Helenliz escapes to another world

I'm Helen and I'm head of quality in a small firm that makes inhaler devices for delivery of drugs to the lung. It's a small team and I love my job.

In 2022 I had a little bit of a refinement of categories, and most of those return. So that's the theme this year? I re-read Mort recently, and it reminded me of how much I enjoy the Discworld series. I'm not a huge fan of fantasy, but this I adore. Pratchett holds up a mirror to the world, but it doesn't necessarily show us as we appear, but as we are. In which case I am using titles from the Discworld series for my theme and cover pictures for the category images.

The last few years I have been first to post my thread in the new group. So you can all feel free to pile in now, no need to worry about being first to the buffet. >;-)

Currently Reading


Currently reading
My Pen is the Wing of a Bird
Fatal Isles (audio)

Loans: To try and keep track of the library books I've got out.✔️
Library books on loan:
The Temple of My Familiar
Stone Blind
Euripides in 4 volumes
Caleb's Crossing
Das Jumbo-Buch von Elmar und Willi = Elmer (AND) Elmer and Willi
Who Fears death
Blood and Sugar
The case of the late Pig
The Lantern men
Golden Hill
Erasure
Of Love and Other Demons
The Decameron

Book subscriptions: To try and catch up!
Tyll (MrB's May)
Outlandish (MrB's September)
Unwell Women (MrB's October)
Cloud Cuckoo Land (MrB's November)
Conjure Women (MrB's December)
Still Life (MrB's)
Rutherford & Fry's Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything (MrB's)
Hare House (MrB's)
We are Displaced (Shelterbox)

The list

January
1. The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith, ***1/2
2. Rebuilding Coventry, Sue Townsend, ***
3. My Darling from the Lions, Rachel Long, ***
4. Light Perpetual, Francis Spufford, ***
5. The Eagle of the Ninth, Rosemary Sutcliff, ***
6. Ghost Wall, Sarah Moss, ****
7. Run, Ann Patchett, ***
8. Dearly, Margaret Atwood, ****
9. Der WackelZahn, David Mills & Julia Crouth, ***

February
10. The Secret Seven, Enid Blyton, ***
11. Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka, ***
12. The Red house Mystery, AA Milne, ***
13. Flowers for the Judge, Margery Allingham, ****
14. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens, ***
15. Chivalry, Neil Gaiman, *****

March
16. Kiss of the Spider Woman, Manuel Puig, ***
17. Five on a Treasure Island, Enid Blyton, ***
18. Two Stories, Sally Rooney, ***
19. The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare, ***
20. The Amber Fury, Natalie Haynes, ***
21. The Lantern Bearers, Rosemary Sutcliff, ***
22. Fatal Isles Maria Adolfsson, ***
23. My Pen is the Wing of a Bird, various, ***

DNF
The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell. Too big for a sensible bed book & just too woo-woo for me.

Category 1: Women authors
Book Wyrd Sisters


The Wyrd Sisters are the witches of Lancre and are a trio that fall out more than they get on. As three very different women, this is where I will store my books by women authors.

1. The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
2. Rebuilding Coventry, Sue Townsend
3. My Darling from the Lions, Rachel Long
4. The Eagle of the Ninth, Rosemary Sutcliff
5. Ghost Wall, Sarah Moss
6. Run, Ann Patchett
7. Dearly, Margaret Atwood
8. The Secret Seven, Enid Blyton
9. Flowers for the Judge, Margery Allingham
10. Five on a Treasure Island, Enid Blyton
11. Two Stories, Sally Rooney
12. The Amber Fury, Natalie Haynes
13. The Lantern Bearers, Rosemary Sutcliff
14. Fatal Isles Maria Adolfsson
15. My Pen is the Wing of a Bird, various

Category 2: New authors
Book: Mort


Mort was my first Discworld book, given to me for my 16th birthday. And I just loved it. As my first, this will be where I will put those authors I have not read before.

