2021, 8:52 pm

>37 pamelad: Hurray for being fully immunized! In two weeks you'll be officially invincible. Here's hoping you avoid side effects.

39JayneCM
Jul. 25, 2021, 11:35 pm

>37 pamelad: I am having my first Pfizer on Wednesday. Have to be quick to get an appointment here. I was lucky and got one in our town - hubby had to drive to Ararat for his!

40pamelad
Jul. 26, 2021, 12:41 am

>38 RidgewayGirl: Thanks Kay. I'm hoping the side effects will be minimal because with AstraZeneca they come with the first dose, and they did!

>39 JayneCM: Congratulations on your local Pfizer, Jayne. Ararat is quite a hike from Hamilton, but it's worth it.

41pamelad
Jul. 27, 2021, 3:47 pm

Decade: 1961 - 1970

The Case of the Daring Divorcee by Erle Stanley Gardner

Two Mrs. Hastings, two guns, one murder victim, multiple divorcees and crowds of young women, weight 110 - 120 lbs, wearing big dark sunglasses. Perry Mason sorts out the confusion with his usual aplomb.

One woman is described as not too tall, 115 lbs, perfect. Good to know what's important in the perfect woman!

42pamelad
Jul. 27, 2021, 4:47 pm

The lockdown is over in Victoria because all the new Covid cases for the last three days were in isolation while they were infectious. The goal is no cases in the community. There are still lots of restrictions, but shops, restaurants and schools are opening today and the 5km from home limit has been removed. The outbreak in NSW isn't spreading exponentially but cases are still increasing, so their lockdown has been extended for another four weeks.

No one likes the lockdowns, but the go hard, go early policy implemented by SA and Victoria seems to be working.

43pamelad
Bearbeitet: Aug. 21, 2021, 4:58 pm

Thinking of a starting a new category, Ten Different Book Prizes.

Possibilities

Miles Franklin (Australia) https://www.perpetual.com.au/milesfranklin/about-the-award
International Dublin Literary Award https://dublinliteraryaward.ie/book-category/previous-winners/
Nobel
Booker/Booker International
Stella (Australia) https://thestellaprize.com.au/prize/2021-prize/
British Book Award
The Women's Prize for Fiction https://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/reading-women
Best Translated Book
Gold Dagger/Edgar/Stiletto (Crime)
RITA/Ruby/RNA (Romance)
Pulitzer https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/219
Indie Book Awards (Australia) https://www.indiebookawards.com.au/
Prix Goncourt https://www.academiegoncourt.com/tous-les-laureats-prix-goncourt
Prix Femina Vie Heureuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prix_Femina
Costa https://www.costa.co.uk/docs/cba-past-winners.pdf
Desmond Elliott https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/desmond-elliott-prize/past-winners/
Commonwealth Writers' Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Foundation_prizes#Commonwealth_Writer...
James Tait Black Memorial Prize https://www.ed.ac.uk/events/james-tait-black/winners/fiction
Baillie-Gifford Prize for Non-fiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baillie_Gifford_Prize#Winners_and_shortlists
The Betty Trask Prize and Awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Trask_Award
Ngaio Marsh Awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngaio_Marsh_Award

44Tess_W
Jul. 28, 2021, 6:09 am

>43 pamelad: Great idea! In fact, I was thinking of making that a CAT of mine next year.

45pamelad
Jul. 28, 2021, 6:57 am

Classic Challenge: Re-read a favourite classic.

The Castle by Franz Kafka

The first English translation, by Willa and Edwin Muir, published in 1930, was based on Max Brod's heavily edited version of Kafka's manuscript and was influenced by Brod's religious perspective. The Critical Edition, based on Kafka's original manuscript, was compiled by a team headed by Malcolm Pasley and published in 1982. This 2009 translation, by Anthea Bell for the Oxford University Press, is based on the Critical Edition.

After an arduous journey, K has arrived in a poor and miserable village to take up a position as a land surveyor. He needs to reach the castle that overlooks the village in order to contact the man who employed him, but a minor castle functionary denies that the land surveyor has a position and tries to expel him from the village. K. persuades the landlords of the Bridge Inn to allow him to stay the night, but he is unwelcome because no one in the village wants to risk the disapproval of the castle.

I suspect that The Castle has as many meanings as it has readers and that every time you read it you find more. Is K. really the Land Surveyor and was he ever offered employment? Will he ever get to the castle, and why is he so determined to when there seems to be no point? Reading the new translation, K.'s determination to reach the castle seems less like a quest and more like obstinacy in the face of futility.

46pamelad
Jul. 28, 2021, 7:00 am

>44 Tess_W: There's plenty of choice, because some of these prizes have been going for decades.

47ELiz_M
Jul. 28, 2021, 7:34 am

>45 pamelad: This is definitely on my TBR, with two different editions on my library wishlist. Now I know I should be careful in which I choose.

48pamelad
Bearbeitet: Jul. 28, 2021, 6:35 pm

>47 ELiz_M: I can recommend the Anthea Bell translation. The Mark Harman translation is also based on the Critical Edition and receives good reviews, but apparently there are some anachronistic colloquial Americanisms. They'd probably glide right past speakers of American English, but I'd notice every one.

Fixed the spelling of Mark Harman so that the touchstone points to the translator, not the writer of NCIS.

49JayneCM
Jul. 29, 2021, 1:27 am

>43 pamelad: I also look at:

Costa Book Awards https://www.costa.co.uk/behind-the-beans/costa-book-awards/book-awards
Desmond Elliott Prize for New Fiction https://desmondelliottprize.org.uk/

I am planning a prize category too, starting with the Pulitzer. I did a small one this year, just reading winners from this year but I want to read all the winners over the years from each prize. A VERY long-term project!

50pamelad
Jul. 29, 2021, 6:12 pm

>49 JayneCM: Thanks Jayne. There are plenty of potential reads on both of those lists.

How many different prizes do you think you'll include in your never ending project?

51pamelad
Jul. 30, 2021, 3:34 am

Non-fiction, and an early entrant for the August HistoryCAT

From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia Got Compulsory Voting by Judith Brett

In Australia, registering to vote and voting itself are compulsory. There is one electoral roll for the whole country, and these days it's updated automatically from other government databases when people die, or move. We can vote in a Federal or State election from any polling place in our own state, and if we're overseas or interstate can attend an absentee polling place to register a vote. Elections are managed and electoral boundaries redistributed by the non-partisan Australian Electoral Commission. Before I read this book I thought that, apart from the US, it was as easy to vote in most democratic countries as it is in Australia, but it's not by a long shot.

I've learned that Australia gave the world the secret ballot, with its ballot papers and separate polling booths. We were the first to use ballot papers with check boxes next to candidates' names. South Australia was the first place in the world to give women the vote and allow them to stand for parliament. Shamefully, our Aboriginal people were denied the vote from Federation in 1902 until 1983.

Brett's book traces the history of Australian voting from before Federation to the present. Her left-wing bias matches my own, so that's not a problem She's very much pro-compulsory voting and pro-preferential voting, which result in our majoritarian democracy and centrist governments.

Interesting and informative.

52JayneCM
Jul. 30, 2021, 8:44 am

>50 pamelad: I'm not sure how to go about it as there are SO many books from so many prizes!

I was thinking of just starting with one prize and reading all the winners in order, then going on to the next prize. I'll then have to include a category for 'catching up' with new winners of prizes I have already read.
I'll definitely start with the Pulitzer as I have already been buying the earliest winners of this - the ones that are readily available anyway.

Although I also like the idea of reading a book from each prize each year. Or maybe it would be an idea to make it two books per year per prize or you would never catch up on the back catalogue of winners!

How are you planning on approaching it?

53pamelad
Jul. 30, 2021, 8:37 pm

>52 JayneCM: That's an ambitious plan, to read the Pulitzer winners in order starting from 1917. Perhaps you could allow yourself to ditch books you didn't like, so that you didn't get stuck.

I'm looking at a much looser approach. I'll check out a lot of awards to find ten books I'd like to read, one from each award. I'm aiming for variety, so lots of genres, lots of countries. I already have The Labyrinth for the Miles Franklin and The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka for the Stella.

54pamelad
Jul. 30, 2021, 9:04 pm

Non-fiction

On Patrick White by Christos Tsiolkas, from the series Writers on Writers.

Tsiolkas is an Australian writer whose parents emigrated from Greece. His hypothesis the Greek Orthodox religion of White's lifelong partner, Manoly Lascaris, has a discernible influence on the spiritual aspects of White's writing. Tsiolkas theorises that White's awareness of Lascaris' exile from his birthplace, the melting pot of Smyrna, adds depth to White's own sense of exile, and that of his characters.

Tsiolkas spent a year re-reading White's oeuvre, and this short book is the result. It made me want to read more of White's work.

I'm thinking of reading The Solid Mandala for the Classics challenge. I've heard that it is has a high degree of difficulty, so could use it to replace Doctor Faustus in the Classic You Fear category. Tsiolkas absolutely loved The Solid Mandala.

55JayneCM
Jul. 31, 2021, 12:24 am

>53 pamelad: Hmm, I will have to see how I feel towards the end of the year, when I start to set up for 2022!

I do like the idea of dipping into different prizes to make it more varied. That is what I did this year, but only 5 books. I did the Stella, Miles Franklin, Newbury Medal, Costa Children's Award and Costa Fiction.

56pamelad
Jul. 31, 2021, 2:10 am

Read in July

Total: 39
Historical Romances: 20
Other: 19
This is a big improvement on June, when I read 51 books, including 43 historical romances.

Best Books:
Locos by Felipe Alfau
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
Mr Harrison's Confessions by Elizabeth Gaskell

Best Historical Romance: Cadenza by Stella Riley

Currently reading: Warlight by Michael Ondaatje; Joan Makes History by Kate Grenville

57pamelad
Bearbeitet: Aug. 1, 2021, 4:54 pm

BingoDOG: Dark or Light

Warlight by Michel Ondaatje

Warlight is almost no light: one orange light on the Thames to guide a boat, a blue light on the corner of a street. The war has recently ended and Nathaniel's parents are moving to Singapore for a year, leaving him and his sister Rachel in the care of a man they call "the Moth". Moth's friends are a varied and disreputable group, linked by their work during the war. What they did is obscure, as is everything else in this book. It plods along in a melancholy way, hiding the motivations and the past actions of the characters to the extent that I lost interest in them.

But it's the last square on my BingoDOG!

58NinieB
Aug. 1, 2021, 5:07 pm

>57 pamelad: Congratulations on finishing the BingoDOG! Feels good, doesn't it?

59pamelad
Aug. 1, 2021, 5:23 pm

>58 NinieB: Thank you! So hard to fill the last two squares.

60VictoriaPL
Aug. 1, 2021, 8:24 pm

>57 pamelad: congrats!

61VivienneR
Bearbeitet: Aug. 2, 2021, 1:22 am

Congratulations on getting vaccinated! At least you will have some peace of mind. The picture you paint of Delta is very concerning.

My neighbour is furious with her adult son and daughter and their spouses who refuse to be vaccinated. Each has a different and ridiculous reason (son says he doesn't have time, daughter says it causes sterility!!). They both have kids and my neighbour does the after-school care that exhausts her. I'm sure the young parents haven't given a thought to who will look after the kids if they get infected.

ETA: Meanwhile my family continue to wear masks but that's partly because wildfire smoke has enveloped our town and hasn't moved for what must be weeks.

62pamelad
Aug. 2, 2021, 4:38 pm

>60 VictoriaPL: Thanks Victoria.

>61 VivienneR: There's a new Delta outbreak in Queensland and most of yesterday's cases were children under nine. Your neighbour's kids could easily bring the disease home to their parents.

In Melbourne we have to wear masks whenever we leave the house, even though there are few new cases, because Delta is so infectious. It's awful that the fires are still burning and the smoke is still lingering. Are there any predictions about when the fires will stop?

63pamelad
Aug. 2, 2021, 5:09 pm

Death at the Dog by Joanna Cannan

Mathew Scaife, the local squire and a nasty old man, is found dead in the lounge of the village pub. Many of the other drinkers have motives for the murder, but none admit to seeing it. The local superintendent of police has interviewed the suspects and drawn his conclusions, not so much on the basis of fact but on his own prejudices. He cannot abide bohemians or independent women, so his suspicions have fallen on the writer Crescy Hardwick. Fortunately, the local police call in Inspector Guy Northeast from Scotland Yard.

The book was first published in 1941, and is set in 1939. WWII has just begun. Some of the male characters in their late twenties and early thirties have tried to enlist and been rejected, and are looking for ways to get into the services (which reminds me of Anthony Powell's The Kindly Ones, where Nicholas Jenkins is doing the same). People gather together to listen to Winston Churchill on the wireless.

Recommended.

64JayneCM
Aug. 2, 2021, 6:34 pm

>57 pamelad: Hooray for finishing your Bingo card!

65VivienneR
Aug. 2, 2021, 6:56 pm

>62 pamelad: Yes, that's what my neighbour is worried about. The kids' parents run a business and are in daily contact with the public so the risk is doubled.

Because of the "heat dome" in June the fire season started early and we are not expecting rain anytime soon. The smoke is so thick in my area that the fires cannot be fought from the air and only ground firefighters are on the job.

Death at the Dog sounds good. I'll have a look for it. I love those old mysteries.

66pamelad
Aug. 3, 2021, 5:17 pm

>64 JayneCM: Thanks Jayne.

>65 VivienneR: I also liked They Rang Up the Police, the first Inspector Northeast book.

67pamelad
Bearbeitet: Aug. 13, 2021, 3:03 am

68JayneCM
Aug. 5, 2021, 6:20 am

>67 pamelad: Lockdown reading coming up! It is like Groundhog Day, isn't it?

69pamelad
Aug. 5, 2021, 6:53 am

>67 pamelad: And yesterday we thought it was under control. At least Victoria knows how to manage a lockdown, so with luck a week will do it. Will your thirty library books be enough?

What's good about sitting inside reading during a lockdown is that you're doing the right thing.

70pamelad
Aug. 5, 2021, 4:48 pm

The Once and Future Duchess by Sophia Nash

This Regency romance won a RITA Award. There's Isabelle, an eighteen-year-old woman who is a duchess in her own right, James, her ducal mentor who is in love with her but thinks he is too old, a couple of other dukes, a fourteen-year-old girl, a dignified abigail, and the Regent, who writes amusing letters to Isabelle and has demanded that all the dukes marry ASAP. This was the fourth and last book in a series, so I was missing some of the backstory, not that it mattered a great deal. The main plot concerns Isabella and James - will they, won't they? - and the conclusion is ludicrous.

I've removed this from my list of potential prize winning books because it's just not good enough. It's a readable Regency, as long as you're not expecting too much.

71JayneCM
Bearbeitet: Aug. 6, 2021, 12:26 am

>69 pamelad: This is why I am not planning a trip across any state borders for a while. Even when the borders are open and it looks good, it can change in an instant. Luckily I enjoy being at home; I'm definitely a homebody at heart! As long as there are books and tea available, I'm all set!

>70 pamelad: Hope your next read is more enjoyable.

72pamelad
Aug. 6, 2021, 5:29 pm

>71 JayneCM: A friend and I were going to Ballarat this weekend, staying in Creswick. We would have visited the Ballarat Gallery, where I was going to have another look at Eugene Von Guerard's paintings of the goldfields, which are mentioned in The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka. We'll re-book when the lockdown is over. Instantly, because you have to grab the opportunity when you can!

We drove to South Australia earlier this year, prepared to make a dash for the border as soon as Dan and Jeroen gave their first warning. There's no way I'd catch a plane anywhere!

73pamelad
Aug. 6, 2021, 7:34 pm

Victoria was out of lockdown for less than a fortnight and now we're back again due to an out of control outbreak in NSW which is seeding Delta cases across the country. The NSW outbreak is out of control because theirs is the only state government in Australia that prioritised keeping business open over saving people's lives and recommends that we all "live with the virus". 29 new cases today in Victoria. Queensland, NSW and Victoria locked down. We'll have rolling lockdowns until there are enough vaccine doses to inoculate 80% of people over 16. Maybe December.

NSW is threatening to open up with 50% vaccinations. It's way out of sync with the rest of the country. Things are going to get ugly.

74rabbitprincess
Aug. 6, 2021, 7:41 pm

>73 pamelad: I am so sorry that NSW is spoiling things for the rest of Australia. Wishing you well.

75pamelad
Aug. 6, 2021, 8:01 pm

>74 rabbitprincess: Thanks. NSW politicians are the culprits. The NSW residents are probably just as angry as the rest of us.

76JayneCM
Aug. 6, 2021, 9:18 pm

>72 pamelad: What a shame! Hopefully we can make simple trips again soon. They moved some of the Clunes Booktown events to October this year, thinking that would be safe. But who can tell?
I certainly wouldn't be catching a plane anywhere soon. It is just too unpredictable. I know quite a few people who have been caught out.

77VivienneR
Aug. 7, 2021, 1:15 pm

>76 JayneCM: It's understandable that there are those who find it necessary to fly somewhere, but most of us live in places where a local trip can be just as rewarding, relaxing, entertaining - whatever you are seeking in a getaway. Australia has made some good decisions that has kept the country safer than most but it's tough. Wishing you all stay safe and well.

78JayneCM
Aug. 8, 2021, 1:16 am

>77 VivienneR: The government has certainly been promoting holidays at home but even heading to another state is off the cards for a while. We have been lucky that the lockdown have not affected work as I work from home anyway and hubby has easily converted to at home work. But it is devastating for people who can no longer do their job. I don't know how people are making ends meet as we are now up to Lockdown 6.0 (as it is called!)

79pamelad
Bearbeitet: Aug. 8, 2021, 3:24 am

>77 VivienneR: Yes. I've been on five short trips since November when the long lockdown ended. There's a lot to see in Victoria.

>78 JayneCM: I wonder whether many people have found alternative work? The unemployment rate is the lowest in ten years. Small businesses like hairdressers must be finding things hard, because they have to keep shutting down and rescheduling and still have to pay the rent.

Much better news today. 11 cases in Victoria, down from 29 yesterday. I doubt I was alone in fearing that there would be many more. Much more inclined now to believe that we will defeat this outbreak and open up again, despite the problems in NSW. A survey of people's vaccination intentions is also good news, with about 13% of Australians who would refuse to be vaccinated, but only 7.6 % in NSW.

Adding another book prize to >43 pamelad: James Tait Black Memorial Prize https://www.ed.ac.uk/events/james-tait-black/winners/fiction It's been going since 1919.

80hailelib
Aug. 8, 2021, 4:19 pm

I was able to find Death at the Dog in a Kindle version for 2.99US and purchased it as it sounds a lot like many of the mysteries I've been reading this year while mostly staying at home tracking the pandemic news and avoiding too much contact even though fully vaccinated since April.

81pamelad
Aug. 8, 2021, 5:47 pm

>80 hailelib: There are lots of Joanna Cannan's books in Kindle Unlimited, but most of them feature Inspector Price, who is such an unpleasant character that I didn't want to read about him. I hope you like Death at the Dog.

82pamelad
Aug. 8, 2021, 6:26 pm

HistoryCAT; GeoKIT: Oceania; 10 Different Prizes: Stella

The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka by Clare Wright

The 1854 miners' rebellion, culminating in the Eureka Stockade, started the journey towards democracy and universal suffrage in Australia. By 1854 the surface gold had been exhausted, and many miners were earning too little to support their families. Living costs were high, and increased further by the 30 shilling per month miner's licence, which many miners had to pay at the expense of feeding their children. Armed soldiers swept the diggings almost daily searching for unlicensed miners who were jailed, their families left to destitution. At the same time police, government officials and soldiers were making a fortune from bribery and corruption.

The forgotten rebels are the women. The Eureka story has come down to us as a story of men's heroism, and the role of women has been ignored. Wright tracks down the women on the Ballarat goldfields, some of whom played important roles in the fight for democratic rights.

We learned about the Eureka Stockade and the miners' rebellion in primary school, but we didn't learn about the government corruption, the arbitrary arrests and convictions of innocent men on trumped up charges, the soldiers' brutality, the bayonetting of unarmed men and women, the firing of tents with women and children inside them.

An interesting and very readable book about an important piece of Victoria's history.