1. The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
2. My Darling from the Lions, Rachel Long
3. Light Perpetual, Francis Spufford
4. Der WackelZahn, David Mills & Julia Crouth
5. Kiss of the Spider Woman, Manuel Puig
6. Two Stories, Sally Rooney
7. Fatal Isles Maria Adolfsson
8. My Pen is the Wing of a Bird, various

Category 3: Translations & German
Book: Witches Abroad


In this the three witches leave their little kingdom and venture to foreign parts, with exactly the consequences you'd expect of the inexperienced traveler abroad. In this I will put books in two categories, those I read in English that have been translated and books in German. I've been trying to learn German to show that you can teach an old dog new tricks and so reading in German is a struggle at present.

1. Der WackelZahn, David Mills & Julia Crouth
2. Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
3. Kiss of the Spider Woman, Manuel Puig
4. Fatal Isles Maria Adolfsson
5. My Pen is the Wing of a Bird, various

Category 4: Book Subscriptions
Book: Going Postal


In Going Postal, Moist von Lipwig escapes death on the condition that he sorts out the Disc's postal service. He'd be responsible for delivering my subscriptions, so this is where I will put those books that arrive in the post.

1. My Pen is the Wing of a Bird, various

Category 5: Heyer series read
Book: Lords and Ladies


I'm not sure that the events in this book quite match Heyer's usual romance format. As her books usually involve a Lord meeting a Lady and various trials ensuing before the happy ending, maybe there is a commonality. This is where I will be putting my Heyer series reads.

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

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

Category 6: Non-fiction
Book: The Truth


As non-fiction readers we like to imagine we are reading the truth. So this is where my non-fiction will be stored.

Category 7: Audio
Book: Soul Music


I don't listen to a lot of music, but I do listen to audiobooks in the car. Seeing music and audiobooks engage the ears, this is where I will put my audiobooks.

1. Rebuilding Coventry, Sue Townsend
2. My Darling from the Lions, Rachel Long
3. Run, Ann Patchett
4. Dearly, Margaret Atwood
5. The Secret Seven, Enid Blyton
6. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
7. Chivalry, Neil Gaiman
8. Five on a Treasure Island, Enid Blyton
9. Two Stories, Sally Rooney
10. The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare
11. Fatal Isles Maria Adolfsson

Category 8: Reading years and lists
Book: Interesting Times


In 2022 I challenged myself to read a book published each year I've been alive. I am going to extend that backwards towards the start of the century, aiming to reach 1950 this year. This reading through time should be interesting, hence the selection of the title.

1922: Flowers for the Judge, Margery Allingham
1942. Five on a Treasure Island, Enid Blyton
1949: The Secret Seven, Enid Blyton
1954: The Eagle of the Ninth, Rosemary Sutcliff
1955: The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith,
1959: The Lantern Bearers, Rosemary Sutcliff

Category 9: CATs
Book: Small Gods


The Egyptians worshiped cats: I think they remember this. Most cats behave as if they are gods, albeit little ones. This is where I will put my CAT reads. I expect to participate in RandomCAT & AlphaKit, and will see what other CATs are selected.

Hosting:
RandomCAT in April
SeriesCAT Trilogies in May
KiddyCAT Siblings in October

January
AlphaKIT: I & S: Rebuilding Coventry, Sue Townsend; Light Perpetual, Francis Spufford, The Eagle of the Ninth, Rosemary Sutcliff, Ghost Wall, Sarah Moss
Classic CAT - Adventure: The Eagle of the Ninth, Rosemary Sutcliff
Random CAT - Hidden gems: The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
Series CAT - new to you series: The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith,
KiddyCat - Picture books: Der WackelZahn, David Mills & Julia Crouth

February
KiddyCat - Mysteries: The Secret Seven, Enid Blyton
AlphaKIT - J & F: Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka, Flowers for the Judge, Margery Allingham
Classic CAT - over 100 years old. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
Random CAT - Second or Two: Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens

March
Random CAT - Water: Five on a Treasure Island, Enid Blyton, Fatal Isles Maria Adolfsson
AlphaKIT - G & A: The Amber Fury, Natalie Hayne, Fatal Isles Maria Adolfsson
Classic CAT - made into a film: The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare
Series CAT - YA : Five on a Treasure Island, Enid Blyton
KiddyCat - Historical fiction: The Lantern Bearers, Rosemary Sutcliff

April
RandomKIT - 7 ages of (wo)man
AlphaKIT - D & W
KiddyCAT - fantasy for middle grade
Series CAT - can be read out of order
ClassiCAT - detective/mysteries

Category 10: BingoDog
Book: The Colour of Magic


In the Colour of Magic, Twoflower, the disc's first tourist, arrived in Ankh Morpork. He is accompanied by his luggage, which is of sapient pearwood, and has the property of following its owner anywhere and everywhere. In this is reminds me a lot of a dog, following it;s owner hither and thither. Hence I will put my BingoDog reads in here.

✔️1: Features music or a musician Light Perpetual, Francis Spufford,
2: Features or is set in an Inn or Hotel
3: Features a member of the cat family (as big a cat as you like)
✔️4: The next book in a series you've started Flowers for the Judge, Margery Allingham
✔️5: A book by an author that shares your sign of the zodiac Rebuilding Coventry, Sue Townsend
6: A memoir
7: A bestselling book from 20 years ago
8: Book with a plant in the title or on the cover
✔️9: A book with switched or stolen identities The Talented Mr Ripley Patricia Highsmith
10: A book that taught you something
✔️11: A book with a book on the cover The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare
12: Features something art or craft related
13: Read a CAT
✔️14: A book with a small town or rural setting Ghost Wall, Sarah Moss
15: A book on a STEM topic (Science Technology, Engineering or Maths)
✔️16: A book with an LT rating of 4 or more Chivalry, Neil Gaiman,
17: A book by a local or regional author
✔️18: A book involving an accident The Eagle of the Ninth, Rosemary Sutcliff
19: A book featuring a journalist or about journalism
✔️20: A popular author's first book The Amber Fury, Natalie Haynes
21: A book on a topic you don't usually read
✔️22: A book with a number or quantity in the title The Secret Seven, Enid Blyton
✔️23: A book by an author under 30 Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
✔️24: A book set on a plane, train or ship Five on a Treasure Island, Enid Blyton
✔️25: A book in >1000 libraries on LT Run, Ann Patchett

The book covers are hilarious! I have never read any in the series, but the covers are quite enticing. Have a good year of reading!

Congratulations on being the first once again to have your challenge up and ready!

>14 LadyoftheLodge: I know, they're a treat in their own right.

>15 DeltaQueen50: Someone has to be first. >:-)

Congrats on being the first to post your challenge. And such a wonderful theme! I have got several of his books on the shelf, I hope dropping in here will motivate me to get started with the series.
Your category "Witches abroad" reminded me of a favourite children's book from my own childhood: Die kleine Hexe which could work for your German reading.

I love your theme! I have just started my journey into Discworld, after much prompting from two friends who have been pushing it on me for ages. Only read the first two so far, but absolutely love it!

Very nice! Firstie!

What a great theme for the categories you read. I'm still at a loss for what I'll do this year. Nothing has thrilled me yet.

>20 dudes22: Same here, I have a tentative list but keep changing my mind.

Congratulations! (again!)

I have some ideas for the coming year but nothing so far is appealing.

>18 JayneCM: Ohh, you're in for a treat. In any long series there are peaks and troughs, but it really takes off after the first 2. If I were advising someone where to start, it wouldn't be at book 1.

>19 majkia: Thank you, I'll polish my medal.