83pamelad
Aug. 8, 2021, 11:54 pm

10 Different Prizes: James Tait Black Memorial Award; Classics Challenge: A Classic by an Author Who's New to You

Lady into Fox by David Garnett is a novella, first published in 1922. It's available free on Gutenberg.

The newly married Mr and Mrs Tebrick were very happy together until one afternoon, when they were out walking, Mrs Tebrick was changed into a fox. In human form she had nothing in common with a vixen, although her hair was dark red and her maiden name Sylvia Fox. Mr Tebrick could see that his wife looked out through the eyes of the vixen, so he bundled her up and took her home to keep her safe.

At first Sylvia retained her human characteristics despite the limitations of her fox's body: she liked to listen to music; she played cards; she enjoyed being read to; she ate the same food; she wore clothes; she slept in her husband's bed. But as time wore on, Sylvia became more fox-like until, much against his wishes, Mr Tebrick had to set her free.

This strange, puzzling little story is narrated from the point of view of Mr Tebrick, who goes into a decline at the loss of his vixen. One on level, this is a simple fairy tale. On another, it's the story of the decline of a marriage. Perhaps it's about adaptation and acceptance, or the need for freedom. Like The Metamorphosis, which preceded it by ten years, Lady into Fox is thought-provoking, philosophical and comic. Unlike Kafka's novella, Lady into Fox is very, very English.

84JayneCM
Aug. 9, 2021, 6:17 am

>83 pamelad: That sounds bizarre and totally fascinating!

85Tess_W
Aug. 9, 2021, 12:25 pm

>83 pamelad: That would definitely be a new author to me. I'm working on the classics also, so will probably get this one.

86pamelad
Bearbeitet: Aug. 9, 2021, 5:19 pm

>85 Tess_W: I downloaded a free version from Kobo which was missing the woodcut illustrations. An edition with them would be worth looking for.

>83 pamelad: Plus free and short. The perfect book!

87pamelad
Aug. 10, 2021, 2:36 am

The Lady Risks All by Stephanie Laurens

At 496 pages, this Regency romance is far too long, but if you skip most of the sex scenes you can cut out about a quarter of the book. The main characters like to review past events and their thoughts about them fairly frequently, so I recommend this book to anyone with a failing memory.

Miranda is unmarried at 29, and is used to looking after her younger brother Roderick, but he is now a responsible adult and she is at a loose end. Roderick is kidnapped after an evening at the home of Roscoe, the philanthropist/gambling czar next door, so Miranda enlists Roscoe's help to save her brother. Roscoe, formerly an aristocratic dilettante, became the proprietor of a network of successful gambling establishments in order to save his family from financial ruin. Despite falling in love with Miranda, he believes that he cannot offer her marriage because he has lost his respectability.

I quite enjoyed this, but skimmed a great deal.

88pamelad
Aug. 14, 2021, 4:43 pm

Books I Own; Classics Challenge: Journey Narrative

The Far Cry by Emma Smith

The young author won the 1949 James Tait Black Memorial Prize with her first and only novel, which is based on her 1946 trip to India. Theresa Digby is fourteen, an awkward, resentful child living with her cold but well-meaning aunt, when her father, a selfish, bombastic windbag, hears from from his ex-wife, Theresa's mother, that she wants to re-establish contact with her daughter. Mr. Digby's response is to spirit Theresa away to India where his idealised older daughter, Ruth, lives with her husband, a tea planter.

On the ship, Theresa meets Miss Spooner, one of the two kind and genuine people in the book. Eric, Ruth's husband, is the other. Everyone else is dislikeable, which is the problem I had with the book: the author sneers at her characters. I didn't much enjoy reading about the interior lives of people whom the author had judged and found wanting. I did enjoy reading about the journey from England to Assam, and the descriptions of India.

89pamelad
Aug. 17, 2021, 6:12 pm

10 Different Prizes: Booker 1979

Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald

A group of disparate people, living on barges permanently moored on the Thames near Chelsea, forms a community. Richard, the de-facto leader lives with his disgruntled wife Laura on the immaculate Lord Jim and departs each day to his job in the City. The elderly Woodies spend summer on the Rochester and winter in their country house. The other barge dwellers are not at all well-off and are struggling to survive: Willis, the ageing marine painter, needs to sell the leaky Dreadnought so he can retire to live with his siter; Nenna, unwillingly separated from her husband who refuses to live on a boat, lives with her two daughters on the Grace; the kind and thoughtful Maurice, whose answers to the name of his boat, picks up men for profit and stores stolen goods in the hold. The barge dwellers, despite their different social and financial backgrounds, look after one another.

The central characters are Nenna, a Canadian, and her impossible precocious daughters, the six-year-old Tilda and responsible, eleven-year-old Martha, who is more mature than her mother. All three of them want their father to return home, and the plot, what there is of it, hinges on Nenna's efforts to reconcile with her husband.

I enjoyed this short, gentle, tragi-comedy.

90pamelad
Aug. 20, 2021, 4:15 pm

Froth

This month I discovered Amanda Quick. I started with With this Ring, but discarded it because of a sagging middle-section and an unlikely hero, then tried again with Ravished, which I enjoyed, followed by Dangerous, which was also entertaining but a bit too similar. All three books feature intelligent, independent heroines, and damaged heroes who have withdrawn from society and are ripe for salvation by an eccentric, energetic young woman who disdains convention and can see beneath the hero's forbidding exterior. All three books had a central mystery, which brought the hero and heroine together as they investigated and were exposed to danger. I will read another Amanda Quick, but not right away.

91pamelad
Bearbeitet: Aug. 21, 2021, 4:59 pm

More prizes

The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are for first novels written by authors under the age of 35, who reside in a current or former Commonwealth nation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Trask_Award

Established in 2010, the Ngaio Marsh Awards recognise excellence in New Zealand crime, mystery and thriller writing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngaio_Marsh_Award

>43 pamelad: List of Prizes

92pamelad
Bearbeitet: Aug. 21, 2021, 5:50 pm

The Covid outbreak is out of control in NSW and things aren't looking good here in Victoria. The lockdown has been made even more stringent: a curfew from 9pm to 5am; essential workers must carry permits and all other workers must stay home; it's now state wide, not just Melbourne. Yesterday there was an anti-lockdown protest, with violent young men attacking police and setting off flares (protests are normally remarkably sedate here in Melbourne, so this is a worry). It was a collection of anti-vaxxers (Jesus is my vaccine), conspiracy theorists, libertarians, and what looked like a lot of hoons who can't see why they can't just do whatever they want.

The vast majority of us will just stay home and do the right thing, in the hope that we can stop the community spread. Otherwise we'll be stuck at home until 80% of adults have been fully vaccinated. Vaccination rates are picking up, with 50% of adults having received at least one dose, but there's still a shortage of vaccines. The Federal Government keeps making announcements, but doesn't follow through. They say that millions of doses are arriving in September, but they've said lots of things that haven't turned out to be true.

An inner-suburban "Good Karma Network" has just folded for reasons including "toxic positivity"! ETA An alternative group has sprung up "The Fairly Good Karma Network".

93Tess_W
Aug. 21, 2021, 9:23 pm

>92 pamelad: Welcome to my world! Our county had 696 hospital admissions last week, all but 2 were those who did NOT receive the vaccine. Our county is in control by the anti-vaxxers and Libertarians, for sure!

94JayneCM
Bearbeitet: Aug. 22, 2021, 12:25 am

>92 pamelad: Next it will be down to "The Just A Little Bit of Good Karma Network"!

We were certainly not given much notice of our regional lockdown. I had to pick my son up in town yesterday at 12.30 and the police were walking the streets, obviously ready to make sure everything was locked up at 1pm.
My daughter and granddaughters have been in quarantine since Friday in Shepparton as my granddaughter goes to kinder at St Mels. They were given a testing order for today so have been lining up since 8am. I haven't heard yet whether they are finished!

The protest yesterday was just ridiculous. As you said, I'm pretty sure a fair number of them were people who had no clear idea of what they are for or against, just wanted to get out of the house and run riot. So many people are critical of 'Chairman Dan' but if you ask what their alternative method for dealing with it would be, they have no idea.

Hope you are keeping well - looks like you are getting lots of reading in! Do you have a garden or balcony to enjoy this lovely weather today while reading?

95pamelad
Aug. 22, 2021, 3:44 pm

>93 Tess_W: There's a good chance that the Melbourne lockdown protestors are the lunatic fringe, and we'll reach the vaccination targets. Your county is a different story, and frightening. A quarter of our Covid cases are children under nine, who won't be getting vaccinated any time soon, so people need to get vaccinated to protect their own, and other people's, children.

>94 JayneCM: 2 hours is very short notice, and it must have been eerie to have police patrolling the streets. Sometimes, with the curfews and permits and closed borders, it feels as though we're living in a WWII novel. I can see that some people view lockdowns as evidence of creeping authoritarianism but, like you, can't see any other way of controlling the latest Covid outbreak, at least until the vaccination rates are much higher. I hope your daughter and granddaughters in Shepparton are OK.

I'm doing LOTs of reading in my nice sunny back room which looks out into the north-facing courtyard garden. Where's your favourite reading spot?

96pamelad
Aug. 22, 2021, 4:12 pm

More prizes. The Royal Society of Literature, https://rsliterature.org/, gives out a few.

The RSL Christopher Bland Prize is an annual award of £10,000 to a debut novelist or non-fiction writer first published aged 50 or over.

RSL Giles St Aubyn Awards for Non-Fiction

The RSL’s Literature Matters Awards aim to reward and enable literary excellence and innovation.

RSL Ondaatje Prize: The annual award of £10,000 for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place.

V. S. Pritchett Short Story Prize

The Encore Award was first presented in 1990 to celebrate the achievement of outstanding second novels.

The title ‘Companion of Literature’ – the highest award bestowed by the RSL – was inaugurated in 1961, and is held by up to 12 writers at any one time.

The Benson Medal was founded in 1916 by A.C. Benson, scholar, author and RSL Fellow, ‘in respect of meritorious works in poetry, fiction, history and belles lettres’.

97VivienneR
Bearbeitet: Aug. 22, 2021, 5:25 pm

>92 pamelad:, >93 Tess_W:, >94 JayneCM: We are experiencing a spike in this (rural) area of British Columbia too. In the last month the number of new cases is more than we had during the rest of the pandemic. Almost all are unvaccinated. The nearest hospital has six ICU beds, and four are already taken. Doctors are very concerned about non-Covid emergencies requiring ICU beds. Wishing you all the best.

98JayneCM
Aug. 22, 2021, 7:44 pm

>95 pamelad: I rang my daughter at 4.50pm yesterday to see how they went as they had been called for testing, being from a Tier 1 exposure site. They had been there since 8am and she said she couldn't talk when I rang her as they were just getting to the front of the line! Luckily the testing station was near home so she could run home and get some lunch! And to sit in the car all day with a five year old and a two year old. The only consolation was at least it wasn't summer and boiling hot. Now they just have to wait and see.

Reading spots - hmmm, wherever there is a quiet spot! I still have three kids at home, so reading is generally snatched between activities. Most of my solid blocks of reading has to be done at night, hence why I stay up so late!

>96 pamelad: There are always some great picks in the RSL Ondaatje Prize (and the Winifred Holtby which preceded this) as I love a novel with a definite sense of place.

>97 VivienneR: The issue of beds is shaping up to be a problem here too, especially if it takes off in regional areas where people will often have to be sent to Melbourne where there are no local hospital facilities.

99pamelad
Aug. 23, 2021, 3:57 pm

>97 VivienneR: People over 70 were an early priority for vaccination, so over 80% of them have had at least one injection and there are very few in hospital. As in BC, most of the people ending up in hospital, and in the ICU, are unvaccinated. They are much younger than the victims of last year's outbreaks, and either haven't been eligible for vaccinations, or have refused. We're already experiencing shortages of health workers because people with undetected Covid are going to Emergency, which leads to hundreds of workers having to be furloughed and isolated.

The news we get from Canada is that your country is doing a brilliant job in getting its population vaccinated. I hope Australia can do as well.

>98 JayneCM: Any news about your daughter and granddaughters? Jeroen was very impressed by the cooperation of the people in Shepparton, so here's hoping that they can get the outbreak under control. After a long break I've returned to compulsively watching the Covid press conferences. (Jeroen Weimar is in charge of responding to Covid outbreaks. He is called the Covid Commander, and every day he gives us the statistics and tells us how the outbreaks are being managed.)

100pamelad
Aug. 23, 2021, 4:23 pm

10 Different Prizes: Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction; September HistoryCAT

Stasiland by Anna Funder

In the 1990s Funder was working for a German television company. She suggested a program about people in East German who had resisted the regime but her superiors rejected the idea, believing that there had been none. Funder began her own investigation with an ad in the newspaper seeking people who had worked for the East German security forces, the Stasi. Her book is based on interviews with Stasi members and their victims, interspersed with her own reactions. The victims include a woman whose critically ill baby ended up on the Western side of the wall, and who bravely helped people escape to the west; a young woman who was jailed because of her relationship with an Italian man; a woman whose husband was killed in jail. Even the Stasi men themselves were victims, with their superiors threatening wives and children. It is estimated that, counting Stasi employees and their informers, there was one Stasi member for every 6.5 people. No aspect of a person's life was private.

This is a gripping depiction of life in a totalitarian state. Recommended.

101JayneCM
Aug. 24, 2021, 2:19 am

>99 pamelad: They are all negative, but had to wait nine hours in the car to be tested!

>100 pamelad: I read a great novel earlier this year, Confession With Blue Horses about East Germany in the 80s. It alternated between that timeline and the 2000s, where the daughter of the family was trying to discover what had happened. It mentioned a project whereby volunteers are working with ex-Stasi staff to put together all the lost records. Literally put together, as in finding the shredded paperwork and putting it together like a jigsaw. I had no idea of this project.

I have had this book on my TBR since reading the novel, so I will definitely have to get to it.

102pamelad
Bearbeitet: Aug. 24, 2021, 4:18 pm

Unmasking Miss Appleby by Emily Larkin is the first book in the Baleful Godmother series and is available for free on the author's website. A few generations ago, a young woman did a favour for the baleful godmother, who really is malicious, and extracted the promise that all of her female descendants would receive the gift of a magical skill. The godmother appears on a young woman's twenty-third, or twenty-fifth birthday (depending on which branch of the family she belongs to). Charlotte, who is a downtrodden, mistreated poor relation, chooses metamorphosis.

I'm not a fantasy fan, and still less a fan of genre mashups, so this Regency Romance/Fantasy mashup is not the sort of book I'd usually choose. I persevered through Charlotte changing herself into a man, then a dog, but gave up a third of the way through when she turned herself into a sparrow. However, Emily Larkin is a New Zealand writer who has won prizes for her fiction, so I decided to give her another try.

10 Different Awards: Romance Writers of New Zealand Best Overall romance

Ruining Miss Wrotham by Emily Larkin is a big improvement. Eleanor Wrotham's overbearing father has died, and she has been living with her interfering great aunt. Eleanor's sister, Sophia, has been disowned for running off with a soldier and is in desperate straits, but her letters were confiscated before they reached Eleanor. and when Eleanor finally receives one, it is four months old. She sets off immediately to find her sister, and is helped by Mordecai Black, the illegitimate son of an Earl, who had, unknown to Eleanor, asked her father for her hand and been refused. Mordecai still wants to marry Eleanor, but she refuses him because she has had enough of overbearing men. The magic skill Emily chooses is not nearly as intrusive as metamorphosis, so could be ignored a lot of the time.

I enjoyed Ruining Miss Wrotham, which won romantic fiction awards in New Zealand and Australia.

ETA I just saw that the LT entry says that the book is over 500 pages long, which would be off-putting, but it's not. It's 302 pages.

103pamelad
Aug. 24, 2021, 4:29 pm

>101 JayneCM: Nine hours in a car with two little children must have been a horror of a day. It's good news that they're negative - hope it says that way.

In Stasiland Funder visits the place where the shredded records are being reconstructed and talks to the people working there. The situation is not quite the same as it appears to be in the novel, which I've put on my wish list. Stasiland is definitely worth reading.

104christina_reads
Aug. 24, 2021, 4:46 pm

>102 pamelad: I DO enjoy Regency/fantasy mashups, so I'm off to look up those Emily Larkin books!

105pamelad
Aug. 24, 2021, 5:04 pm

>104 christina_reads: I hope you like them!

106JayneCM
Aug. 25, 2021, 2:59 am

>103 pamelad: I have put a hold on Stasiland.

It is looking pretty messy in Shepparton at the moment, with nearly one third of the population in quarantine and pretty much every supermarket being listed as an exposure site. She was waiting for groceries that were ordered on Friday and were meant to be delivered today, but still no word on them. The supermarket is not guaranteeing they can even fulfil orders as people who can leave home have been buying everything up.
Not sure what the short-term solution will be.

107VivienneR
Aug. 25, 2021, 6:17 pm

>99 pamelad: Yes, I think they did a good job after supply snags at the beginning. The people who are getting sick are the anti-vaxxers who think they are invincible and are now causing havoc for hospitals and patients who are having surgeries cancelled. Many employers and others are now requiring proof of vaccination, which it is hoped, will change their minds.

108pamelad
Aug. 26, 2021, 4:56 pm

>106 JayneCM: It looks as though the state government is making efforts to get supplies moving in Shepparton, but it would be an anxious wait, particularly with little kids to feed. This time last year most people would have had cupboards and fridges full of food and groceries, just in case, but probably not now.

>107 VivienneR: More and more employers here too are foreshadowing that they will insist on their employees being vaccinated. It's really hard to understand anti-vaxxers - that faith in their own opinions and beliefs that makes the evidence irrelevant to them. Another way of thinking altogether.

109pamelad
Aug. 26, 2021, 8:05 pm

Romancing Mister Bridgerton by Julia Quinn

I was quite bored by this long, dull, gooey instalment of the Bridgerton series. It's about the romance between Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton. A lot of Americanisms in this one, including the dreaded "flatware". Something flat that you put on a table? Has to be a plate, right? No. Cutlery.

110pamelad
Sept. 1, 2021, 4:56 pm

August Review

The historical romance addiction continues, and this month I've found three authors I hadn't read before. Actually, I've read more than 3 new authors, but the others were either dull or semi-literate.

>90 pamelad: Amanda Quick Worth a try, but she seems to keep writing the same book.
>102 pamelad: Emily Larkin, particularly Ruining Miss Wrotham. Australian.
Anna Campbell Australian

I've started an Anna Campbell binge. I started with Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed, which is the first book in the Sons of Sin series. Normally the title and the series name would put me off, but I'm prepared to give Australian authors the benefit of the doubt. There are too many sex scenes, but the characters appeal, the writing style doesn't jar, there's a lot of energy and plenty of plot. Amazon uses the term "Regency Noir" to describe Campbell's books, but that seems an exaggeration.

I've also enjoyed What a Duke Dares, third in the same series, and Six Regency Novellas: The Dashing Widows.

111pamelad
Bearbeitet: Sept. 1, 2021, 11:52 pm

September Plans

>5 pamelad: Classics Challenge: one more to go, A Classic That Scares You.

This is a hard one to choose. I've considered Mann's Doctor Faustus, Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Patrick White's The Solid Mandala. The problem is that I don't really want to read any of them. Trying to think of something a bit intimidating that I actually want to read.

>11 pamelad: 10 Different Prizes: four and a bit more to go

I'm up to the sixth, The Nancys for the Ngaio Marsh Award. I was reading a library copy on the iPad ( because Adobe Digital Editions is temperamental and the file would not open on the Kobo) but it's too hard on the eyes, so I gave up and have now bought the Kindle version. I've just borrowed The Liar's Dictionary for the Betty Trask Award, and already have Amanda Lohrey's Labyrinth for the Miles Franklin.

HistoryCAT: Religion, Philosophy, Politics, Law

I read Stasiland in August for the September CAT and am looking for another political book. I'd like to read The Case of Comrade Tulayev, which is on my shelves, but the print is small, closely spaced and indistinct so I'll look for something else.

I read forty books last month and in the interests of avoiding eyestrain, which has become a problem, plan to read fewer this month. We're in lockdown until at least September 23rd, but it's spring, the sun is shining, and we're allowed out for exercise!

Classic That Scares You

Now considering The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein because:
1. It's short.
2. Gertrude Stein is intimidating. I didn't finish Everybody's Autobiography.
3. It's available for $1, probably for free if you look.
4. Female writer.

112pamelad
Sept. 2, 2021, 5:07 am

Untouched by Anna Campbell

Well, I thought that Amazon was exaggerating when it categorised Anna Campbell's books as Regency Noir, but at that stage I hadn't read Untouched.

Grace, a respectable young widow, wakes up from an opium stupor to find herself strapped to a bench. She's been abducted by two thugs who think she's a prostitute, and has barely escaped being raped. She's a present for a young Marquess, Matthew, who has been imprisoned for eleven years by the wicked uncle who manages his estates. The uncle has bribed doctors to declare Matthew mad; their treatment entails him being strapped to a bench and subjected to vicious beatings. Should Grace fail to seduce the unwilling Matthew, she will be raped by the thugs then murdered.

Lots of sex, lots of violence. Not my sort of thing at all. But I had to finish in order to find out what happened to Grace and Matthew.

113Jackie_K
Sept. 2, 2021, 1:50 pm

>111 pamelad: The problem is that I don't really want to read any of them. This made me laugh - I think lots of us feel the same about many classics!

114pamelad
Sept. 2, 2021, 11:45 pm

>113 Jackie_K: Some classics turns out to be so good that you wish you'd found them earlier e.g. why did I wait so long to read Trollope? Others are a punishment. Ulysses! I wish I could tell in advance which is which.

Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

I've been reading this short book off and on for more than a week (despite averaging over a book a day) because I found the main character to be annoyingly passive, so I had minimal interest in how her life would turn out. Laura, called Lolly by her family, is a well-off spinster and could escape her dreary family any time she wants, but it's 1926 and it's hard for a woman to live independently, so she allows herself to become an indispensable maiden aunt, her individuality ignored. Eventually she escapes to a small village where she is happy until her nephew Tobias arrives and takes over her life. To make Tobias move away, Laura accepts help from an unusual source. I found the ending to be ludicrous, and it made me think even less of Laura. No-one likes a manipulative whiner!

The points this book makes about women's independence may have been relevant and interesting in 1926 when it was first published.

115JayneCM
Sept. 4, 2021, 8:18 pm

I found another prize for you!

https://www.societyofauthors.org/Prizes/Society-of-Authors-Awards/McKitterick/Pa...

The McKitterick Prize is awarded to a first novel where the author is over 40. Being over 40 myself, I like the idea of this prize!

116pamelad
Sept. 5, 2021, 2:08 am

>115 JayneCM: Thank you! I'm adding As You Were and Golden Child to the wish list.

One of my favourites is on it: The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills.

117JayneCM
Sept. 5, 2021, 2:33 am

>116 pamelad: I'll have to look for that one! I must admit, there were quite a few on that prize list that I had never heard of, so I look forward to exploring it too.

118pamelad
Sept. 6, 2021, 6:01 pm

10 Different Prizes: Ngaio Marsh Best First Novel

The Nancys by R. W. R. McDonald

Tippy Chan is 11, mourning her father who died in a car crash. When her mother Helen wins a two-week cruise in a competition, Tippy's Uncle Pike, with his boyfriend Devon, arrives to look after her. Pike escaped this small Otago town for Sydney many years ago, leaving his closest friends without warning, and became a highly successful celebrity hairdresser. Devon is a highly successful clothing designer. Soon after Pike's arrival, the headless body of Tippy's teacher is discovered at the town's only traffic light. When an old friend of Pike's is arrested for the crime, Pike, Devon and Tippy decide to investigate. Because of Pike's and Tippy's love of Nancy Drew mysteries, they call themselves "The Nancys".

There are many plot strands in The Nancys, including a boy in a coma, a mystery about Tippy's dad's death, a beauty contest, a Peeping Tom and Pike's past. Some of them are just clutter. There's a lot of gay humour, mainly the repartee between Pike and Devon, which goes over Tippy's head. The reviews referred to Ru Paul's Drag Race. "So banal," I thought, but after reading the book could see why. Pike and Devon are almost caricatures.

I enjoyed The Nancys and thought it was a good first attempt, but there's plenty of space for improvement.

119pamelad
Bearbeitet: Sept. 9, 2021, 2:56 am

GeoKIT: Europe

The Girls, Alone: Six Days in Estonia by Bonnie J Rough

TessW and I read this short book for The Europe Endless Challenge. There aren't a lot of books about Estonia, and even fewer that are available as Ebooks. This one told me a little about Estonia and a lot about the author. Her great grandmother was Estonian, so the author set out to find the place where her great grandmother had lived and, in the process, to find herself, which is a lot to ask of a six day trip.

This was a quick, easy read that just glanced across Estonia.

Another Estonian book, The Czar's Madman by Jaan Kross, is on my shelves and I've just noticed that it won a prize, Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger.

120MissWatson
Sept. 9, 2021, 3:05 am

>119 pamelad: The Czar's Madman is based on a real person and was a fascinating read.

121pamelad
Sept. 9, 2021, 8:03 pm

>120 MissWatson: Thank you for the recommendation. The Czar's Madman has started well.

122pamelad
Bearbeitet: Sept. 10, 2021, 3:37 am

Historical Romances - Australian Writers

Stephanie Laurens: A Secret Love; All About Love

I liked A Secret Love, in which Alathea, childhood friend of Gabriel Cynster, disguises herself as a mysterious countess in order to persuade Gabriel, who is normally irritated by her, to investigate a financial swindle that could make her family bankrupt. Gabriel is madly attracted to the countess and sets out to seduce her. Too many sex scenes, but there is a plot and I liked the characters, so I read the next one in the series, All About Love which was a disappointment. The heroine put herself in danger for puerile reasons and there were even more sex scenes. I'd classify both of these books into the Exploding Virgin sub-genre.

Anna Campbell: Sons of Sin series

Four stars is the top rating I give to romances, and so far it has been reserved for Georgette Heyer, so if I've given a romance 3.5 stars, it's a good one. Two of the Sons of Sin series rated 3.5 stars: Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed and A Rake's Midnight Kiss. The three sons of sin met at Eton, where they were bullied because of their family histories. Jonas Merrick's parents couldn't prove their marriage, so he was declared a bastard. Richard Harmsworth was the product of his mother's affair while her husband was in Russia. Camden Rothermere's mother was sleeping with her husband and his brother and didn't know which of them was Cam's father. Strong heroes, intelligent heroines, too many sex scenes, plenty of plot. I gave What a Duke Dares half a star less because Cam was a less appealing character than Jonas and Richard. There's a fourth in the series, A Scoundrel by Moonlight, which is not up to scratch.

Anna Campbell writes with verve and doesn't take herself too seriously. She can't resist a simile, and while some of them are tired, others make me laugh. In A Rake's Midnight Kiss she perpetrated a string of sheep similes, culminating in my favourite, "like a tiger pouncing on a lamb chop". I wish I'd written them down.

ETA I'm reading Anna Campbell's The Highlander's Forbidden Mistress and just ran across this: She regarded him as if she'd cracked open a chicken egg and a baby unicorn had popped out onto her breakfast plate.

Finished The Highlander's Forbidden Mistress, and the the baby unicorn is the high point. There's very little plot and the highlander is not noticeably Scottish.

123pamelad
Sept. 12, 2021, 8:42 pm

Scandal's Bride by Stephanie Laurens

Because I quite liked A Secret Love I put Scandal's Bride, the second in the Cynster series, on hold. The featured Cynster is Richard, alias Scandal, who is the illegitimate son of the Duke of Whatsit, recognised by his father and a fully-fledged member of the ton. His dead mother's husband has just died, and Richard has been called to the reading of the will, where he meets Catriona, who is the Lady of the Vale and a witch. Yes, a witch.

Like the other Cynster males, Richard is strong, protective, devoted to his family, breathtakingly handsome and a fabulous lover. He doesn't walk, he prowls, and sometimes he pads. Unfortunately the big cat comparisons brought to mind The Pink Panther, so every prowl was accompanied by a soundtrack and I snorted with derision. I gave up half-way through and should have stopped earlier.

124pamelad
Sept. 14, 2021, 5:43 pm

GeoKIT: Europe

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

Will and Jules are perfect together, both ambitious, successful, semi-famous and good looking. They are getting married on an Irish island where the only permanent inhabitants are the couple who run a luxurious accommodation and event business. The wedding party is dominated by the groom's old school friends who, under the influence of alcohol and drugs, revert to the barbaric, tribal, adolescent behaviour of their school days. Charlie, an old friend of Jules, who attended the groom's bucks' night, has already been their victim.

The story begins with an hysterical waitress who has witnessed something terrible, probably a body. The groom's friends, against all advice and despite the dangers of steep, crumbling cliffs and deadly peat bogs, set off into the night to find the body. We don't know who's dead. It could be the sociopath who truly deserves to be the victim, whose sins have been revealed in flashback, or yet another of this vile person's victims, murdered to cover up past crimes.

An entertaining read, told from multiple points of view and switching between the present and the past.

125pamelad
Sept. 15, 2021, 6:15 pm

I Could Murder Her a.k.a. Murder of a Martinet by E. C. R. Lorac

In the aftermath of WWII Britain has a severe housing shortage, so Anne Strange and her husband Tony are living in Tony's mother's house. Anne hates it there because her mother-in-law, Muriel Farrington, is an interfering, controlling, selfish, malicious hypochondriac, but Tony can't see the problem. The other occupants of the house are Eddie, Colonel Farrington, Muriel's second husband; Farrington's daughter Madge by his first marriage; Joyce Duncan, the married daughter of Eddie and Muriel, and her husband; and the twins Peter and Paula. Muriel owns the house and is well-off but parsimonious, keeping her husband and children short of cash and treating Madge as an unpaid drudge.

One night Muriel pushes Madge too far and ends up dead, but perhaps Madge isn't the culprit. Everyone in the house has a motive. Inspector MacDonald is called in to investigate.

I guessed the murderer straight away, but enjoyed the book all the same, mainly for the picture of post-war Britain. The plot is a bit of a mess.

126pamelad
Sept. 16, 2021, 5:27 pm

I'm reading The Czar's Madman by Jaan Kross, which is about an Estonian nobleman who was imprisoned for berating the behaviour of the Czar, then released after 8 years as a mad man, because only a mad man would have behaved as he did. It's going slowly because it's a physical book, not an ebook, so I can read only a few pages at a time and only in brilliant daylight. It's well worth reading, so I wish I could go faster.

A visit to an eye specialist is on my to do list, but Pandemic. Thank goodness for ebooks.

127Tess_W
Sept. 16, 2021, 7:24 pm

>126 pamelad: I'm with you on the physical books. I did go to the eye Dr. and I have cataracts--which is a pretty easy/quick fix. However, the insurance company requires 30-40 occlusion and mine was only 25% last visit--which was in 2020. I think I will make an appt. again now, a year later, because now, like you, I really need brilliant daylight to read anything other than a tablet or computer.

128pamelad
Sept. 17, 2021, 6:07 pm

>127 Tess_W: Same. The optometrist warned me about early stage cataracts, but couldn't explain why I had to wait to have them removed, hence the plan to visit an eye specialist. I instantly felt 100 years old.

129VictoriaPL
Bearbeitet: Sept. 17, 2021, 11:28 pm

>128 pamelad: I had cataract surgery on both eyes at age 40. My doctor had to do extra documentation at the request of my insurance because I was “so young”. When I showed up the day of, I was indeed the youngest there. Best thing ever, though, I don't need readers at all except for food labels, which are SO tiny!

130pamelad
Sept. 18, 2021, 5:11 pm

>129 VictoriaPL: It's good to hear that your cataract surgery went so well. Very promising.

1. Books I Own.

Shadows Before by Dorothy Bowers

Bowers was a member of the Detection Club, but wrote only five crime novels before dying of TB. With this book I've read her entire output, and this book is not her best. Some important characters are introduced in the fist chapter, then nothing much happens for a couple of chapters until Inspector Dan Pardoe arrives about a third of the way through. There are too many characters and a convoluted, many-stranded plot that depends too much on coincidence. Overall, after a dull beginning this was flawed but enjoyable.

My favourite books by Dorothy Bowers are Postscript to Poison and Fear and Miss Betony.

131pamelad
Sept. 19, 2021, 6:39 am

HistoryCAT: Religion

The Curate in Charge by Margaret Oliphant

An Oxford Theological College controls the dispensation of the living for the parish of Brentburn, and has given it to a College fellow who, after two years, pleads ill health and retires to Italy, keeping the bulk of the income and paying the rest to the curate who runs the parish. Cecil St John, the curate, is an unworldly man, dedicated to his parishioners, unambitious, and happy to remain as a curate, despite he uncertainty of his position. His much-loved wife manages the household capably and frugally, and Cecil trusts in God to provide for the future of his two daughters, Cicely and Mab. When Cecil's wife dies, a governess, Miss Brown, is employed to look after the girls and to manage the household. She is as ineffectual as Cecil, and when the girls leave home and go to school, incompetence reigns. When the girls return to look after their father, they find disaster.

The Curate in Charge has a number of important themes. It's a feminist novel: Cicely is an intelligent and capable person, far more so than her father, and far more concerned about the family's future, but she has to follow Cecil's direction. Eventually her independence of action, and need to do what she thinks is right, prove more important to her than her feminine role and social position. It's about the failure of the Church to ensure that livings are given to men who can and will manage a parish, its failure to reward men like Cecil, who can serve others all their lives only to be left destitute. It's about people with power, including those in the church hierarchy, who respect others only for their money and social connections.

A worthwhile read. Recommended.

132NinieB
Bearbeitet: Sept. 19, 2021, 9:21 am

>131 pamelad: Great review; now I want to read it. I'm already reading Squire Arden by Mrs Oliphant, the first of a two-parter, but I will put The Curate in Charge on the list for after I've finished both.

133pamelad
Sept. 20, 2021, 1:14 am

>132 NinieB: I'll look out for your review of Squire Arden. You seem to be the only person on LT who has the book.

The Mrs Oliphant and Gaskell write such complex, intelligent female characters.

134NinieB
Sept. 20, 2021, 7:19 am

>133 pamelad: And I just have the Project Gutenberg ebook, which is fortunately high quality. There are two such female characters in Squire Arden, Clare Arden and a Scottish woman, Mrs. Russell. I need to figure out a way to start reading faster; I'm tired of going so slowly!

135DeltaQueen50
Sept. 20, 2021, 12:43 pm

>130 pamelad: I hadn't heard of Dorothy Bowers before but you have intrigued me so I have picked up both Postscript to Poison and Fear for Miss Betony at a reduced price for my Kindle.

136pamelad
Sept. 20, 2021, 6:09 pm

>135 DeltaQueen50: Kindle bargains are hard to resist. I hope you like them.

137pamelad
Sept. 22, 2021, 5:04 pm

After seeing that katiekrug and Crazymamie were enjoying books by Tessa Dare I decided to give her another try. I'd given her up after the nauseating sentimentality of the small children, kittens and baby goats in The Wallflower Wager.

I started with Romancing the Duke, the first book in the Castles Ever After series. Izzy Goodnight was left destitute when her self-centred father, author of a very successful series of children's books, failed to revise his will so that everything he owned went to a cousin who hated Izzy. When Izzy receives a letter telling her that a godfather has died and left her a legacy, she uses the last of her money to travel to the will-reading, which turns out to be at a remote castle inhabited by a reclusive and embittered earl who is recovering from serious injuries.

Izzy was a character in her father's romantic medieval adventures, so she has many fans, some of whom dress up in medieval costume and perform re-enactments. They turn up at the castle, where they are a great help in saving Izzy and the earl from disaster.

I quite liked this, despite the terrible tweeness, so planned to continue with Say Yes to the Marquess. Unfortunately the Overdrive file had an error and wouldn't open on the Kobo, so I started another series, The Stud Club Trilogy.

138pamelad
Sept. 22, 2021, 5:29 pm

The Stud Club Trilogy by Tessa Dare

One Dance with a Duke
Twice Tempted by a Rogue
Three Nights with a Scoundrel

The members of the Stud Club are linked by their possession of tokens that give them the right to breed horses from a retired racehorse, Osiris. The tokens can't be sold or given away - they can only change hands in games of chance. One of the original ten members has managed to win seven tokens, so only four members remain. Then the founding member is murdered by footpads, leaving only three. The premise of the Stud Club doesn't hold up to scrutiny, so it's best to accept it as a less than successful plot device and keep moving. It sets up the three main characters and gives them a reason to keep in contact: they're investigating the murder.

All three men are wounded heroes with something nasty in the woodshed. Fortunately, each of them meets the right woman, and despite the different varieties of ineptitude that threaten to keep them and their true loves apart, love conquers all.

I quite enjoyed all three of these. They're a bit too sentimental for my taste, and there are a lot of unnecessary characters and plot strands, but they move along nicely and the writing is lively.

We are still in lockdown, and will be until October 26th when it is estimated that 70% of people over 16 will be fully vaccinated. The goal of the lockdown is to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed and to minimise the number of deaths. People have pretty much had it, but the vast majority is doing the right thing. There have been some violent demonstrations in Melbourne, with far-right anti-vaxxers attacking police. Young men looking for a fight.

And yesterday we had an earthquake!

139MissWatson
Sept. 23, 2021, 11:11 am

>138 pamelad: An earthquake? No serious loss of life, I hope?

140Jackie_K
Sept. 23, 2021, 12:48 pm

>138 pamelad: Yes, the earthquake even made the news here! Hope it wasn't too scary for you.

141pamelad
Sept. 23, 2021, 7:20 pm

>139 MissWatson:, >140 Jackie_K: No deaths, no injuries. The epicentre was near Mansfield, a small town on the way to the ski fields, 180 km from Melbourne. Even there, the damage to buildings was minor and no people were injured. The miners underground at a nearby goldmine made their way to the surface unharmed. The earthquake measured 5.9 on the Richter scale, stronger than the Newcastle earthquake in 1989 that caused 13 deaths, many injuries, and widespread destruction. We were very lucky.

142Tess_W
Sept. 23, 2021, 7:38 pm

Glad you and Jane are both ok!

143MissWatson
Sept. 24, 2021, 4:20 am

I didn't even know Australia had earthquakes. Glad to hear you're safe.

144DeltaQueen50
Sept. 25, 2021, 2:57 pm

Great to hear that you are safe and that there were no serious injuries.

145pamelad
Bearbeitet: Sept. 27, 2021, 2:53 am

>143 MissWatson: Significant earthquakes are rare, and this was the biggest ever recorded in Victoria. It was an intraplate earthquake. Australia isn't on a plate boundary, but there are faults within plates. A seismic disturbance originating in New Zealand, which is on the Ring of Fire, caused the earthquake at an intraplate fault. I've been Googling intraplate earthquakes, and found that there have been some big ones, including one with a magnitude of 7.5 in New Madrid in the US in 1812.

>143 MissWatson:, >144 DeltaQueen50: A bit of excitement during lockdown! Thanks for the good wishes.

Just read an article by a geologist. He said that most deaths and injuries are caused by falling masonry. We were fortunate to be in lockdown because there was hardly anyone on the streets. Chapel Street South Yarra, where this photo was taken, is usually bustling.

146pamelad
Bearbeitet: Sept. 26, 2021, 6:12 pm

Slightly Scandalous and Slightly Dangerous by Mary Balogh

These are both in the Bedwyn series. The Bedwyns are an aristocratic family, headed by the duke, Wulfrid. Scandalous is about Lady Freya, sister of Wulfrid, who is a belligerent woman, prone to punching noses. She meets Joshua, Marquess of Something or other, who starts off looking like a rake but ends up looking like a candidate for canonisation. He has hidden depths! I enjoyed it, despite disliking the Freya character. There's a plot, a bit of a mystery, and a bit of humour. It's less talky than many of the other Baloghs I've read.

Dangerous is about the duke, who is very "high in the instep". His long-term mistress has just died and he is lonely, so he accepts an invitation to a house party where he meets the lively, impoverished widow, Christine Derrick, who is attracted to him despite being repelled by his frigid exterior. The duke is very much attracted to Christine despite her undignified behaviour, which would be unsuitable for a duchess. There is a mystery about the death of Christine's husband, and she has been rejected by her husband's relatives. I enjoyed this one, and liked both of the main characters.