>20 dudes22:, >21 LadyoftheLodge:, >22 VivienneR:. I do understand the problem. I had several ideas, but they ran out of steam at about half way through. This one was an "all of a sudden" idea, I finished Mort towards the end of last week. And running through the possible titles, none of them felt like too big a stretch.

What a brilliant theme! Add me to the 'still uninspired' list too, I don't know what I'm going to do for next year.

>23 Helenliz: Where would you suggest a newbie should start with this series?

Great theme!

Love the theme. I just read Wyrd Sisters in October. I love Granny Weatherwax and have been compared to her in the past.

>26 Tess_W: Thank you

>27 lowelibrary: Wow! That's quite a compliment - she's awesome!

>25 LadyoftheLodge: The Discworld series contains a number of mini series. And so you can follow any one of those, rather than read the entire set in publication order, if you so choose.

There's a good diagram a little down this page that tries to show graphically how the different series interact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld

I would say that books 1 and 2 are weaker than others. Depending on your story preference, I would suggest starting with one of:
Equal Rites book 3, the first of the Witches
Mort, book 4, the first of the Death series or
Guards Guards, book 8, the first of the Watch series.

Much beyond that and you need to have read some of the earlier ones for it to make much sense. I think the later ones rely more on prior knowledge, not to move the story along but to get the depth of the joke.
If you do start with 1 & 2, just move along and I think you'll find the series starts to take off. It's like he found his feet and they start to take flight. Enjoy!

>24 Jackie_K: oops, missed, you Jackie. I tried several themes, but none were satisfactory, so I can feel your pain.

I love your Discworld theme! This is a series that I started and enjoyed several years ago, but for some reason I never continued with it. Maybe it's time to commit!

>29 Helenliz: So useful! I've just borrowed my first ever Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites. Happy reading in 2023.

>30 christina_reads: It's quite an intimidatingly long series, if you start now it's complete. But the best of them are really worth the effort.

>31 pamelad: I hope you enjoy them.

Thanks for maintaining the tradition and being the first one in! I've read a few Pratchetts but never got around to reading the whole series. Perhaps I'll tackle the Death series, because most of the Discworld books I've read were part of that series. I like how Death talks in small caps.

>33 rabbitprincess: Happy to oblige (as long as inspiration strikes!)
I'm reading the Death series now. It's the first time I've read a sub-series. It's working quite well. I think Death is very possibly my favourite character.

Discworld has made a good theme! I've never read any so I should look into trying it out. Thanks for the tips in >29 Helenliz:!

>35 NinieB: It just sort of fell into place! I hope you enjoy one, should you try it.

Love these colourful covers, and what a great conversation about Terry Pratchett!

I love Terry Pratchett's art but I haven't read any of his books yet. There is a poster on the wall in our YA section at our library, I don't know which series, all I know is that it's got witches and is rather mesmerizing!

Good reading wishes in 2023!

>38 clue:, >39 Helenliz: the covers are excellent, aren't they? The later ones changed artist and some of the more recent editions have a very different aesthetic. I like these, they're so busy and full of fun detail, and, dare one say it, it looks like the cover artist had actually read the book!

Love the Terry Pratchett theme for your categories! Best wishes for your 2023 reading.

>40 lkernagh: thank you, nearly ready to begin. Just need to finish up 2022's challenge and I'll be ready to go.

Love your theme, Helen, even though I have not read any of the books in that series - those covers are so fun.

>42 Crazymamie: Thank you, the covers are just such fun. You don't need to be aware of the contents to enjoy looking at them - although this is one series where it appears the cover artist had actually read the books. Glad to see you back.

Hello Helen and how great that you have chosen Discworld for your categories for 2023!

Someone gifted me several of his "Wee Free Men" books. I read the first one, with "Jocque" and "Jocque Jocque" and thought it was meh. Then I borrowed the audiobook from the library and could not stop laughing! The narrator did a great job pulling in the accents and the humor that makes Terry Pratchett one of the best authors in any genre. Dearly, sorely missed.

Happy new year, Helen!