I'd read more in this series, but they're unavailable as ebooks in Australia. I borrowed these two from the Open Library so had to read them on the iPad, which I've been trying to avoid. Need more willpower.

147pamelad
Sept. 26, 2021, 11:44 pm

Quills - Scandal's Lady/Scandalising the Ton by Diane Gaston

I've added this manually, but it's not appearing. Scandalising the Ton and Scandal's Lady are Regency romances by an author I haven't read before. They're readable, but the writing is lifeless. I won't be reading any more by Diane Gaston.

Don't Tempt Me by Loretta Chase deserves a review because it's utterly ridiculous, a delightfully ludicrous piece of froth. Zoe Octavia, childhood friend of Lucius, who is now a cold, sad duke, was kidnapped in Egypt when she was twelve, and sold into a harem. Twelve years later she has overcome enormous danger to escape the harem and has now returned to England. Her parents had never stopped searching for her and are overjoyed, but once Zoe's sisters have become accustomed to Zoe's return, they start to worry that she will never be accepted by the ton, and that the whole family will be ostracised. Lucius, who is devoted to Zoe's father, his childhood guardian, takes it upon himself to have Zoe accepted by the ton. One big problem is Zoe's training in the arts of seduction and pleasure, which make it hard for her to say no to a handsome man.

I enjoyed this very silly book and have now borrowed Scandalous Ways, the other book in the Fallen Women series, on Overdrive.

148pamelad
Sept. 27, 2021, 7:10 am

10 Different Prizes: Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger.

The Czar's Madman by Jaan Kross takes place in nineteenth century Estonia. The nobleman Timo von Bock believes in the rights of man and demonstrates his sincerity by purchasing the freedom of Eeva, a peasant women, and marrying her. To prepare her for marriage, he arranges that she and her brother Jakob are educated, learning the German of the ruling class and the French of the aristocracy. Only peasants speak Estonian. Eeva, now called Katherina, and Timo are happy together and have a son. Jakob lives with them and keeps the diary that makes this book.

Timo is a friend of the Czar's and has made an undertaking that he will always tell him the truth, which Timo does in a letter that describes clearly and in great detail the Czar's failures. The letter leads to Timo's arrest and for many years his family cannot find out where he has been taken. After nine years Timo is released, certified a madman, and is held in a villa on what was once his own estate. Only a madman would have criticised the Czar, but is Timo truly mad?

The Czar's Madman is operating on many levels. On the surface it is an historical novel, dealing with a real person and real events in the history of Estonia. On another level it is about the Estonia of Kross' time. Tens of thousands of Estonians had been sent to the Gulags and hundreds had been executed. Kross himself was deported to Siberia in 1946 and incarcerated for eight years. On both levels it is about bravery and truth. Timo wants to change the world he lives in and must speak up, despite the danger to himself and his family.

Recommended.

149Tess_W
Sept. 27, 2021, 9:50 am

>148 pamelad: I will definitely take that for a BB-- I need an Estonian read!

150christina_reads
Sept. 27, 2021, 3:49 pm

>147 pamelad: I've enjoyed several books by Loretta Chase but have never come across that one...it sounds absolutely bananas! (Also, I love your description of Lucius as a "cold, sad duke." Aren't they all!)

151pamelad
Bearbeitet: Sept. 27, 2021, 11:15 pm

>149 Tess_W: I read the 1992 Harvill hardback edition, which had clear print and unbrowned pages. I bought it second-hand a few years ago. The print was larger than Of Mortal Love. It was worth the effort.

>150 christina_reads: So many arrogant, lonely dukes stumbling around unaware that they're searching for the unsuitable women who will brighten up their lives! I like that Loretta Chase doesn't take herself too seriously.

152pamelad
Sept. 28, 2021, 5:21 pm

Finished the first book in the Fallen Women series by Loretta Chase. Your Scandalous Ways wasn't nearly as enjoyable as Don't Tempt Me. The characters, a courtesan and an aristocratic burglar/spy, weren't as appealing: too jaded. Too much swimming around in Venetian canals, which were surely full of sewage and should have resulted in some nasty diseases. You have to suspend judgment to enjoy a Regency romance, but I can't manage it when it comes to science.

153pamelad
Sept. 28, 2021, 6:46 pm

Planned October Reads
1. Classics Challenge: A book that scares you. Considering The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
2. HistoryCAT: Another country. The Novel of Ferrara by Giorgio Bassani
3. Europe Endless Challenge: Croatia. Something by Zoran Zivkovic, possibly The Five Wonders of the Danube
4. 10 Different Prize Winners: Miles Franklin. The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey

154pamelad
Sept. 30, 2021, 6:13 pm

I was shocked to see how many books I read in September. 52! We're in lockdown and everyone is managing the best they can, which in my case is reading Regency romances because there has to be a happy ending. Crime novels are a problem because people die, and literary fiction requires thinking.

Here are the historical romances I most enjoyed:

A Rake's Midnight Kiss by Anna Campbell Son's of Sin series. I've read all six of these, liked them all, and rated this one and Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed the highest.
Don't Tempt Me by Loretta Chase Fabulously ridiculous froth.
Slightly Dangerous by Mary Balogh, Bedwyn series. I've read four in the Bedwyn series and enjoyed them all, but this is the last and the best.

To enjoy these, you have to love a cliche. Hair black as a raven's wing? Yes! These days I can read almost anything except incorrect grammar.

155Tess_W
Sept. 30, 2021, 7:11 pm

>154 pamelad: We are not in official lockdown at the moment, but I am also having more of a time reading thoughtful literature, also.

156VivienneR
Okt. 3, 2021, 4:01 pm

>145 pamelad: Glad to hear there were no injuries resulting from your earthquake! I was especially thinking of the miners. That's one of my fears, being underground, I don't even like underground parking. And the Covid lockdown was a lucky break for those who would have been on the street.

>154 pamelad: 52 books in September! What an achievement! Congratulations.

157pamelad
Okt. 4, 2021, 5:33 pm

Melbourne has overtaken Buenos Aires as the city that has spent the longest time under stay at home orders. This is day 247. We all know why we're doing it. It's to minimise the number of deaths, and it has worked. Australia's coronavirus death toll is 1,346, a rate of 5.2 deaths per 100,000 people. In comparison, the US death rate is 210 per 100,000. Even with the lockdown, the daily number of cases in Victoria is the highest it has ever been. We're relieved to see the numbers decreasing in NSW, where the vaccination rate is higher. Vaccines were diverted there from the rest of the country!

We've all had more than enough, and are counting on on an easing of the restrictions by October 26th when it's projected that 70% of people over 16 will be fully vaccinated, and the end of the lockdown by November 5th, when we reach 80%. Now that the supply of vaccines has increased, Victoria is on track to reach the targets.

158pamelad
Okt. 4, 2021, 6:08 pm

So far this month I've read 8 books, all of them undemanding escapist romances. This is a serious binge!
Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas 3.5*
His at Night by Sherry Thomas 3*
Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas 3*
The Duke Knows Best by Jane Ashford 3*
Seduce Me at Sunrise by Lisa Kleypas 3*
Tempt Me at Twilight by Lisa Kleypas 3*
His English Witch by Loretta Chase 3*
The Last Hellion by Loretta Chase 3.5*

Sherry Thomas is a new discovery. Not Quite a Husband won a RITA award. All three books are Victorian romances, featuring a perceived betrayal and a misguided attempt to get even. Not Quite a Husband has an unusual heroine, a female doctor who proposes to a man younger than she is. Their marriage breaks down and she escapes to India, where he tracks her down in order to escort her back to England, where her father is dying. They are caught up in an uprising.

Private Arrangements is entertaining, but problematical because it's based on a potential divorce, which is unrealistic in Victorian England. In His at Night, the hero is pretending to be stupid in order to distract attention from his crime-solving efforts. The desperate heroine is also maintaining a pretence.

>155 Tess_W: There's certainly a place for escapist reading. I thought I'd eventually get sick of it, but my standards just keep on declining. The trick is not to feel guilty! One more month.

>156 VivienneR: Do you also hate being stopped under a railway overpass waiting for the traffic lights to change?

159christina_reads
Okt. 4, 2021, 10:01 pm

>158 pamelad: I've been very much enjoying Sherry Thomas's Lady Sherlock series, but I haven't tried any of her romances yet! His at Night is on my shelves, so I'll have to get to that one soon.

160pamelad
Bearbeitet: Okt. 8, 2021, 2:41 am

>159 christina_reads: I'll have to try the Lady Sherlock series. Branch out a bit! I hope you like His at Night.

An Affair in Winter by Jess Michaels

Another new author, a Kindle bargain found on BookBub. Jess Michaels gets good reviews and I was engaged by the story, but found her writing style off-putting because it was contemporary American colloquial, which is jarring in an English Regency romance. The word "like" was very much overused, making the book seem as though it was written by a fifteen year-old. Maybe it's meant to be ironic?

Just looked up Jess Michaels and saw that a lot of her books are classified as erotica. An Affair in Winter wasn't - its steam level is near Loretta Chase's.

ETA I really need to record the books I've rejected. An Affair in Winter was one of them. I rejected it for bad writing, forgot about it, and now I've read it. After the first few hundred historical romances, one's standards decline. Bring on the end of the lockdown.

161VivienneR
Okt. 9, 2021, 1:48 am

>158 pamelad: Do you also hate being stopped under a railway overpass waiting for the traffic lights to change?

I can't say I've ever been in that position but I used to live in a high-rise building and my parking space was on the 6th floor (numbered downwards). I never wasted any time getting up to the ground floor! And then there was the elevator to face…

162pamelad
Okt. 9, 2021, 7:11 pm

>161 VivienneR: Covid isn't helping the elevator averse.

Another new author.

No Good Duke Goes Unpunished and Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover are books three and four in Sarah MacLean's series, The Rules of Scoundrels. The mysterious Chase, owner of London's most successful gambling club, has saved three of society's noble discards from destitution and death.

Ten years ago, Temple, a duke, woke up on the morning of his father's wedding covered in blood, his father's young fiancee missing, believed dead. Now he is a bare knuckle boxer, challenged by the desperate men who have wagered their fortunes and lost. A win against Temple would see their fortunes restored, but he is undefeated. Christopher Lowe, brother of the missing fiancee, Mara Lowe, has lost everything he and his sister own, including the funds belonging to an orphanage run by Mara, forcing her to reveal herself to Temple in an effort to protect the orphan boys she looks after. No Good Duke Goes Unpunished is utter twaddle, but I enjoyed it.

Never Judge a Lady by her Cover features the mysterious Chase, keeper of secrets that could destroy powerful people, who has three identities. No one, apart from the other partners in the gaming club, knows who Chase really is, a big problem when Chase falls in love. I struggled to finish this book because it was so melodramatic, with characters declaiming instead of talking and a villain so wicked he was ridiculous: a raping, murdering, wife-beating, embezzling, blackmailing traitor who has the ear of the king. The Chase character was a confused mess, as could be expected with three identities to manage.

163pamelad
Bearbeitet: Okt. 10, 2021, 5:28 pm

RSVP Murder by Mignon G Eberhart

LT tells me that I have 32 books by Mignon G Eberhart. The 32 doesn't include pre-LT library borrows and other books of hers that I've disposed of when the book collection got too big, or I moved house, but it does include books I don't own because I use LT to record everything I've read. This one was borrowed from the Open Library.

Frances Hilliard's father has just died in Nice. He'd never spent much time with his daughter, but knowing he had little time left, he'd taken Frances on an extravagant European holiday. Unknown to Frances, her father had always spent everything he earned, so she is shocked to find that she is staying in an expensive hotel suite, without enough money to pay the bill or the fare home to New York. When a man reeking of perfume accosts her in the street, then sends her $5000 she realises that her father has involved her in a risky situation she does not understand. The arrival of Richard Amberley, whose wife was murdered 2 years ago, and who has received a letter from Frances's father, begins to explain what her father has done.

This was a very good Eberhart. It had an idiot orphan heroine who blundered around in blizzards pursued by a murderer; a love interest decades too old; a horde of wealthy upper-class suspects that included an eccentric uncle and a beautiful, brainless eavesdropper with a malicious, impecunious younger brother.

164pamelad
Okt. 10, 2021, 10:18 pm

The First Mrs Winston by Rae Foley is a had-I-but-known from the seventies, when young women in crime novels married at the drop of a hat to men much older than they. In those olden days, vicious ex-wives could be nymphomaniacs. You just don't hear that any more!

Connie Winston, married just that morning after a whirlwind, month-long courtship, arrives with her architect husband at her new home to find a surprise party, which is about to drop from distasteful to disastrous with the arrival of the first Mrs Winston. The very next day someone is murdered, and it seems that all the suspects were present at the party.

Foley's Connie is a much more intelligent and energetic heroine than Eberhart's usual droopy orphans, but, just like an Eberhart heroine, she puts herself in danger. Don't trust him, Connie!

A competent mystery with a nice seventies flavour. I'll look for another by Rae Foley.

165Tess_W
Okt. 10, 2021, 10:45 pm

>164 pamelad: LOL to vicious ex-wives....I didn't know that!

166pamelad
Okt. 12, 2021, 5:59 am

Unknown Quantity by Mignon G Eberhart

Sarah Travers is even more brainless than the average Eberhart heroine. She's married to the controlling Arthur, a fabulously wealthy oil mogul who relies on Sarah's family's illustrious history to lend him credibility. Arthur tells Sarah that he is undertaking a secret mission for the US government, and persuades her to allow a man, Jake Davis who looks just like him, to pretend to be her husband for a week to put Arthur's enemies off the track. Sarah and Jake become murder suspects.

This was a short book, less than 200 pages, but was repetitive even so. The plot moved at a glacial pace, with Sarah talking and thinking and reiterating at great length. Whenever there was a chance to do something stupid, she did. The three other female characters didn't have much to recommend them either. One was old, ill and dependent; another was a malicious, mercenary liar; the third was enraged and bent on revenge.

Despite my affection for the books of Mignon G, I cannot recommend this one.

167pamelad
Okt. 14, 2021, 10:04 pm

The Loudwater Mystery by Edgar Jepson

Loudwater was an earl, a belligerent bully who was stabbed to death in his library. Mr Flexen, the Chief Constable, investigates. There are numerous suspects: the earl's beleaguered wife; the wife's potential lover, Colonel Grey; the butler; the secretary; a mysterious woman. All of them had both motive and opportunity. None of them are telling the truth.

This is a police procedural with few procedures. A suspect is allowed to destroy evidence and to mislead investigators. Flexen tries to silence an important witness. Both Loudwater's heir and a solicitor who knows the identity of the mysterious woman are incommunicado in Mesopotamia.

The Loudwater Mystery was first published in 1920. I liked the book's oddness, but couldn't really recommend it as a mystery because although it started well, it faded away to an unsatisfactory ending. The murderer was obvious from the beginning because he had a weak chin and didn't belong to the upper class.

168pamelad
Bearbeitet: Okt. 18, 2021, 4:19 pm

I've been having a Mary Balogh binge on the Open Library and have completed the whole of the Huxtables series and some of the Survivor's Club series. I've also read the prequels to the Bedwyn series.

Simply Unforgettable by Mary Balogh 3* Simply Quartet
A Summer to Remember by Mary Balogh 3* Bedwyn Prequel
One Night For Love by Mary Balogh 3* Bedwyn Prequel
First Comes Marriage by Mary Balogh 3* Huxtables
At Last Comes Love by Mary Balogh 3* Huxtables
Then Comes Seduction by Mary Balogh 3* Huxtables
A Secret Affair by Mary Balogh 3* Huxtables
Seducing an Angel by Mary Balogh 3* Huxtables
The Proposal by Mary Balogh 3* Survivor's Club
Only a Kiss by Mary Balogh 3* Survivor's Club
The Arrangement by Mary Balogh Unfinished, Survivor's Club

I've enjoyed them, but by The Arrangement I'd overdosed. Mary Balogh is too wordy, repetitive and sentimental, and some of her characters are prone to banal philosophising, but over the course of the pandemic my tolerance has grown and my critical faculties have atrophied. There's enough happening to hold my attention, the characters are normally engaging enough (except Freya Bedwyn) for me to want to know what happens to them, and there's always a happy ending.

169pamelad
Bearbeitet: Okt. 18, 2021, 4:46 pm

The Melbourne lockdown is ending this Friday, when 70% of Victorians over 16 will have been fully vaccinated. Restaurants are opening, we're allowed visitors to our homes and, although we can't leave the Melbourne Metropolitan Area yet, we can go anywhere inside it. A friend and I are having lunch on Friday at a favourite restaurant in Gembrook, a little town in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges. We were pleased to find that Gembrook is in the metropolitan area.

When 80% of people over 16 are vaccinated, probably by November 2nd, we can leave the city, and lots of places will open up e.g. gyms, pools, non-essential retail. Our book club is getting together on November 5th, and I've booked a short trip to the Mornington Peninsula starting on the 7th.

I'm looking forward to resuming normal life. I haven't minded embracing the inertia and spending my days reading, but enough!

Everyone over 12 is eligible to be vaccinated, and maybe soon it will be everyone over 5. It's quite possible that we'll reach vaccination coverage of over 90% of eligible people, because although the anti-vaxxers are very vocal they're a small minority. Already, 89% of eligible Victorians have received at least one injection. In Canberra, 98% of the eligible population has received at least one injection.

170RidgewayGirl
Okt. 18, 2021, 4:56 pm

>169 pamelad: That's very good news!

171Tess_W
Okt. 18, 2021, 6:48 pm

>169 pamelad: Good job, Victorians!

172MissWatson
Okt. 19, 2021, 4:19 am

>169 pamelad: That is very good news, indeed!

173rabbitprincess
Okt. 19, 2021, 7:58 pm

>169 pamelad: Excellent news! Have fun at your lunch on Friday :)

174pamelad
Okt. 20, 2021, 1:53 am

Thank you!

We've had a 9pm to 5am curfew during the lockdown, which is like living in a WWII film. It ends tomorrow at 11.59pm, the same time that pubs and bars are allowed to open, so people will be exploding out of their houses at midnight. Vaccinated people, that is.

175pamelad
Okt. 21, 2021, 4:41 pm

I slept through Melbourne's reopening, but young people exploded out of the blocks. Restaurants, pubs, bars and even hairdressers opened at midnight.

176pamelad
Okt. 22, 2021, 4:28 pm

The Unexpected Wife by Jess Michaels

I've read another by Jess Michaels, An Affair in Winter and didn't much like it, mainly because her writing style is ugly, but The Unexpected Wife looked promising, so I gave her another go. It is the first book of a trilogy in which the main female characters are the three wives of a murdered bigamist (trigamist?). Celeste Montgomery, a dignified, intelligent bluestocking, was forced into marriage by her snobbish mother. Owen Gregory, the man investigating the murder, asks her for help with the investigation and takes her to London, where she becomes a friend of the other wives. Because Celeste has fallen in love with Owen Gregory, she shows absolutely no loyalty to her friends and spies on them for Gregory. Love turns her from a dignified, intelligent woman to a ranting harridan who throws public tantrums.

At 190 pages this is a short book but it drags, even after skimming multiple chapters of graphic sex scenes. (Do authors cut and paste them in order to reach the page count?) The writing is no better than in An Affair in Winter, with errors in word choice (This is a problem with many contemporary writers e.g. hair that grows luxuriously, arguments that are diffused. Are there no editors?), and "like" in every second sentence. I think it's probably contemporary American verbal shorthand to say "like" instead of "as if" or "as though", but it doesn't belong in descriptions, removes a layer of meaning, and makes reading dull.

I cancelled the holds on the other two books in this series and will avoid Jess Michaels in future.

177pamelad
Okt. 22, 2021, 9:10 pm

My Sweet Folly by Laura Kinsale

Twenty-year-old Folie, married to an elderly man who pays her no attention, step-mother to ten-year-old Melinda who resents and dislikes her, falls in love by correspondence with her husband's much younger cousin, Robert Cambourne, in India, only to find on the death of her husband that Robert is married. Years later on his return to England Robert, who is now Melinda's guardian, invites Folie and Melinda to visit. The real Robert bears no resemblance to the man Folie had imagined from his letters.

I enjoyed My Sweet Folly. Folie is cheerful, imaginative, funny and kind and the writing is lively. The plot is so full of holes that it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it zaps along entertainingly. It's definitely worth trying another Laura Kinsale, so I've started Flowers from the Storm, which receives excellent reviews.

178pamelad
Okt. 23, 2021, 5:51 pm

Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale

This was a winner. I really enjoyed it.

Maddy Timms is a Quaker. She helps her father, a blind mathematician, with his work and meets his collaborator, the disreputable but brilliant Christian, Duke of Jervaulx (pronounced Shervo). Christian and Mr Timms are writing a paper together, but before it is finished Christian disappears. The next time Maddy comes across him, he is incarcerated in a mental asylum run by her uncle. Christian has suffered a stroke and his relatives have locked him up so that they can have him declared incompetent and get their hands on his estate. He is unable to communicate because he suffers from aphasia, so has lashed out violently in frustration. The treatment he receives at the asylum is brutal, and he is treated as though he were an idiot, addressed as Master Christian, fed gruel by force, subjected to ice baths and beatings. Maddy believes that God has directed her to help Christian, so she persuades her uncle to allow her to become Christian's attendant.

Parts of the narrative are written from Christian's point of view. They show his mis-hearings and misunderstandings, then his gradual improvement. Maddy's point of view is religious, dutiful and puritanical. They are an unlikely couple, and Maddy's religious views could keep them apart, but Christian needs her help if he is to regain his identity as the Duke of Jervaulx and thwart his relatives' attempts to have him declared incompetent.

Recommended.

179christina_reads
Okt. 25, 2021, 9:59 am

I also really liked Flowers from the Storm...you are making me think I should try My Sweet Folly as well. I will forgive a lot of plot holes if I like the characters.

180RidgewayGirl
Okt. 25, 2021, 10:04 am

I'm glad to see you've discovered Laura Kinsale and like her. Her plots are nonsensical and often outrageous and her books are a lot of fun and she manages to make her main characters' falling for each other feel very real. My favorite is The Hidden Heart.

181pamelad
Okt. 25, 2021, 8:30 pm

>179 christina_reads:, >180 RidgewayGirl: I've started Midsummer Moon, which has an eccentric inventor as heroine, and have borrowed The Shadow and the Star, which is the second book in the same series as The Hidden Heart. Not having much luck finding a library copy of The Hidden Heart, but haven't given up.

Laura Kinsale's books so far have reminded me a little of Sherry Thomas's, a similar humorous detachment, but Kinsale's books have been much more cheerful than Thomas's because the heroines are happier and more resilient.

I've tried three more new (to me) writers with no great success.

Fortune's Lady by Patricia Gaffney

Readable, but the heroine is degraded and humiliated. There's a depraved and violent villain, and a misogynistic manipulator. Distasteful.

The Countess by Lynsay Sands

A counterfeit earl drops dead unexpectedly, to the relief of his wife and sisters-in-law. There's a lot of farcical faffing around hiding the body, a lot of heavy-handed humour. For me it didn't quite work, plus the writing wasn't very good, a tin-eared assortment of Britishisms and Americanisms.

The Naked Baron by Sally MacKenzie

Gave up on this because the hero has been sitting in his study for many pages fantasising about what he'd like to do with the heroine. Should have known from the title that it wouldn't be my cup of tea.

182pamelad
Okt. 27, 2021, 4:13 am

Midsummer Moon by Laura Kinsale

Merlin has invented a precursor of the telephone, which would be a great help to the English in the Napoleonic wars, so the Duke of Damerell is charged with keeping the invention and the inventor safe from the French. He is shocked to find that the inventor is a young woman, unchaperoned, who lives with only her servants for company and is unfamiliar with the rules of polite society. Initially assisted by an aphrodisiac mislabelled as salt, which he sprinkles liberally on the terrible meal he is served, Damerell becomes madly attracted to Merlin.

Merlin has already lost interest in her telephone invention, and is now focussed on building a flying machine. She agrees to stay at the Duke's estate only if the flying machine comes too. It becomes an enormous impediment to the developing relationship between Merlin and the Duke, who is so afraid of heights that he lives on the ground floor so that he doesn't have to climb the stairs.

Light hearted, funny, entertaining, with engaging characters. I enjoyed Midsummer Moon.

One Week as Lovers by Victoria Dahl

I could have liked this because the hero and the heroine deserve a happy ending, there's enough plot, and it's well-written. Unfortunately there's a paedophile.

Rules for Historical Romances

1. No paedophiles.

183pamelad
Okt. 28, 2021, 4:28 pm

The Duke Undone by Joanna Lowell

Another new author. I'm giving up on this halfway through because the duke has too many problems: terrible war experiences in Afghanistan; alcoholism; difficulty with reading. Apart from that, the book is promising. The artist heroine is a well rounded character and the writing is good (lively, grammatical), so I'd try another by this author.

Rules for Historical Romances

2. Only one major problem per damaged duke.

184Tess_W
Okt. 29, 2021, 5:20 am

>183 pamelad: what is rule number one?

185pamelad
Okt. 29, 2021, 3:38 pm

>182 pamelad: No paedophiles!

186Tess_W
Okt. 29, 2021, 5:01 pm

>185 pamelad: That's a given, for sure!

187pamelad
Okt. 29, 2021, 7:27 pm

>186 Tess_W: You'd think, but I've just run across another one. I seek froth, not depravity.

188pamelad
Okt. 31, 2021, 5:45 pm

I joined a seventh library to borrow Laura Kinsale's The Hidden Heart, which I liked, but not as much as Flowers from the Storm, My Sweet Folly and Midsummer Moon. It was a bit dark, with the poor hero having lost his family, his identity and all hope for the future. Whenever you'd think things couldn't get any worse .......... And there was a paedophile!

189hailelib
Okt. 31, 2021, 7:53 pm

You've made me think I should pull one or two of Laura Kinsale's books off my shelves and reread them. Its been so long that the only one I remember anything about is Flowers from the Storm.

190VivienneR
Okt. 31, 2021, 8:31 pm

You've had a lot of fun reading recently! And congratulations on the lifting of your lockdown. I'd no idea that it was so restrictive. It will pay off in the long run.

191pamelad
Nov. 1, 2021, 4:05 pm

>189 hailelib: Laura Kinsale has been a worth-while discovery. I like her detached, humorous tone.

>190 VivienneR: There's been a further relaxation of restrictions because we've reached the 80% of eligible people double-vaxxed target. We're allowed to leave the city! On Sunday a friend and I are going on a 3-day trip away.

The Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran

This started off well, and I liked the writing, but a woman has just had her breasts sliced off and another has been raped and murdered, so I am giving up on it. The book is set during the Sepoy Rebellion, so the violence is in context, but in an historical romance I'm looking for lightness, frivolity, humour and happy endings.

Rogue for Hire by Sasha Cottman

I read this because the author is Australian and it was free on Amazon. The writing is poor, the characters are two-dimensional, and the plot makes no sense.

The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas

Louisa Cantwell needs a rich husband so she can support her sisters and is prepared to accept any man short of loathsome. Felix Rivendale, Marquess of Wrendale, was the unloved pawn in his unhappy parents marital games and has perfected the facade of the Ideal Gentleman. Louisa and Felix recognise each other's manipulativeness and are madly attracted to one another, but don't trust one other at all.

This was more like it. Good writing, engaging characters, humour. Trivial, but that's not a problem.

A Dance in the Moonlight by Sherry Thomas

A novella, 2.5 in the Fitzhugh series. I enjoyed it and will look for the rest of the series.

192christina_reads
Nov. 1, 2021, 4:13 pm

>191 pamelad: Your thread is so bad (good) for me! Adding The Luckiest Lady in London to my TBR list. "Madly attracted to one another, but don't trust one another at all" is a dynamic I want to read about!

193pamelad
Nov. 1, 2021, 4:57 pm

>192 christina_reads: Happy to be of service. Sherry Thomas is a good find.

I'm now reading The Proposition by Judith Ivory. Edwina Bollash, daughter of a deceased marquess, supports herself by teaching people how to fit into the ton: etiquette, speech, behaviour, dress. Can she train a very attractive rat-catcher to pass himself off as a viscount?

194pamelad
Nov. 2, 2021, 3:07 pm

The Proposition by Judith Ivory

Edwina, a 29-year-old spinster, always thought she was unattractive, but Mick Tremorne could persuade her otherwise. The devastatingly gorgeous Mick, who works as a rat-catcher in order to support his 11 orphaned brothers and sisters, has a naturally aristocratic bearing, which is an enormous asset when he is persuaded to participate in a wager: can he, in six weeks time, pass himself off as a viscount? Edwina, the daughter of a marquess, supports herself by training people to fit into the ton. Her cousin, Xavier, who inherited the entailed ducal estates that would have passed to her father, has refused to support her, and even tried to cheat her out of her dowry.

The mysterious twins who proposed the wager and provide the financial support might have a nefarious agenda. If the masquerade is uncovered, Edwina could lose her place in society and Mick could be jailed.

This is a fairy story, utterly unrealistic even for an historical romance, but it's well-written and amusing. Suspend disbelief and enjoy.

195NinieB
Nov. 2, 2021, 3:18 pm

>194 pamelad: utterly unrealistic even for an historical romance

LOL.

196pamelad
Nov. 3, 2021, 4:49 pm

>195 NinieB: In the beginning I sought historical authenticity and a semblance of reality, but I've moved on. Still drawing the line at dark, violent and ungrammatical.

197NinieB
Nov. 3, 2021, 5:18 pm

>196 pamelad: Maybe that's my problem with historical romance, I'm a relentless realist. Yet I never impose this kind of reality on mystery fiction . . .

198pamelad
Bearbeitet: Nov. 3, 2021, 5:26 pm

Still checking out new historical romance writers.

Tempting Fate by Alissa Johnson

This is going to be an enemies falling in love story, if it ever gets there. I've run out of patience a third of the way through. The writing is OK, but the main characters are annoying.

Till Next We Meet by Karen Ranney

Catherine Dunnan and Colonel Moncrieff fall in love by correspondence, but Catherine believes that it's her husband she is writing to. She doesn't realise that Harry Dunnant married her for her money and wants nothing to do with her. He joined the army and was sent to to Canada a month after the wedding. Harry is evil: a gambler and womaniser who has a lust for killing and, worse than that, is unkind to horses. Moncrieff is Harry's commanding officer, so Catherine's letters come to him first.

Moncrieff, who has become a duke (!), returns to Scotland after Harry's death and calls on Catherine who, in her grief, has become addicted to laudanum, so he marries her to save her. He can't tell her that he wrote the letters. Will Catherine get over Harry and fall in love with Moncrieff? Who's trying to kill her, and why? Who is the father of her housekeeper's child? Is Moncrieff at risk from Jacobites?

There's a shooting so unlikely that I thought, "Where does this writer think she is? Texas? When I checked her out, I found that she does indeed live in Texas!

Karen Ranney is worth another try.

199pamelad
Nov. 3, 2021, 9:46 pm

>197 NinieB: Historical romantic fiction and mystery fiction, at least the Golden Age variety, have some similarities, in that they're bound by rules. I like their predictability. At the moment I'm a bit off mystery fiction because I'm uncomfortable with people dying for entertainment, but it's OK if they're awful.

200Tess_W
Nov. 4, 2021, 11:01 am

Nothing to do with books, but are you familiar with Farmer Pete? He's from Victoria and has a frisky alpaca, Patrick. I normally don't like yellers, but he's the exception! He's the darling of TicTok and Youtube. Very cute!

201pamelad
Nov. 4, 2021, 3:54 pm

>200 Tess_W: Hadn't heard of him, so looked him up. He loves his animals!

Next time you're near Ouyen, make sure you visit the Pink Lakes.

202Tess_W
Nov. 4, 2021, 4:14 pm

>201 pamelad: I'm in the US and at this stage, don't know if I will ever be in Australia!

203pamelad
Nov. 4, 2021, 4:41 pm

More new historical romance writers.

In the Thrill of the Night by Candice Hern

First in the Merry Widows series. These respectable widows have started a charity to raise money for widows left destitute by he death of their husbands in the Napoleonic wars. They don't want to marry again, but when one of them takes a lover the rest decide that she has a good idea. Marianne resists her attraction to her dead husband's old friend Adam for artificial and inadequate reasons.

Short but dull. I skimmed to the end to make sure there was a happy ending, but won't be reading the rest of the series.

A Marriage of Inconvenience by Susanna Fraser

Lucy is a poor relation who relies on her aunt's family for the support of herself and her brothers. When her cousin Sebastian unexpectedly proposes, she accepts gratefully, but the betrothal must remain a secret until after Sebastian's sister, Portia, marries a duke almost old enough to be her grandfather. Unfortunately for Lucy, Sebastian is not the kind-hearted man he appears to be. At the house party preceding Portia's wedding Lucy meets a wealthy viscount, James, who is attracted to Lucy even though she is far below him on the social scale.

This wasn't bad. The writing is OK. The characters are engaging enough that you want things to work out for them (though Sebastian is too much of a chameleon to be believed). I'll try another Susanna Fraser.

204pamelad
Bearbeitet: Nov. 5, 2021, 7:08 pm

Another new one.

My Darling Caroline by Adele Ashworth won the 1998 RITA Award for first novel. It starts off well, with the heroine, Caroline Grayson who is a genius, devoted to her scientific work on plant breeding, agreeing to marry Brent (!), The Earl of Weymerth with the idea of annulling the marriage later, so that she can travel to America and go to university. The Earl agrees to marry Caroline because his shifty cousin sold the earl's Arabian horses to Caroline's father, who has made them part of Caroline's dowry (not a good enough reason). Caroline and Brent gradually fall in love, though neither will admit it.

There's an illegitimate daughter, a murderous French spy, a discarded sister, a wicked witch of a mother, and a lot of misunderstandings that derive from the demands of the plot rather than the characters of Brent and Caroline. Brent, in particular, is ludicrously inconsistent. The last few chapters are expositions, which reminded me of Poirot explaining how he solved the crime. The Earl, whose life has been so grim that he has lost his belief in God, has a religious epiphany and regains his belief, all for the love of Caroline. This is too much!

I can see how My Darling Caroline won an award, but the ending is a big disappointment. I'll try another Adele Ashworth to see if she improved with practice.

205Jackie_K
Nov. 6, 2021, 7:21 am

>203 pamelad: Is that the Susanna Fraser who's a member of this group? Pretty sure she's an author.

206pamelad
Nov. 6, 2021, 4:06 pm

>205 Jackie_K: Yes it is! I hadn't realised, and am very glad I liked the book.

207pamelad
Nov. 6, 2021, 7:11 pm

Another new author.

What I Did for a Duke by Julie Anne Long

I liked this one. The writing is good: lively and grammatical. The characters are appealing. There's witty repartee, a reputedly evil duke with hidden depths, an intelligent heroine who is underrated by her friends and family, some self-centred young men, and an uncomplicated young woman who draws kittens. The plot might not be believable, but they hardly ever are!

I've now started How the Marquess Was Won by the same author and am enjoying it.

208hailelib
Nov. 7, 2021, 7:08 pm

From the reading you're doing I see that there are a lot of romance authors who must have started writing after I basically quit following the genre and trying all the award winners.

209pamelad
Nov. 9, 2021, 3:54 pm

>208 hailelib: Before this historical romance binge the only historical romances I'd read were Georgette Heyer's and I accepted that her rules were the only rules, but modern writers have made changes. Heyer's heroines had to be of gentle birth, with even her Cinderellas turning out to be long lost daughters of the nobility, but these days girls from the workhouse marry dukes. So many dukes! Heyer's heroes and heroines cemented their betrothal with a kiss, but modern Regencies are full of graphic sex scenes. You can skip them if you choose because you're unlikely to miss a plot turn.

I miss the period details. I want the heroine to wear a pelisse, a spencer or a shawl. Not a wrap, which is something you have for lunch. I want the table to be set with silver, not flatware. Julie Anne Long, whose books I like, has supplied the Regency with Britain's contemporary decimal currency. The characters should attempt to speak British English, with at least a nod to the formality of the past.

Some good recent discoveries are: Sherry Thomas, Stella Riley, Emily Larkin, Mimi Matthews.

210pamelad
Nov. 9, 2021, 4:18 pm

How the Marquess Was Won, It Happened One Midnight by Julie Anne Long

I'm reading my way through the Pennyroyal Green series and enjoying it. I like the humorous exchanges between the characters, the lively writing, the light-heartedness. No depravity. No evil brothers or uncles trying to sell the heroine to a rich pervert. In two of the three books I've read so far there's a theme of saving children: from forced child labour, workhouses, poverty. The heroines are intelligent, independent and capable.

Long thanks her editor at the beginning of each book, but she's being too generous. Houses with eves, not eaves; a school named Eaton; decimal currency. Distractions, but not major.

I'm now reading It Started with a Scandal.

211NinieB
Nov. 9, 2021, 5:24 pm

>210 pamelad: . . . decimal currency?

212pamelad
Nov. 9, 2021, 6:13 pm

>211 NinieB: She seems to be confused by shillings, and the difference between pre-decimal and decimal pence. There was an auction with very odd bids!

213hailelib
Nov. 9, 2021, 7:32 pm

>209 pamelad:

Have you tried any by Mary Jo Putney? I used to read her books and liked them quite a lot. They were better than many of the others from that period; at least as good as Kinsale for me.

214pamelad
Nov. 9, 2021, 7:55 pm

>213 hailelib: I’ve never managed to finish one, but might have picked her worst books! I will look for a highly rated one. Do you have a favourite?

215Helenliz
Nov. 10, 2021, 5:24 am

>212 pamelad: most of us are confused by pre-decimal currency, if we're honest. But not so confused as to mix decimal & pre-decimal.

216pamelad
Nov. 10, 2021, 3:02 pm

>215 Helenliz: Having spent many hours in primary school doing complicated sums involving pounds, shillings and pence, pre-decimal currency is no mystery to me. When I first started teaching, one of my colleagues was a very nice man in his sixties, Gordon, who liked to give his classes exercises from his favourite maths text book. This was more than a decade after the introduction of decimal currency, and it still makes me smile to remember the puzzled students who asked me, "Miss, what's a shilling?"

217NinieB
Nov. 10, 2021, 4:10 pm

>216 pamelad: Having always read lots of English books of a certain vintage, or set during the pounds shilling pence era, I taught myself the values and I still know there were 12p in a shilling and 20s in a pound. I never figured out why there were 21 shillings in a guinea or indeed whether guineas even existed as an actual coin.

218Helenliz
Nov. 10, 2021, 4:27 pm

>216 pamelad: As a post decimal child, it's something I've never worked in (thank goodness!). I can cope with l,s&d. It's the florins and tanners and crowns and goodness knows what else that complicate the thing beyond sense.

219pamelad
Nov. 10, 2021, 4:53 pm

>217 NinieB: Just to make it more confusing, the abbreviation for pence was d. The symbols 's' for shilling and 'd' for pence derive from the Latin solidus and denarius used in the Middle Ages.

I was compelled to look up guineas! Guinea coins were minted between 1663 and 1814. Their value fluctuated with the price of gold until 1717, when Parliament fixed the value at 21s. In 1816 the guinea was replaced by the sovereign, a gold coin valued at 20s, which was in circulation until the start of WWI.

220NinieB
Nov. 10, 2021, 4:58 pm

And I knew that about the d but the p just looked right!

The wealthy Linnet Ridgeway in Death on the Nile wears an 80-guinea dress, which according to an online calculator is the equivalent of £5,278 today.

221pamelad
Nov. 10, 2021, 5:03 pm

>218 Helenliz: Trey bit, zac, bob, deener. We don't seem to use slang for money these days. But "not the full quid" lives on.

222pamelad
Nov. 10, 2021, 5:05 pm

>220 NinieB: You wouldn't want to spill anything on it.

223pamelad
Nov. 11, 2021, 3:54 pm

The Rake by Mary Jo Putney is an updated version of an earlier book, The Rake and the Reformer. It's a mixture. Some of the repartee is amusing, then there are long, dull sentimental patches.