Enjoy your 2023 reading!

>44 threadnsong: I've not yet read the YA discworld books, one day I will rectify that.

>45 katiekrug: thanks Katie.

>46 thornton37814: I aim to. A slightly lower pressure year, I think.

Hi, Helen - Happy New Year, Group and Thread! Love your theming. :)

Ahem. Not to put any pressure on you in your slightly lower pressure year, but do let me know how you're progressing with the Albert Campion books. The way things are falling out, it looks like I can best slot those into the even-numbered months: I hope that will work for you?

Popping in to say Hello and wish you a good 2023.

>48 lyzard: Good to see you. Campion. I've read as far as book 6, Death of a Ghost. I have book 7, Flowers for the Judge on order with the library and book 8, The Case of the Late Pig. Library delivery of reservations not always the quickest or most reliable.

How far behind you am I? I think you said book 8, but is that read or next to read?

>49 hailelib: Thank you, pop by any time.

>50 Helenliz:

My next read is The Case Of The Late Pig: if your reservations work out we can make a start in April, but there is no rush, so just let me know if June looks like working better for you.

Happy New Year and happy reading in 2023!

>51 lyzard: Ok, that sounds doable. Will shout when I'm ready.

>52 MissBrangwen: and to you.

Hi Helen, good to find your 2023 thread. Love the themes.

>54 charl08: Thank you. Found you as well, so that's good.

Book: 1
Title: The Talented Mr Ripley
Author: Patricia Highsmith
Published: 1955
Rating: ***1/2
Why: clearing the library loans
Challenge: New author, woman author, Reading year & lists, Bingodog, CATs
TIOLI Challenge #3: Read a book that came into your possession in 2022

This can be described as the opposite of a whodunnit - throughout we know who who did it - and how. What we are left with is the will they get away with it - and how. And there are plenty of twists and turns in here to keep the reader (and the investigators) guessing.
We follow Tom through his unsatisfactory life in New York, with the petty fraud and the room cadging he is not leading a fulfilling or affluent life. Aspires to better things, but already we can sense that this is not by hard work. So when an offer comes up for a passage to Europe and money for some time he jumps at the chance. He is to persuade Dickie Greenleaf to return to America from his extended sojourn on the Amalfi coast. And so he meets Dickie, who has all the advantages that wealth and privilege confer - and Tom doesn't. We see Tom trying to wheedle his way into Dickie's life and he is partly successful, but not sufficiently for Tom. And then comes the crisis point and it is quite shocking when it happens. both the coldness of the description and the apparent suddenness of it. From here Tom is living on his wits, trying to benefit himself from Dickie's money and position in society without being identified as an imposter. In some ways he is a difficult character to feel for, he is cold and calculating and seems to have a very limited emotional range. It makes him difficult to feel much for, while at the same time wanting to know how far he will go.
Part of me can't help feeling that this book is very much of its time - now this ruse would have fallen down at several points, a modern crime investigation would have a field day with evidence of the body that is recovered. In fact, part of me is wondering why they didn't make more of the evidence of the body that is found. But maybe I've watched too many CSI and equivalent shows to be able to know the state of forensic investigation in the 1950s.

>56 Helenliz: - I liked that one when I read it several years ago, but it's not a favorite. I think I enjoyed Highsmith's Strangers on a Train more.

>57 katiekrug: It was good enough that I want to read more by her, but not so enjoyable that I'm itching to read the rest of the Ripley series.

Nice review, Helen! "It was good enough that I want to read more by her, but not so enjoyable that I'm itching to read the rest of the Ripley series." My thoughts exactly. I read that one in 2021. Like Katie, I liked Strangers on a Train better.

>56 Helenliz:

I felt that in the second book, Ripley Under Ground, she had a firmer grasp of the character, and was also more successful in creating that contradictory mood where he's doing terrible things but you're in suspense over whether he'll get caught.

(Which reminds me that I'm currently stalled at #3.)