Lady Alys is employed as the steward for an estate that passes to Reggie, a notorious rake. Reggie's whole family died when he was eight, and he was taken in by a wicked uncle who made his life a misery. He has been drinking himself to death, but eventually he realises that he is an alcoholic. Reggie is very much attracted to Lady Alys, who believes she is repellent to men.

Lady Alys is guardian to three siblings: two young boys and a girl of nineteen. She has a mysterious past, which throws up an evil man who wants her dead.

This was OK, but a bit of a plod, with Reggie and Alys being a bit too good to be true. There was a religious epiphany, unfortunately. (I prefer characters to keep their religious and spiritual tendencies to themselves. This is also a problem with Mary Balogh.)

A Notorious Countess Confesses by Julie Anne Long

Evie Duggan became an actress in order to support her younger brothers and sisters, then a courtesan, then finally a countess. Now that her husband, the earl, has died leaving her his only unentailed estate, she has settled in Pennyroyal Green, where initially her only friend is the gorgeous vicar, Adam Sylvain. I enjoyed this, but it's beset by editing problems and inconsistencies. I've mentioned one problem already: an auction where the bids are in decimal currency. Another is a church service: a traditional Anglican service turns into something impossibly participatory, exuberant and non-conformist.

Too careless and sloppy.

224pamelad
Nov. 11, 2021, 4:23 pm

One Moonlit Night by Gaelen Foley is a novella, a prequel to the Moonlight Square series. I thought this was the first book I'd read by this author, but found that I had read a third of Duke of Scandal, which is available on Kindle Unlimited. I made it all the way through One Moonlit Night because, obviously, it's shorter. Not good, not bad, nothing special. At the advanced age of 22, Trinny has been rejected by yet another suitor, so she escapes to the park that belongs to the houses of Midnight Square where she meets a rake, Gable, who makes her feel better!

225pamelad
Nov. 11, 2021, 11:41 pm

Gave up on The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne because I'm not in the mood for murky morality, because the hero has been humiliating the heroine, and because the heroine has just revealed herself to be blind, which should encourage the hero to stop humiliating her, I dare say. Plucky little thing.

226pamelad
Nov. 13, 2021, 4:32 pm

Third Son's a Charm, No Earls Allowed, An Affair with a Spare, Unmask Me If You Can by Shana Galen are the first four books in Galen's Survivor's series. Thirty men were chosen for a suicide squad for their special skills and their willingness to die to defeat Napoleon. Twelve survived.

Ewan, the Protector of the first book, is a man-mountain with dyslexia, third son of an earl, who has been brought up to believe he is an idiot. He is hired to prevent a young woman from eloping with a mercenary suitor, who turns out to be his evil cousin.

Neil, the Warrior of the second book is the leader of the squad. He cannot forgive himself for sending men to die, and wakes screaming nearly every night. He is employed to return a young woman who has left home to run an orphanage. He finds that she and the orphans are at risk from an evil businessman.

Rafe, the Seducer of book three, extracts secrets from the wives and mistresses of Napoleon's officers. He is irresistible to women, but has never fallen in love until he meets the daughter of a notorious French assassin.

Jasper the Bounty Hunter finds people and things. He is employed by a Viscount to find his missing daughter, but when Jasper reaches her he finds that she is hiding from a depraved rapist Duke, to whom she is betrothed. Jasper has facial burns, so he hides from society and wears a mask because he thinks he disgusts people.

So far the series has been entertaining. I enjoyed the first book the most, because Ewan is an appealing character, and the second book the least because it is full of cute orphans. The language is becoming increasingly American as I work through the series, the number of pages devoted to sex scenes is growing, and the sentimentality is getting stickier. Regarding language: whenever anyone "hollers" I picture Walter Brennan and am removed from Regency England.

227pamelad
Bearbeitet: Nov. 13, 2021, 6:31 pm

Gene Pitney summarises the plots of every romance I've ever read.

228hailelib
Bearbeitet: Nov. 13, 2021, 6:48 pm

>214 pamelad:

Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I particularly liked One Perfect Rose but it the last of a group of connected books if I'm remembering correctly. Regarding The Rake I liked the first version well enough that I saw no reason to read the other one.

229DeltaQueen50
Nov. 13, 2021, 10:13 pm

Wow, it's been years since I've even thought about Gene Pitney - thanks for taking me on a stroll down memory lane!

230pamelad
Nov. 14, 2021, 3:24 pm

>228 hailelib: Thank you. It's on Overdrive along with the rest of the Fallen Angels series, so I've just borrowed it.

>229 DeltaQueen50: I was stuck on YouTube for ages revisiting Gene Pitney. Just as well there are so few videos of him singing live, or I might still be there. He had a resurgence in Australia in the seventies.

231pamelad
Nov. 14, 2021, 4:48 pm

Black Silk by Judith Ivory

The hero: an earl with a reputation so terrible that it obscures the real man and builds on itself independently of his actions. The heroine: the widow of the hero's ex-guardian, a man 43 years older than herself. The dead ex-guardian has disinherited his illegitimate son in favour of his young wife. The illegitimate son sues to overturn the will. The hero is madly attracted to the heroine, who resists. Will they end up together?

Everyone is a mixture of good and bad. Motives are mixed, murky, and sometimes invisible to the characters. As the story proceeds the earl starts to distance himself from his reputation, while the widow begins to question the values of her dead husband.

I quite liked this once I accepted the fogginess of it all. The hero behaves badly, so does the heroine and as for the guardian/dead husband!

232pamelad
Bearbeitet: Nov. 15, 2021, 3:28 pm

Guilty Pleasures by Laura Lee Guhrke

Guhrke's books keep popping up as recommendations on LT, so I borrowed this one from the Open Library. It's competent but dull, with stock standard characters and an unimaginative plot. There's an arrogant duke with a sad past that prevents him from falling in love and an independent spinster who is keeping her light under a bushel. She is an antiquarian, employed by the duke to restore and catalogue the Roman artefacts he is unearthing on his estate.

I'll try another by Laura Guhrke in the hope that it's more imaginative than this one.

I am currently reading One Perfect Rose. The duke has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and this had better turn out to be a mistake. The symptoms are vomiting and agonising stomach pains. At the moment I'm thinking gastric ulcer because milk does him good. I've rejected coeliac disease because he can eat toast for breakfast, and to be cured by a Regency gluten-free diet would be a bridge too far! I'm monitoring his food intake and hoping for improvement. Perhaps the heroine will take a hand once she realises that the terminal diagnosis is keeping them apart.

233rabbitprincess
Nov. 15, 2021, 4:38 pm

>232 pamelad: My first thought was arsenic poisoning, but I don't know if milk would help with that.

234pamelad
Nov. 15, 2021, 5:06 pm

>233 rabbitprincess: Interesting idea. His doctor has given him pills. What could be in them?

235pamelad
Bearbeitet: Nov. 15, 2021, 8:26 pm

New symptoms, new diagnosis. Acid reflux? The romance is going well.

More symptoms, but too much speculation could ruin the ending for others. I suspect the doctor and his pills, but what could his motive be?

236pamelad
Nov. 16, 2021, 3:45 pm

One Perfect Rose by Mary Jo Putney

I quite liked this despite it being way too religious for comfort. This is the second book I've read by Putney and the second with a religious epiphany, so perhaps the author's religious beliefs permeate her writing.

Stephen Kenyon, Duke of Ashburton, has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and has only three months to live. He decides to escape his dutiful existence for a while to experience freedom, and rides off alone. When he rescues a boy from drowning Stephen, who is travelling incognito, is welcomed into the boy's family, a travelling theatre group, where he meets Rosalind, with whom he falls in love. Thomas and Maria, Rosalind's adoptive parents, found her when she was only three, wandering the London docks alone, and took her with them.

The book is structured as a countdown of the days Stephen has left. His younger brother is searching for him, accompanied by the doctor who made the initial diagnosis. The brother wants to get Stephen to another doctor, but will he be in time to save him? This being a romance there is no way that Stephen is going to die, but things don't look good. Rabbitprincess was right about the cause of Stephen's illness.

I might try another Mary Jo Putney because she's well-regarded and two books aren't a big enough sample. For me the religious aspects are a negative, but for others they'd be a positive.

237pamelad
Bearbeitet: Nov. 16, 2021, 4:13 pm

It Started with a Scandal by Julie Anne Long is the tenth book in the Pennyroyal Green series and a bit tired. I put it down half-way through but picked it up again after giving up on something worse.

Philippe Lavay, a French aristocrat who has escaped the Terror, has been working for the British government and been badly injured in a knife attack. He is recovering in Pennyroyal Green, in a grubby, badly-run house that desperately needs a housekeeper.

Elise Fountain, single mother of six-year-old Jack, has been dismissed from her teaching job at the instigation of the evil but bountifully dowered Alexandra, potential betrothed of Philippe who wants to buy back his ancestral estate and needs money. Despite misgivings, Philippe employs Elise as housekeeper.

Philippe and Elise fall in love, but the future seems hopeless because of the difference in their stations and Philippe's need to marry for money.

This is a pretty patchy series. I started in the middle with What I Did for a Duke, which is a lot better than It Started with a Scandal. I also liked How the Marquess Was Won.

Touchstones are coming and going.

238hailelib
Nov. 16, 2021, 4:50 pm

>236 pamelad:

I'm glad One Perfect Rose was OK for you.

239pamelad
Nov. 17, 2021, 2:51 pm

>238 hailelib: I liked the characters and wanted things to turn out for the hero and heroine, so was drawn in by the plot despite knowing that the death of the hero would break all the rules of historical romantic fiction. But the doctor's motive for poisoning the hero just wasn't good enough and the discovery of Rosalind's aristocrat birth occurred so easily!

240pamelad
Bearbeitet: Nov. 17, 2021, 3:30 pm

Another new author.

A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant

I liked this, despite being in two minds about reading it due to the title. Martha Russell, widowed at 21 when her much older husband fell off his horse while drunk, finds that most of her settlement has been lost in speculation and that she has nowhere to live. Her husband's brother has inherited the estate. When Martha learns that the brother had raped female servants who were then sacked for being pregnant, she decides to prevent him inheriting. She needs to become pregnant before the month is out.

In church Martha's eye falls upon Theo, a young man she's not met before, the son of the owner of the neighbouring estate. His father has stopped his allowance and sent him to the country. Martha offers to pay him to impregnate her, 500 pounds for trying and another 1000 for success. As long as she doesn't enjoy it, the act won't be too sinful.

I liked Theo and Martha. He is warm, outgoing, generous and cheerful, while she is lonely, humourless, managing and dutiful, dedicated to good works. They more than make up for the deficiencies in the ridiculous plot. I will read another by Cecilia Grant.

Another thing I liked was that there were no dukes. Martha and Theo belong to the landed gentry. His father's a baronet, and she's untitled, comfortably off but not ridiculously wealthy. It's good to have a break from balls and ton gossip.

241christina_reads
Nov. 17, 2021, 4:37 pm

>240 pamelad: I enjoyed Grant's novella A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong -- a fun, short seasonal read.

242pamelad
Nov. 17, 2021, 5:59 pm

>241 christina_reads: Thank you. It's free on Amazon, definitely the right price.

243pamelad
Nov. 18, 2021, 3:51 pm

Silk and Shadows by Mary Jo Putney

I chose this Putney because the main character is a prince from a small country in the Himalayas (Kafiristan, a very suspect name) so I thought he was unlikely to have a Christian epiphany. Mikhal Kaunari has vowed revenge on Charles Weldon, an English aristocrat who did something terrible to him 25 years ago. With the help of Lord Ross Carlisle, whose life Mikhal once saved, Mikhal enters society as Prince Peregrine of Kafiristan. His first task is to break the betrothal between Ross's cousin, Lady Sara St James, and the evil Charles Weldon.

Lady Sara is good; Mikhal is ruthless; Weldon is ludicrously evil. Mikhal's vengeance puts his friends and colleagues at risk of their lives, and has the potential to destroy the livelihoods of many others. I kept reading because I wanted to know what happened to Sara and Mikhal, but there was such a lot I didn't like. There are brothels where syphilitic aristocrats deflower virgins in the hope of a cure, whippings, slavery, a branding, the raping of children. Although these things happen mainly off-screen, they're unspeakably sordid.

I cannot recommend this tasteless book.

244pamelad
Nov. 18, 2021, 4:41 pm

At midnight yesterday, most Covid restrictions were removed for fully vaccinated people in Victoria, because by Sunday 90% of people over 12 will be double-vaxxed. The biggest change is that density restrictions have been removed, so there will be crowds at cricket matches, people standing at the bar in pubs, dancing in night clubs. The queues will be long! Venues have to check patrons' vaccination status or risk penalties, including fines and being closed down, and in my experience so far they do it carefully.

There are some anti-vaxx protests still going on, with some Q-anon people and neo-Nazis making threats against politicians and insisting on their personal right to infect vulnerable people and clutter up ICUs, but they don't have a lot of support.

245pamelad
Nov. 19, 2021, 3:03 pm

Another new author.

The Duke's Secret Heir by Sarah Mallory

Ellen and Max marry in Egypt in the throes of wild passion, after a brief acquaintance, but there is danger and Ellen must return to England without Max. They lose contact, and when Ellen's solicitors try to find the marriage documents they cannot, so Ellen pretends to be a widow and makes a new life for herself and her child in Harrogate, where Max finds her by chance. He cannot forgive her for deserting him.

Max's unreasonableness in blaming Ellen's desertion for everything bad that has happened to him since is the only thing keeping the two of them apart, and not nearly a good enough reason, so I found the book tiresome. Wake up to yourself, Max!

246pamelad
Bearbeitet: Nov. 20, 2021, 4:50 pm

The Inconvenient Elmswood Marriage by Marguerite Kaye

Lord Elmswood marries Kate, the daughter of his dying steward, so that she can manage the estate he loathes while he is away spying for England. He leaves for 11 years and ends up in a foreign jail. His bosses get him out and persuade Kate to participate in a cover story by accompanying the injured, ill Elmswood back to England and pretending that theirs is a genuine marriage. No prize for guessing what happens. Very poor reasons keep the two apart in the sagging centre of this book.

His Countess for a Week by Sarah Mallory

Randolph Kirkster, a debauched drunken opium addict, narrowly avoided hanging and was transported to NSW, where he became a new man and was pardoned. (The author seems to believe that Sydney is in the tropics.) On becoming the Earl of Westray he returns to England, where he discovers Arabella Roffray posing as his wife. She is investigating the death of her husband George. Rather than exposing Arabella, Ran decides to help. Pathetic, easily resolvable misunderstandings keep them from acknowledging their love.

These two books are from a box set borrowed from Overdrive. There are two more to go, but I probably won't bother. In both of them you can feel the gears grinding as the plots trudge along. Many authors seem to have a problem finding good enough reasons to keep the hero and heroine apart in the middle of the story and when the writing is too dull to compensate, it's annoying. This is the very reason I've given up on Grace Burrowes. I was skipping chapters in the middle in order to finish her books.

A Duke a Dozen by Shana Galen is the sixth book in the Survivors series. The core survivors have been married off already, so the author has dredged up some more. Phineas Duncombe, the Duke of Mayne is a kind and diplomatic man, whose job in Draven's suicide squad was Negotiator. He never expected to be the duke, but numerous older brothers died unexpectedly. While investigating the circumstances of the latest death, Phin meets Annabel, Lady Longstowe, a beautiful, older woman who is unfairly known as the Wanton Widow. He offers to help her find her missing daughter.

This is mainly about whether Phin and Annabel will go to bed together and whether Annabel can overcome her memories of her husband's cruelty in order to enjoy the experience. There are chapters and chapters of graphic description, which I skipped. The characters aren't particularly interesting. Annabel's main characteristics are being beautiful and 47, while Phin's are being handsome, kind and 32. Not enough. The side plots are the search for Annabel's daughter, and the deaths of the Dukes of Mayne.

I think the Survivors series reached a natural end a couple of books ago, but there are four more after this one.

247pamelad
Nov. 21, 2021, 3:18 pm

Love in the Time of Scandal by Caroline Linden

I enjoyed this one and thought that Caroline Linden was a new discovery until I realised that I'd already read and forgotten A Rake's Guide to Seduction, which I rated as so-so. Love in the Time of Scandal was enough of an improvement that I've started another in the series, Love and Other Scandals.

Penelope Weston has a substantial dowry so despite her unaristocratic background, she is is invited to some of the ton's social events. At one of these, attempting to help a friend, she is attacked by an evil villain and saved by Benedict Lennox whom she met in the previous book of the series, which I haven't read. She doesn't like Benedict, but is attracted to him, which is just as well because the villain involves her in a terrible scandal and only Benedict can save her.

248pamelad
Bearbeitet: Nov. 23, 2021, 2:10 am

Earls Just Want to Have Fun by Shana Galen

Marlowe is a pickpocket, a member of a gang run by the evil Satin, who abducted her when she was five. Lord Brooke, who is a Bow Street Runner (why?) kidnaps her with the reluctant help of his brother Maxwell, an earl, because Brooke has been searching for the lost daughter of Lord and Lady Lowden and believes that Marlow is the missing Lady Elizabeth. Brooke leaves Marlowe with his brother and goes off to do something nebulous but important with the Bow Street Runners, giving Marlowe and Max the opportunity to fall in love.

I thought I was inured to tripe, but this was too much!

What's a stoop? It's something near the front door of a house, I think, but what exactly? And how could a Regency Englishwomen call her mother mommy? Galen isn't even trying.

249pamelad
Nov. 23, 2021, 2:11 am

More Than a Mistress by Mary Balogh

The Duke of Tresham is wounded in a duel because Jane Ingleby, a milliner's assistant, distracts him, so he employs her to nurse him while he recovers! Jane is actually Lady Sara Illingsworth, in hiding from her evil uncle who has accused her of theft and murder. She and the duke fall in love, and he makes her his mistress, which is a job that pays substantially better than millinery. Meanwhile, the evil uncle is holed up in a London hotel and a Bow Street runner (they are everywhere!) is searching for Jane.

This book seemed like great literature in comparison to Earls Just Want to Have Fun, but in reality it was a competent, if unexciting, effort from Mary Balogh.

Love and Other Scandals by Caroline Linden

I liked Love in the Time of Scandal so read another in the same series. Joan is tall, voluptuous, and unmarried at twenty-four. On a visit to her brother's house she runs across the partially clothed Tristan, whom she'd first met when he was a boy staying at her parents' house. While Joan's parents are conveniently away, she and Tristan get to know one another. Tristan, an earl (or a viscount? Not a duke.) has a bad reputation so Joan's mother doesn't like him. That's the whole plot!

I liked Joan and Tristan. Will they consummate their lust? Does Tristan love Joan? Not enough plot, but pleasant enough.

250Tess_W
Bearbeitet: Nov. 23, 2021, 6:58 am

>248 pamelad: A stoop is a overhang over a door or a recess in the front entrance of a building. It's not a porch, but just something to keep one out of the elements falling from above. Usually don't have in the US except in larger, older apartment buildings. People often sit on the steps of the stoop to socialize. Like this:

251pamelad
Bearbeitet: Nov. 23, 2021, 3:39 pm

>250 Tess_W: Thanks Tess. That's the front porch in Australia, the roofed area at the front door. Because we don't have basements, there aren't usually lots of steps leading from the front porch to the street.

Stoop is a weird choice of word for a book set in Regency England because it transports the reader to America. The social aspect had popped into my head, even though I didn't know exactly what a stoop was, because I'd read books set in the US where people sat on the stoop on hot summer nights while the children played under the fire hydrants. Perhaps set in NY in the twenties?

I think what you call a porch we would call a verandah (sp).

252Tess_W
Nov. 23, 2021, 3:23 pm

>251 pamelad: Although stoops can be anywhere, they are (were) most prominent in the larger east coast cities like New York and Philadelphia. They still figure prominently in city life, mostly in the older neighborhoods. I would agree that word stoop would be surprising in Regency England.

As to porch or veranda, again, it depends on what part of the US. The word porch is usually used in the North and Veranda is usually used in the South, except in Florida where it can be called a lanai.

253pamelad
Nov. 23, 2021, 3:44 pm

>252 Tess_W: Good to know what a lanai is! I'd imagined a sort of small summerhouse in a tropical garden.