>60 lyzard: That's interesting. I might see about reading more of her first and coming back to Ripley later. Not that the library has a great deal more by her.

Book: 2
Title: Rebuilding Coventry
Author: Sue Townsend
Published: 1988
Rating: ***
Why: clearing the library loans
Challenge: Woman author, Bingodog, CATs
TIOLI Challenge #3: Read a book that came into your possession in 2022

The first words of this, as narrated by Coventry Dakin are "I am beautiful and yesterday I killed a man." She ought to add that she's not exactly the brightest cookie in the box either. Initially this annoyed me, but she does have a kind heart and she gradually grew on me.
Coventry seems to have drifted through life, never really making much of an effort, trying to appear small and insignificant. She married Derek, who may well be the most boring man alive, and has two teenage children. As we discover through reading her diary, Coventry has been trying to expand her horizons by attending art classes under an assumed identity. As a result of seeing Gerald Fox trying to strangle his wife, Coventry hits him over the head with an action man and fears that she has murdered him when he drops dead on the carpet. At which point she runs away to London wearing her chimney sweeping clothes and without her handbag.
In London she encounters a range of different people, some of whom are rather more odd than others. They all expand her horizon a little, even if the life of the down and out in London felt to be sugar coated in the extreme. Her house mate in Cardboard city was the sister of a disgraced minister and money seemed to not be an object when Dodo didn't want it to be. All somewhat farfetched.
It was, in places, sweet, odd, mildly amusing and bizarre all at once. As a pretext for a woman to leave her life, the murder is ridiculous, but if you can look past that, Coventry does grow and find something about herself. Her attitude towards her family is, at times, rather at odds. She describes her husband and children as "drearies" in her diary, but at other times she describes the children in much more glowing terms. As to the marriage, well, how Derek ever married her is surely an exploration in itself.
It had its passing moments, but didn't seem, to me, to nest as a coherent whole.

Just dropping by to wish you a Happy New Year!

>62 Helenliz: I read this recently and recall I gave it a four stars, maybe overly generous in retrospect.

>63 VivienneR: thank you and to you.
I had a glance through the reviews and saw you'd read it last year. It seemed you liked it more than I did, but maybe you were just being generous!

Today's adventure was not in reading, but at lunch. When working at home I tend to have a yoghurt, some fruit and "something". In summer "something" is usually a salad, in winter it tends to be soup or an omelette. After heading down a bit of a rabbit hole on the internet, today I had kuku sabzi, a Persian herb baked omelette. I went to the extent of finding out how big a US measuring cup was and finding the jug out. I may not measure most cooking, but I do tend to measure the first time I try something - to be sure of ending up with something approaching the right answer. But the concept of measuring coriander & flat leaf parsley, both of which came as bunches of herbs, defeated me. I guessed and just went for a handful. It seemed to work OK.
Need to find the herb blitzer - the liquidiser was to hand and too large. Also need a better aspect ratio dish to bake it in, but I like the way that this could seemingly work with a combination of leafy greens.
I (roughly) followed this divided by 3. https://www.themediterraneandish.com/kuku-sabzi-persian-baked-omelet/

Next up in the experimentation stakes will be shakshuka, when I work out how best to produce a single person quantity!
Ideas for quick, easy, vegetarian lunches welcome.

>65 Helenliz: - Now I want to try kuku sabzi, but TW doesn't eat eggs so I'll have to do it some time when he's not around :)

I like black bean tacos or quesadillas and they are pretty easy and fast to make.

>65 Helenliz: - wow! That is green. It would go great with the Dr Suess book "Green Eggs and Ham"

>67 dudes22: It really was! I did worry I'd overdone the herbs. But it was pretty good and I think it would take some variation with different greens being thrown in.

>66 katiekrug: Mine doesn't either - allergic to eggs. He has sandwiches, I'm trying to cut out the bread and do prefer something hot when it's cold.