254pamelad
Nov. 23, 2021, 4:01 pm

To Wed a Wicked Earl by Olivia Parker

Rothbury the earl has been in love with Charlotte the bespectacled wallflower for years, but has never told her because she thinks she is in love with Rothbury's friend Tristan. Rothbury has a wild reputation and is a notorious rake, so even if he did declare himself Charlotte wouldn't take him seriously. She cannot imagine that Rothbury could be attracted to her, so tries to ignore her attraction to him.

This is light, frothy, and short.

255Tess_W
Nov. 23, 2021, 7:07 pm

>253 pamelad: Or a screened in concrete slab in a semi-tropical area.

256pamelad
Nov. 24, 2021, 1:17 am

Ruthless by Anne Stuart

Viscount Rohan is the host of the decadent Heavenly Host, and provides the venues for their regular orgies. Fortunately Stuart doesn't go into a huge amount of detail, and from the start we know that Rohan isn't as bad as he seems. He meets Elinor, the heroine, when she braves an orgy to find her mother, Lady Caroline Harriman, who is insane due to tertiary syphilis and is gambling away the last of the housekeeping money while her daughters and loyal servants face starvation in the cold.

I couldn't possibly take all this depravity seriously so decided to keep reading, but Stuart just kept piling it on. The writing was fine, there was plenty of plot and the pace was fast, but Ruthless was much too sordid. Not what I'm looking for.

257pamelad
Bearbeitet: Nov. 25, 2021, 4:58 pm

The Duke Who Loved Me by Jane Ashford features the four young women from A Duke Too Far in the series, The Way to a Lord's Heart. They have become friends with Cecilia, who has loved James, a duke, since she was a girl. Cecilia's father, a distracted, scholarly man who was James's guardian, relied on Cecilia to manage his own estates and James's, and James, too, relies on Cecilia's efficiency and hard work. He proposes marriage so that Cecilia can manage his estates while he gets on with having a good time, and is shocked when she refuses.

A pleasant, predictable read.

How to Impress a Marquess by Susanna Ives

Another new author.

Lilith is George's cousin by marriage. Although Lilith is 23, George is effectively her guardian because he is in charge of the money her grandfather left her. Lilith is a free spirit, while George is an overly responsible marquess. She writes a successful magazine serial in which she is the heroine, Collette, and George is a wicked controlling Sultan, but eventually realises that she is mistaken about George's true character, as he is about hers. This book has potential, but it's a mess.

The Spinster and the Rake by Anne Stuart

I quite liked Stuart's writing in Ruthless but was mightily put off by the sordid story, so had a look for something that looked lighter. This one is, but it's generic. Standard characters, standard plot. But it's short, undemanding and an escape from reality, so it did the job.

In a few books recently I've come across people calling one another "arses", which is an odd use of the term and quite puzzling. I've now worked out where it comes from. In British fiction, public school boys call one another asses, which means that they're behaving stupidly. Some US writers have missed the donkey meaning and are translating all asses into arses which makes their characters sound quite crass.

258pamelad
Nov. 26, 2021, 12:47 am

Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman by Lorraine Heath

When Mercy was one of Florence Nightingale's nurses in the Crimea she met Stephen Lyon and after one night together fell in love. Now Stephen has been reported dead and she has arrived at his brother's estate with Stephen's infant son, only to find that Stephen is alive, recovering from wounds. Stephen doesn't know Mercy because the two years he fought in the Crimea are missing from his memory.

This book is slow, dreary, repetitive and sentimental. I thought it would never end, so skimmed through the second half in order to find out what happened.

Lorraine Heath has written numerous historical romances, and many of them are available on Overdrive, so I'm trying another in case this turgid mess was an aberration.

259pamelad
Bearbeitet: Nov. 26, 2021, 3:36 pm

Last week I made a big effort to get out and socialise, so this week I'm recovering and have read many books of little literary merit.

Falling into Bed with a Duke and The Viscount and the Vixen by Lorraine Heath belong to the Hellions of Havisham series. The parents of Albert, an earl, his twin brother Edward, and Ashe, a duke, died in a train crash. Both sets of parents had chosen the same guardian for their boys, the Marquess of Marsden, who has a son of his own, Locke. The reclusive Marquess has never recovered from the death of
Locke's mother: he believes her ghost is still present, and talks to her. Although he is kind to all four boys, he exerts little control over them and they run wild. All four boys grow up determined never to fall in love because love had maddened the Marquess.

Falling into Bed with a Duke is about Ashe, who meets the heroine, Miranda, at the Nightingale Club, where Miranda has gone incognito to lose her virginity. She's on the shelf, despite a gigantic dowry, and has given up on finding a man who will love her for herself and not her money. Once I'd managed to file away the eye-roll inducing Nightingale Club tripe I enjoyed this, because Miranda is an engaging heroine and Ashe is also a sympathetic character, despite his photography fetish. Light and cheerful.

The Viscount and the Vixen is about Locke, who has decided that eventually he will marry a woman with whom he cannot fall in love. When Locke's father, the mad Marquess, advertises for a bride, Locke ends up marrying her, which was his father's plan in the first place. Locke feels only contempt for Portia, his new bride, who he believes was ready to marry an old man solely for money, but as he gets to know her he begins to question his initial impression. Portia has a deep, dark secret, which will eventually destroy her budding relationship with Locke. Not too good. Overly sentimental, and most of the book is spent in bed with Locke and Portia.

260pamelad
Nov. 28, 2021, 5:20 am

Two more by Caroline Linden

What a Gentleman Wants

After a carriage accident in which he broke his leg, David Reese is nursed by Hannah, the widowed wife of a vicar who has a four-year-old daughter. David wants to help Hannah and Molly, so proposes marriage, only to change his mind and sign his twin brother's name to the marriage documents. David's brother is the very responsible Marcus Reese, Duke of Exeter. He persuades Hannah to pretend to be his wife temporarily, because David may have been caught up in something criminal and Marcus doesn't want to draw attention to him.

This was nothing special, but quite readable. You just have to get used to Dukes marrying women from all walks of life. In the next book in the series David apparently marries a pickpocket, but that's a bridge too far so I'll skip it.

What a Woman Needs is not part of the same series, but a stand-alone. Stuart Drake's father has cut off Stuart's allowance due to some untruthful gossip, so Stuart needs money to pay the mortgage of the estate he bought in order to gain financial independence from his father. Stuart has proposed to a young woman with a substantial dowry, and needs to get approval from the girl's aunt, Charlotte Griffolino. The beautiful Charlotte believes that Stuart is a fortune hunter, and is determined to prove it.

Many plot threads here: a kidnapping; a missing treasure; Charlotte's mysterious past; Stuart's unfatherly father, who seems to hate his son. It's a mess, and the characters don't really come alive, but it's an easy read.

261pamelad
Nov. 28, 2021, 3:01 pm

Yesterday I didn't finish a book! First time in ages. A friend and I went to the Ballarat International Foto Biennale. Ballarat is an historical regional city about 90 minutes from Melbourne, with lots of impressive houses, pubs, theatres and public buildings, some dating back to the gold rush. The bandstand below was funded by local musicians in memory of the band members who died on the Titanic.

There were fewer exhibitions this year, but it's a good effort to have put the Biennale on at all. The Linda McCartney exhibition is the centrepiece. It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny, just right for wandering around Ballarat.

262rabbitprincess
Nov. 28, 2021, 5:41 pm

>261 pamelad: The Linda McCartney exhibition sounds great! Glad you had nice weather for your day out too.

263pamelad
Nov. 29, 2021, 3:18 pm

>262 rabbitprincess: A look at your 2022 thread tells me that you'd really enjoy the Linda McCartney exhibition!

264rabbitprincess
Nov. 29, 2021, 5:14 pm

>263 pamelad: Oh yes! I'll have to hope that it comes to Canada :)

265pamelad
Nov. 30, 2021, 12:19 am

Just noticed that today is my 15th anniversary of joining LT. Must buy some books!

266Helenliz
Nov. 30, 2021, 3:45 am

Happy thingaversary! Do let us know what you buy (as if most of need an excuse!)

267MissWatson
Nov. 30, 2021, 4:30 am

Happy Thingaversary!

268Tess_W
Nov. 30, 2021, 4:49 am

Happy Thingaversary! Please let us know what you purchase so I can live vicariously!

269pamelad
Nov. 30, 2021, 4:19 pm

>266 Helenliz:, >267 MissWatson:, >268 Tess_W: Thank you! My first purchase is by my favourite Australian crime writer, Garry Disher: The Way It Is Now.

I also bought Mr Finchley Discovers His England by Victor Canning but won't count it as an anniversary purchase because it was only $2.

Back to the wish list!

270pamelad
Nov. 30, 2021, 4:42 pm

Just bought Plumb by Maurice Gee, which the blurb says has been long regarded as one of the finest novels ever written by a New Zealander.

271DeltaQueen50
Nov. 30, 2021, 4:44 pm

Congratulations on your 15th Thingaversary. I am planning on starting his crime series next year with The Dragon Man.

272pamelad
Bearbeitet: Nov. 30, 2021, 11:04 pm

>271 DeltaQueen50: I hope you like him. A couple of weeks ago a friend and I stayed a couple of days in Cape Schanck, on the Mornington Peninsula where Disher's Challis and Destry series is set. We visited Hastings and had a look at the police station. As a literary pilgrimage it's not quite up to Bath and Lyme Regis, which were part of a trip I had to cancel because of the pandemic, but these days it's best to do what you can when you can.

273Tess_W
Nov. 30, 2021, 11:27 pm

>272 pamelad: Bath, one of my favorite cities in the world!

274DeltaQueen50
Dez. 1, 2021, 1:05 pm

>272 pamelad: And here we go again, bracing ourselves for this new varient. I think Mother Nature must really be angry at us for how we are treating her planet. It just seems like one thing after another ...

275pamelad
Dez. 1, 2021, 2:03 pm

>274 DeltaQueen50: The omicron variant might turn out to be good news. Although a lot more data is needed, it's looking as though it's more infectious than delta but less virulent, so it could overtake delta as the predominant variant, with fewer people getting seriously ill. We have to expect new variants, because that's how viruses adapt to survive. I expect that we'll end up with a new vaccine every year, like the flu vaccine, to cater for the new variants.

Don't give up hope!

276pamelad
Dez. 1, 2021, 2:25 pm

For my 15th LT anniversary I've decided to buy a book a day for 15 days. Today's book is Segu by Maryse Conde, which won the Alternative Nobel Prize in 2018.

I bought another that I'm not counting, Fighting for Life by S. Josephine Baker, which I thought was a biography of the famous cabaret performer, but turns out to be a memoir by the public health worker who found Typhoid Mary. A fortunate find.

277pamelad
Dez. 1, 2021, 2:59 pm

I've given up on a few historical romances lately.

Then Came You by Lisa Kleypas
I had no patience with the hysterical heroine, Lily.

Once Upon a Highland Summer by Lecia Cornwall
The prologue introduced two ghosts. I prefer my romances ghost-free.

Secrets of a Proper Countess by Lecia Cornwall
In the very first chapter, the masked proper countess had a graphically described sexual encounter with a rake at a masquerade ball. I didn't really want to know where things would go from there.

Lecia Cornwall has received some good reviews, so I'll keep looking, but I'm not sanguine.

278pamelad
Dez. 1, 2021, 3:16 pm

Two historical romances finished.

Only a Promise by Mary Balogh

This was the only book of the survivors series that I hadn't read. The hero is Ralph, who can't forgive himself for persuading his three closest friends to join him in fighting Napoleon, then surviving when they died. The heroine is Chloe, unmarriageable through no fault of her own, who became the victim of ton gossip and retired to the country.

Ralph is the survivor who makes the least impression: a desolate man with a facial scar. Chloe proposes marriage on the understanding that he is incapable of love or even affection.

You May Kiss the Duke by Charis Michaels

A new author.

Sabine Noble's father has recently died without a will and her evil uncle has moved in. When the hero, Captain Stoker, arrives he finds Chloe locked in a cupboard, her face battered, so he proposes a marriage of convenience. Years later, Chloe finds Stoker close to death in a hospital hulk and takes him to her home to nurse him back to health. In order to fall in love Sabine must overcome the revulsion she has felt towards men since her uncle's violence and Stoker must overcome the feelings of unworthiness and degradation caused by his upbringing in a brothel. Together Sabine and Stoker investigate the evil uncle's criminal activity, and the mysterious duke who may have paid to have Stoker murdered.

I enjoyed this, despite the more than usually ludicrous ending.

279hailelib
Dez. 1, 2021, 3:17 pm

Happy Thingaversary! Enjoy your new books.

>277 pamelad: - Maybe time to give up romances completely for a while?

280NinieB
Dez. 1, 2021, 3:22 pm

>269 pamelad: Mmm, Garry Disher, one of my favorites too! I need to turn to the unreads on my shelves.

>270 pamelad: I have the second one in the trilogy, Meg, but I need to read Plumb first. Turns out it has never been published in the US, and I'll have to ILL it.

281Jackie_K
Dez. 1, 2021, 3:37 pm

>276 pamelad: A book a day for 15 days sounds brilliant - like an early Christmas present to yourself. Happy Thingaversary!

282pamelad
Dez. 1, 2021, 3:43 pm

>279 hailelib: Thank you! Next year I'm planning break the romance habit and return to books that require an engaged brain, but the romances have been a good escape during the endless lockdowns. At the moment I'm trying to overdose, but it's hard because my expectations have declined so far!

>270 pamelad: Can you ILL from foreign libraries? That's brilliant. I wish!

283pamelad
Dez. 1, 2021, 3:47 pm

>281 Jackie_K: Thank you! The twelve days of Christmas are tempting too.

284christina_reads
Dez. 1, 2021, 4:28 pm

>278 pamelad: Only a Promise is next up in the Survivors' Club series for me. Sorry to hear that Ralph is the least memorable survivor, but that is also my impression based on his appearances in the previous books. I'll be interested to compare notes!

285pamelad
Dez. 1, 2021, 4:34 pm

>284 christina_reads: I liked Only a Promise and was interested enough in Ralph and Chloe to want things to turn out well for them, despite hardly noticing Ralph in the earlier books.

286rabbitprincess
Dez. 1, 2021, 5:23 pm

Happy thingaversary! Enjoy your book buying :)

287NinieB
Bearbeitet: Dez. 1, 2021, 6:17 pm

>282 pamelad: No, not from foreign libraries, but there are a few academic libraries that are more likely to buy English literature from countries like New Zealand.

288DeltaQueen50
Dez. 1, 2021, 9:35 pm

>275 pamelad: What you say makes sense, fingers crossed!

289pamelad
Dez. 1, 2021, 11:25 pm

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

Joy Becker and Stan Delaney met on the tennis circuit, fell in love and married. They've devoted their lives to tennis, moving from top-level competition to running their own tennis school. Joy is the organiser and financial brain, while Stan is the endlessly patient coach. Their four children were champions as children, but none of them made it to the top as adults. Stan was disappointed in his kids' tennis careers, but he was coaching a young prodigy, Harry Haddad, who was going to make it to Wimbledon and fulfil Stan's dreams.

Now Joy is missing and the four Delaney offspring are horrified to suspect that their father could be the culprit. After all, Stan's own father left his family after throwing Stan's mother across the room. The mystery seems to hinge on the mysterious Savannah, who arrived on the Delaney's doorstep one night and stayed for months.

This is the best Moriarty I've read since Big Little Lies. It follows her usual plan, switching between the present and the past, and between the viewpoints of different people. She writes complex, believable characters and twisty plots, underlain by dry, sardonic humour. At 472 pages, Apples Never Fall was too long, but I was engaged all the way through and can recommend it.

The two TV series based on Big Little Lies don't do justice to Moriarty's humour. The second series, in particular, is drearily earnest, except for Meryl Streep.

290MissWatson
Dez. 2, 2021, 4:03 am

>276 pamelad: Happy Thingaversary! A book a day is great, almost like an advent calendar. Enjoy!

291pamelad
Dez. 2, 2021, 3:11 pm

>290 MissWatson: Thank you!

Today's Thingaversary purchase is The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan

From the blurb: This rich and unforgettable story of sexual intrigue and political scheming, written by the Spanish feminist and intellectual Emilia Pardo Bazan, deserves recognition as one of the great nineteenth-century novels.

292pamelad
Dez. 2, 2021, 3:54 pm

One Night in London by Caroline Linden

The three Durham brothers have just found out that their recently deceased father, the Duke of Durham, had a secret marriage before they were born, so they may be illegitimate. Edward, the middle brother, the responsible one, manages the estates. He hires an attorney who ditches his prior client, Francesca, a very attractive widow who is looking for her orphaned niece.

The searches for the niece and the missing ducal wife go on in the background while the romance between Edward and Francesca takes precedence. Unfortunately it's not that interesting, but the book is a quick read if you skim all the sex scenes. I'll probably skim through the other two books in the series, just to see if the brothers retain their legitimacy and the dukedom.

293pamelad
Dez. 3, 2021, 2:44 pm

Today's Thingaversary purchase is In Diamond Square by Merce Rodoreda.

I don't know how many times I have reread the book, including several times in Catalan, with such effort that speaks volumes to my devotion to the novel. Gabriel Garcia Marquez

294pamelad
Dez. 3, 2021, 3:17 pm

>292 pamelad: Blame It On Bath and The Way to a Duke's Heart by Caroline Linden are the second and third books in the series, The Truth about the Duke.

Blame it on Bath Before Gerard, the youngest Durhum brother, goes to Bath to search for the blackmailer who has uncovered his deceased father's secret marriage, he receives an offer of marriage from Katherine, a rich widow who is desperate to avoid marriage to her husband's heir. After a test kiss, Gerard decides to accept. Katherine helps Gerard search for information about the man who performed the secret marriage ceremony.

The Way to a Duke's Heart Charlie, the Durhum heir, refused to visit his dying father and hadn't seen him for over a decade. He has been leading an indolent, dissolute life in London, and wants to leave the investigation of his father's secret marriage to his younger brothers, but when both of them marry they pass their findings onto Charlie and leave him to get on with it. He manages to find the name of the man who posted the blackmail letters, then when he finds that a woman, Theresa Neville, staying at the same Bath hotel has business dealings with that same man, he manufactures an acquaintance with the direct, undiplomatic Tessa who manages her brother's finances and is in Bath to investigate a canal investment.

These were both short, pleasant reads.

295pamelad
Dez. 4, 2021, 2:15 pm

Thingaversary: A is for Arsenic: the poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Harkup

296pamelad
Bearbeitet: Dez. 4, 2021, 3:30 pm

New discovery: Edith Layton

The Duke's Wager

Regina Berryman was brought up by her schoolmaster father and a bluestocking governess. She's educated in Greek and Latin, Ancient History, Philosophy and Mathematics. On her father's death she moves to London to live with her uncle, a rich businessman, but he dies before he has altered his will to provide for her and she is left at the mercy of the dissolute Black Duke, Jason Torquay.

Regina met the Duke when she made the mistake of attending the opera unaccompanied except for her maid. Being new to London, she didn't realise that she chosen a performance for the demimonde, and when Torquay saw her he thought she was a courtesan. He wagers the Marquis of Bessacarr, a younger man almost as dissolute as himself, that he will have Regina.

This was a good find. I really liked the naive, honourable Regina, who takes responsibility for her own actions and stands up against two powerful men. The book was written in the eighties, when Regency heroines were still hanging onto their virginity until marriage. Less lust, more plot.

The Disdainful Marquis

Another naive and honourable heroine. Catherine Robins lives with her sister and brother-in-law who are happy to have her, but her live is dull and she feels she is a burden, so she is looking for a position as a companion. After many rejections, she is excite to be offered employment with an elderly Duchess. Catherine is too naive to understand the conditions of her employment and doesn't understand what her job entails until she is on her way to France with the Duchess's two other companions, and realises that they are prostitutes. She is well out of her depth and at risk of being abducted, sold or imprisoned. The Marquis of Bessacarr could help her, if only he believed her.

Not quite as good as The Duke's Wager because the ending is less satisfactory, but still entertaining.

New but unworthy.
I ditched Joan Wolf's His Lordship's Mistress because her writing is lifeless and dull.

297rabbitprincess
Dez. 5, 2021, 11:14 am

>295 pamelad: That was a good one! :)

298pamelad
Dez. 5, 2021, 2:06 pm

>297 rabbitprincess: I think you're the source!

299pamelad
Dez. 5, 2021, 2:14 pm

Thingaversary: The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk

I really liked Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, and this newly translated mammoth has received excellent reviews, including this one in the Guardian. "Dense, captivating and weird" - sounds good.

300Tess_W
Dez. 5, 2021, 3:06 pm

>299 pamelad: I have Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead up for reading next year. I will watch for your review on the Jacob book.

301pamelad
Bearbeitet: Dez. 5, 2021, 4:37 pm

>300 Tess_W: I hope you like Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead as much as I did.

New Author

Rescuing Lord Roxwaithe by Cassandra Dean

Roxwaithe is in love with Lydia, whom he has known since she was a baby, but he denies it because he is fourteen years older than she is.

I finished this because the author is Australian and the book is short, but it wasn't really worth the effort.

Another New Author

Listen to the Moon by Rose Lerner

This is not your traditional Regency romance. For a start, the hero and the heroine are servants. John Toogood has lost his position as a valet because his employer's mother has been utterly unreasonable and blamed him for a situation well out of his control. She's spread the word amongst her acquaintances so he cannot get another job as a valet, but his former employer lines him up a job as a butler for the vicar. The vicar won't take a single man, so Toogood proposes marriage to Sukey Grimes, a maid of all work much below him in status and eighteen years younger, but he's very much attracted to her because she's sweet, funny and pretty.

Most of the book is about the ups and downs of the relationship between the finicky Toogood, and the lackadaisical Sukey. It's interesting because of the picture of the lives of poor people: the fear of being sacked and becoming destitute; the fear of the workhouse in old age; the powerlessness of working people; terrible working conditions with penny pinching employers.

I quite liked this, but wasn't that interested in Toogood's big problem of trying to fulfil his parents' expectations. They're very superior, dedicated servants who expect Toogood to be the same. The Remains of the Day covers some of this ground, and is a much, much better book.

302pamelad
Dez. 5, 2021, 5:27 pm

Thingaversary

I've just bought tomorrow's book! Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce

303pamelad
Bearbeitet: Dez. 7, 2021, 6:31 pm

Historical romances

Listing these so I know I've read them, or tried to.

An Inconvenient Duke by Anna Harrington

I gave up on this because the hero is a 35-year-old General, granted a Dukedom for routing Napoleon. Now he has resigned from the army and is socialising with the ton. Farcical.

The Perfect Kiss by Anne Gracie

A competent but forgettable Regency, as are most of Anne Gracie's. Her books are a reliable stand-by.

If Ever I Should Love You and The Duke That I Marry by Cathy Maxwell

Books 1 and 3 of the Spinster Heiresses trilogy. Both have a mystery plot as well as the romance. OK but unmemorable. Better than His Secret Mistress, which I gave up on because it was taking too long to get started and the hero was waffling on repetitively about nothing.

304hailelib
Dez. 8, 2021, 8:47 pm

Your Thingaversary books sound more interesting than the romances!

305pamelad
Dez. 8, 2021, 10:56 pm

>304 hailelib: You are quite right, and I have just read one.

Trans: When ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce

I first started to have qualms about self-identification of gender when I spoke to an elderly lady at the gym - she no longer went to the one nearest her home because she couldn't deal with sharing the change rooms with people with male genitalia. That was the first time I realised that gender self-identification didn't just relate to a very small minority of transwomen who lived as women and tried to pass as women. Then there was the ever-increasing number of trans students at the inner-city secondary school where a friend teaches. She was concerned that these were kids with hard lives and many, many difficulties, so what evidence was there for deciding that changing their gender would fix their problems? Then there were the threats against JK Rowling for crimes including supporting a woman who'd been sacked for saying sex is binary; raising the issue of safety in what used to be female only spaces; and highlighting the disappearance of women from the language, replaced by terms like people who menstruate. And of course there's sport.

Helen Joyce discusses all these issues, and more. She's brave. She's angry, biased, and probably cherry-picking her evidence, but people need to be able to raise these issues without being accused of transphobia, sacked from their jobs for hate speech, and attacked as TERFs.

Highly recommended.

306pamelad
Dez. 8, 2021, 11:06 pm

Thingaversary.

Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism by Kathleen Stock

A clear, concise, easy-to-read account of the issues between sex, gender and feminism . . . an important book Evening Standard

A call for cool heads at a time of great heat and a vital reminder that revolutions don't always end well Sunday Times

307Tess_W
Dez. 9, 2021, 6:34 am

>305 pamelad: Very nice review.

308christina_reads
Dez. 9, 2021, 10:42 am

>305 pamelad: That does sound like an interesting one!

309pamelad
Dez. 9, 2021, 3:33 pm

>307 Tess_W: Thank you.
>305 pamelad: It is, so much so that I am following it up straight away with Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism.

I am realising how tribal our political views are, to the extent that we will disregard an argument not because it is groundless, but because it comes from the wrong person. On the issue of people who have male primary and secondary sexual characteristics and are competing in female sporting competitions on the basis of identifying as women, I am horrified that I agree with Piers Morgan.

310pamelad
Dez. 11, 2021, 4:32 pm

Thingaversary

We Always Treat Women Too Well by Raymond Queneau

I've been meaning to read something by Raymond Queneau, preferably Zazie in the Metro. I couldn't find a copy so have settled on an alternative, which is available as an ebook with Kobo.

Synopsis
Published originally as the purported French translation of a novel by fictional Irish writer Sally Mara, We Always Treat Women Too Well is set in Dublin during the 1916 Easter Rising and tells the story of the siege of a small post office by a group of rebels, who discover to their embarrassment that a female postal clerk, Gertie Girdle, is still in the lavatory some time after they have shot or expelled the rest of the staff. The events that follow are not for prudish readers, forming a scintillating, linguistically delightful and hilarious narrative. By far Queneau’s bawdiest work, We Always Treat Women Too Well contains all of its author’s hallmarks: wit, stylistic innovation and formal playfulness expertly rendered into English by Barbara Wright’s classic translation.

311pamelad
Bearbeitet: Dez. 11, 2021, 11:41 pm

Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism by Kathleen Stock

Stock is a British academic, a philosopher from outside the gender studies field. She is not beholden to gender studies orthodoxies, and applies her own rigorous analyses to theories of gender identity, examines the evidence for and against, and clearly explains the relevant concepts. This book was heavier going than Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, requiring rather more concentration and reflection. It repaid the effort and I recommend it highly.

312pamelad
Dez. 12, 2021, 1:51 pm

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty is Moriarty's first published book. Like her others it consists of the stories or multiple characters, intertwining around a mystery, but unlike her other books, the mystery is revealed half-way through, so it lacks their pace. I thought that the ending was unsatisfactory: trite, sentimental, amoral and far too tidy. If I'd read this book first, I probably wouldn't have bothered with another, but fortunately I started with Big Little Lies (before the TV serial came out), which really got me in.

313Tess_W
Dez. 12, 2021, 1:53 pm

>312 pamelad: I also found the ending unsatisfactory. I might give the author another try, not sure.

314pamelad
Dez. 12, 2021, 2:31 pm

>313 Tess_W: Moriarty's books aren't great literature and you wouldn't want to read too many in a row, but the good ones are entertaining, easy reads that hold my attention. If she hadn't been Australian, I would never have read one. Might be worth trying another if it's free!

315pamelad
Dez. 12, 2021, 2:36 pm

Thingaversary

The Luxembourg Run by Stanley Ellin

I've bought this one for the Europe Endless Challenge. It's ages since I read a book by Stanley Ellin, but he used to be a favourite.

316DeltaQueen50
Dez. 12, 2021, 3:08 pm

I also got totally hooked by Little Big Lies but wasn't as taken with The Husband's Secret, I've held off reading any more by Moriarty but I will probably give her another try at some point.

317pamelad
Dez. 13, 2021, 4:28 pm

Thingaversary

The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi

Published for the first time in the UK, one of Japan's greatest modern female writers

In the late nineteenth century, Tomo, the faithful wife of a government official, is sent to Tokyo, where a heartbreaking task is awaiting her. From among hundreds of geishas and daughters offered up for sale by their families she must select a respectable young girl to become her husband’s new lover. Externally calm, but torn apart inside, Tomo dutifully begins the search for an official mistress.

The Waiting Years was awarded Japan’s most prestigious literary award, the Noma Prize.

318pamelad
Bearbeitet: Dez. 14, 2021, 4:57 am

Thingaversary List

The Way It Is Now by Garry Disher Australia, Crime
Plumb by Maurice Gee New Zealand
Segu by Maryse Conde Guadeloupe (Translated from French)
The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan Spain
In Diamond Square by Merce Rodoreda (Translated from Catalan)
A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Harkup
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk Poland
Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce Ireland, Completed
Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism by Kathleen Stock UK, Completed
We Always Treat Women Too Well by Raymond Queneau France
The Luxembourg Run by Stanley Ellin US, Completed
The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi Japan

That's 12 out of 15.

319MissWatson
Dez. 14, 2021, 2:31 am

You have got some amazing books in your haul.

320Tess_W
Dez. 14, 2021, 3:15 am

>318 pamelad:
>319 MissWatson: What she said!

321pamelad
Dez. 14, 2021, 4:56 am

>318 pamelad:, >319 MissWatson: I've really enjoyed poring through the wish list and choosing them.

The Luxembourg Run by Stanley Ellin

I chose this because Luxembourg is one of the last remaining countries in my Europe Endless Challenge, and books set in Luxembourg are hard to find. This one wasn't, really. Luxembourg is the destination of an illegal currency transfer which ends so badly for the courier that he spends the rest of the book planning revenge on the people who betrayed him.

The second reason for choosing this book was that years ago I read a lot of Stanley Ellin's crime novels and liked them. But that was then. Now I'm annoyed with the empty, cliched female characters, sacrificed for the plot. I just hate it when the hero's woman is murdered, as though she's a valuable possession that's been stolen from him. I stopped reading James Lee Burke for just that reason: the high turnover in wives and girlfriends.

A well-written, well-plotted thriller that I didn't much like.

322hailelib
Dez. 14, 2021, 6:57 pm

>321 pamelad:

At least you can tick Luxembourg off the list.

323pamelad
Dez. 17, 2021, 3:23 pm

Kindertransport 1938 - 1940

Nazi authorities staged a violent pogrom View upon Jews in Germany on November 9–10, 1938. This event is known as Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). After the pogrom, the British government eased immigration restrictions for certain categories of Jewish refugees. British authorities agreed to allow an unspecified number of unaccompanied minors under the age of 17 to enter Great Britain from Germany and German-annexed territories (that is, Austria and the Czech lands). They were spurred by British public opinion and the persistent efforts of refugee aid committees. Notable among the refugee aid committees were the British Committee for the Jews of Germany and the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany.

Private citizens or organizations had to guarantee payment for each child's care, education, and eventual emigration from Britain. In return, the British government agreed to allow unaccompanied refugee children to enter the country on temporary travel visas. It was understood at the time that when the “crisis was over,” the children would return to their families. Parents or guardians could not accompany the children. The few infants included in the program were cared for by other children on their transport.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kindertransport-1938-40

Latecomers by Anita Brookner

Hartmann was 12 when his parents sent him to live with his mother's sister in London. At boarding school he met Fibich, only 7 years old, whose last memory of home was his mother fainting into his father's arms as the train carried him away. The cold, the bad food and the casual cruelties of the third-rate school compounded the boys' misery, and they clung together in a friendship that would last their whole lives. Fibich, who had no home apart from the school, was taken in by Hartmann's carelessly kind, unmotherly aunt. On leaving school, both boys became printers' apprentices, work they hated, but their misery ended with a bequest that enabled them to start a business of their own. The optimistic, insouciant Hartmann ignores these years of misery, and thinks of himself and Fibich as latecomers to their lives. Fibich is far less sanguine, and prone to migraines and depression.

Latecomers is a character-driven novel. It describes the lives of Fibich and Hartmann, their hopes and compromises, their marriages and children. It's beautifully written, slow and melancholy.

Recommended.

324pamelad
Bearbeitet: Dez. 17, 2021, 6:37 pm

KoboPlus

KP is like KindleUnlimited in that you buy a monthly subscription and can read KP books for free. Unlike KU, you can download as many as you like. I can't resist a bargain, so when I saw that many of Michael Gilbert's books were available on KP, I enrolled for the free trial. Some of the other authors I've found on KP are Arthur Upfield, Hammond Innes, John Wyndham and Mary Jo Putney (her Rogues Redeemed series). Best European Fiction 2010 and others in the series are also available, and should fill up most of the gaps in my Europe Endless Challenge.

The first KP book I've read is Ten days in a Mad-House by Nelly Bly. It's also available on Gutenberg.

In 1887, the ambitious young reporter, Nelly Bly, was given an assignment to get herself committed to Blackwell's Island and report back. It's shocking to read about the ease of getting diagnosed as insane and being committed indefinitely, and the impossibility of being released when every request for a re-evaluation is classified as new evidence of insanity. The violence, cruelty, cold, starvation and filth that Bly uncovered were shocking and led to a Grand Jury Investigation.

This was short and interesting. We need more reporters like Nellie Bly and fewer peddlers of political opinions.

325pamelad
Bearbeitet: Dez. 17, 2021, 5:33 pm

More KoboPlus Finds

Elena Ferrante, including all four Neapolitan novels
Mikhail Bulgakov, including The Heart of a Dog, which is a possibility for the BingoDOG
J. R. Ackerley's My Dog Tulip, a possibility for the Dog square and the LGBT square
Cixin Liu, whose The Three-Body Problem is on my list of books I think I should read but don't really want to.

326Tess_W
Dez. 17, 2021, 6:40 pm

>323 pamelad: Use that movie when I teach a semester class on The Holocaust.

327pamelad
Dez. 17, 2021, 7:11 pm

>326 Tess_W: Is it a documentary called Into the Arms of Strangers? I've found it on iTunes and will rent it when I work out how to cast from the iPad to the TV.

328pamelad
Dez. 17, 2021, 8:57 pm

A Load of Old Bones by Suzette Hill

The Guardian says, "Quite why this series should be charming, astringent and witty, instead of emetically twee, I am not sure, but it is entirely delightful".

I like the phrase "emetically twee" and, unlike the Guardian reviewer, would apply it wholeheartedly to this cosy mystery, which is related by a cat, a dog and a vicar. Stopping now.

329Tess_W
Dez. 17, 2021, 9:07 pm

>327 pamelad: Yes, that is it! It's quite old, but has some good stuff. I even think this is the one where some of the transports aren't accepted by the Brits and are sent to orphanages in Australia when they would not convert.

330pamelad
Dez. 17, 2021, 9:29 pm

>329 Tess_W: I've read that some of the boys originally part of the Kindertransport were, on reaching 18 (or possible younger?), classified as enemy aliens, along with many other male refugees from Germany, Austria and Italy, and transported to Australia on the Dunera. On the voyage they were maltreated by vicious, incompetent soldiers whose job it was to look after them. https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/dunera-boys

331pamelad
Dez. 20, 2021, 1:02 am

I've given up on Pale Rider by Laura Spinney a quarter of the way through. It's about the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, but I haven't come across anything new that I want to know. It's too waffly, and I can't be bothered reading all the extraneous chit chat.

I'm going to start Cholera: The Victorian Plague, by Amanda J Thomas, which is also a risk because I've read a fair bit about this epidemic too. The Broad Street Pump! I've been interested in epidemics ever since I studied Microbiology back in the seventies and used to imagine I had the symptoms of the disease we'd just learned about. I was not alone!

332pamelad
Dez. 20, 2021, 10:56 pm

A Duchess a Day by Charis Michaels

There's a Snow White theme going on in the background, with the hero, Declan Shaw, being hired to accompany a young woman, paramour of a Royal Duke, to France. Unfortunately she escapes. He is accused of her murder and imprisoned in Newgate, from whence he is extracted by the evil uncle of the Duke of Lusk who hires Declan to guard the Duke's unwilling fiancee, Helena Lark. With Declan's help, Helena sets out to find the Duke a more willing fiancee.

Light, cheerful, frothy. I liked it.

333pamelad
Dez. 23, 2021, 3:44 pm

The Doors Open by Michael Gilbert is the third book in the Inspector Hazelrigg series, but Hazelrigg is a minor character. In fact, the book is full of minor characters. People appear and are followed for a while, then they recede into the background and someone else takes over. Eventually the main characters make themselves known: Legate, the manager of a well-regarded insurance company, and Lord Cedarbrook, the well-connected ex-military man, ex-diplomat, ex-spy and brilliant actor, who impressed me as a contender for the title of the most capable Englishman ever.

There are financial shenanigans, murders, Communists, court cases, Italian villains, two interchangeable fiancees, and numerous upright Englishmen who went to the right schools and are above suspicion. Trade unionists are villains. One character was imprisoned, effectively for being a shop steward, and that seems to be quite acceptable. This book was a mess, but it was readable enough. I'll keep trying Michael Gilbert's books because many of them are free on Kobo Plus, and the good ones are very good.

334hailelib
Dez. 27, 2021, 10:25 am

>333 pamelad:

I've a couple of Gilbert's books that I should pull out and read as the two I read recently were fairly good.

335pamelad
Bearbeitet: Dez. 28, 2021, 10:34 pm

Kobo Plus Historical Romance Binge.

Lady of Spirit by Edith Layton 2.5*
The Mysterious Heir by Edith Layton 3.5*
Lord of Dishonor by Edith Layton 3*
The Abandoned Bride by Edith Layton 3.5*
The Duel by Barbara Metzger 3*

Love in Disguise by Edith Layton 3*
The Game of Love by Edith Layton 2.5*
Surrender to Love by Edith Layton Unfinished

Dukes Prefer Blondes by Loretta Chase 3*
Once Dishonored by Mary Jo Putney Unfinished

336pamelad
Bearbeitet: Dez. 31, 2021, 5:48 pm

Favourite Books of 2021

5 Star Reads

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
They Were Counted by Miklos Banffy
Concluding by Henry Green
A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell
The Exploits of Engelbrecht by Maurice Richardson
The Man Who Walked Through Walls by Marcel Ayme

4.5 Star Reads

Olive Again by Elizabeth Strout
The Absolute at Large by Karel Capek
Locos by Felipe Alfau
Of Mortal Love by William Gerhardie
The Yield by Tara June Winch
A Few Days in the Country by Elizabeth Harrower
Mr Harrison's Confessions by Elizabeth Gaskell
Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism by Kathleen Stock
They Were Divided by Miklos Banffy
They Were Found Wanting by Miklos Banffy
Doting by Henry Green
Living by Henry Green
Jacob von Gunten by Robert Walser
Jeeves in the Offing by P G Wodehouse
Of Mortal Love by William Gerhardie

Least Favourite Book of 2021

Half a Star

The Wallflower Wager by Tessa Dare

Favourite Historical Romances, 3.5 and 4 star

Faro's Daughter by Georgette Heyer
Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale
The Duke's Wager by Edith Layton
Don't Tempt Me by Loretta Chase
The Wicked Cousin by Stella Riley
The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas

337pamelad
Dez. 30, 2021, 1:08 am

So far I've tagged 427 books 2021, and know I've missed some. 308 are historical romances, escapist pandemic reading, but for a book to be a favourite it has to offer more than entertainment. A good book has to be thought provoking and romances aren't, which is the very reason I read them!

338pamelad
Dez. 30, 2021, 2:32 pm

One more, for 428, False Angel by Edith Layton 2.5*

339rabbitprincess
Dez. 30, 2021, 6:06 pm

Wow, over 400 books read!

340christina_reads
Jan. 1, 2022, 7:25 pm

Glad to see your list of favorites -- and favorite romances! I'll have to look out for those I haven't read yet.

341pamelad
Jan. 2, 2022, 4:37 pm

>339 rabbitprincess: Too many!

>340 christina_reads: Some other romance writers I liked were Charis Michaels, Cecilia Grant, Emily Larkin and Anna Campbell. My favourite, apart from Georgette Heyer, is probably Loretta Chase, for her humour.

Pamelad's New Categories #2

Forum2021 Category Challenge

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