Book: 3
Title: My Darling from the Lions
Author: Rachel Long
Published: 2020
Rating: ***
Why: I forgot to put the next CD in the car!
Challenge: Woman author, New author
TIOLI Challenge #16: Read a book with the three letters of "one" in the title and/or the author's name

I listened to this, as read by the author. I think that there is benefit from having the author read their work sometimes, but I'm not sure that her voice had an appropriate dynamic range for this. It all sounded rather monotonal and struggled to keep my attention.
Of the poems, I found it difficult at times to tell when a new one had started or where there was just a larger than usual gap between lines. The lack of dynamic range contributed to this in that it all seemed to run into one. She also had a vocal tick of pronouncing what I assume was asking as arksing.
Of the poems themselves there is a lot of dark in here, an encounter that could easily be interpreted as rape and what I presume to be an abortion feature. There was on recurring poem about how she slept that I found endearing but her written experience is too far from mine for me to have a great deal of touch points.

Hello, Helen! I think it is so tricky when authors narrate their own stuff. Some of them are fabulous with it and others are truly terrible.

After the success of my Christmas film club, I'm going to try and watch more movies.
Today's movie watch: Casablanca.
How have I never watched this?!?
It is one of those films that is so much part of popular culture that you feel you know it even before it starts. It's lot more convoluted than the synopsis or popular conception might make you believe. Love, the greater good, a lot of double dealing in dark times. We'll always have Paris.

>70 Crazymamie: I know, I usually prefer to have the author read their poetry, it feels like such an intimate art form. In this case I'm not sure it worked.

>71 Helenliz: We just watched Casablanca recently! This bit makes me laugh every time:

"I'm shocked, shocked to find gambling in this establishment!"
"Here are your winnings, sir."
"Ah, thank you."

Book: 4
Title: Light Perpetual
Author: Francis Spufford
Published: 2021
Rating: ***
Why: Working my way through libray loans
Challenge: New author, CAT, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #3: Read a book that came into your possession in 2022

In 1944, a V2 rocket hit a Woolworths in New Cross, South London, killing 168 people, including 15 children. In chapter 1 of this book, the 5 children here (all fictional) die in the attack, but then the author wonders what would happen if they hadn't died, what lives would they go on to live. And so we revisit Jo, Val, Vern, Alec & Ben periodically over the next 65 years, as they grow and mature, between them experiencing success and failure, love and loss. Some of them suffer badly, others seem to skim through life. The first chapter is an excellent thesis on the nature of time and chance, the what if that exists in all fiction is writ large. In the end, it might seem that this makes no difference, we return to dust, but it is different, these lives that have played out due to a quirk of chance.

>73 Helenliz: - That one's been on my library list since it came out. Maybe this year...?

>74 katiekrug: I've had it out the library for pretty much the same time. Issued to me by the library on 26/03/2022.
Not overdue, we get up to 20 renewals, as long as no-one else has it on reserve.
oops...

>75 Helenliz: - I'm sort of surprised no one ever requested it while you had it! It was a Booker nominee, I think?

>75 Helenliz: 20 renewals? I thought 10 from Islington was relatively generous. Camden Libraries have reduced their max renewals from 5 to 4, which is annoying given that the branch I use is furthest away.

>76 katiekrug: There are 10 copies, plus one on CD apart from the one I have. As long as there is one in the library system, they'll use that for reservations.

>77 elkiedee: It is a mixed blessing... It means I can put off getting to a book for quite a long time!

>78 Helenliz: I recognise that. I regularly have to take books in and get them out again, if they're not ones anyone is asking for. But then I have far too many books out. It's especially embarrassing in Camden - while the renewals limit is low, the book borrowing limit is very high. "You have 24 books out, it will be 25 with this book".

Errr, yes - you doubled the limit more than 10 years ago. You expect me to be sensible and restrained?

>79 elkiedee: *snort* no, that would be an unreasonable expectation! I've never hit our borrowing limit, I'm not sure what it is, but I currently have 13 books out...

>71 Helenliz: - What a delight to experience Casablanca for the very first time! It is one of the movies we watch every year between Christmas and New Year.

>72 rabbitprincess: Oh yes! And there's a number of those moments.
>81 lkernagh: It was a bit like reading Dracula for the first time - part of you know the outline, but the detail is so much more finely drawn than the summary.

I am someone who has regular need of an inhaler so could I just say a big thank you for all the work you guys do to keep wheezy chaps like me alive!

Wishing you a wonderful new year of reading, Helen.

>65 Helenliz: Ooo, that looks so pretty Helen. Will give that a go.

>75 Helenliz: I think I liked Light Perpetual a little more than you. Have you read Golden Hill, I really loved that?

>83 PaulCranswick: We do our best, Paul!

>84 Caroline_McElwee: It was good, but not great. I particularly liked the first chapter. Not read any others, but I see the library has Golden Hill.

Well today's lunch experiment was less successful. I tried avocado baked eggs. I either needed a larger avocado or much smaller eggs - they overflowed significantly, and that was with enlarging the hole made by removing the stone. Not convinced by the texture of the surface of the egg or the combination of flavours. I finished it, but that one's not going in the rotation.

>85 Helenliz: Does that involve cooked avo? Not sure about that.

I loved Golden Hill - but he seems to be one of those authors who writes a completely different genre each time.

>85 Helenliz: Yes. Take avocado, halve & remove stone. put egg into the hollow made & bake in a hot oven for 15 minutes. It was OK, but not one I'm going to revisit.

I like it when writers write a different book each time. I'm more inclined to pink up another by him now.

>87 Helenliz: Too bad, it sounded like a good recipe! We love avocado.

Adding my recommendation for Golden Hill -- it was one of my favorite books I read last year! I have Light Perpetual on my shelves and hope to get to it soon.

>89 christina_reads: Yep, I agree. Golden Hill is an excellent novel.

>89 christina_reads:, >90 PaulCranswick:. I've put that on reserve. If there are that many positive voices in its favour, it can't be all that bad.

>88 LadyoftheLodge: I'm not sure it worked terribly well. The mix of textures was rather odd. Which is a shame, as it was quick & easy and sounded like a possibility.

Hello, Helen. I have Golden Hill in the stacks, but I have not read it yet.

>92 Crazymamie: I have it on order from the library. Will let you know when it arrives.Seems like everyone else has read it!

Book: 5
Title: The Eagle of the Ninth
Author: Rosemary Sutcliff
Published: 1954
Rating: ***
Why: CAT...
Challenge: Woman author, CAT, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #13. Read a book of swashbuckling adventure

2017 Review:
I have owned this since I was a teenager and, judging from the sate of the book, must have read it before. But I have absolutely no recollection of having done so!
This is history as fiction, told based on 2 probably entirely unrelated events. 1) the ninth legion marched north and never returned
2) an eagle in a museum that had lost its wings.
This is a story that uses those two facts as a jumping off point for what amounts to a mixture of adventure story and morality tale.
Marcus is the son of a soldiering family from Italy and now has his first command of a roman legion. He arrives at Exeter all full of hope and ends up breaking a chariot charge and his leg all in one moment. From there he is discharged and has to find something else to do. He acquires a slave, a Briton called Esca, from the circus after not wanting to see him die needlessly.
He then sets off on a quest to find the Eagle that was lost when his father's legion was lost, 20 years ago north of the wall. They set off and come across a centurion who was part of the missing legion and he sets them on the right track for the eagle. They head towards the western isles and find the missing eagle (a bit beaten up) as a god in a druidic cult. They also find out what happened to the legion at the end, as the elderly grandfather of the clan chief was involved in the chase and has Marcus' father's ring on a cord around his neck.
Marcus and Esca rescue the Eagle, but manage to bring a hunt down on themselves. By a bit of subterfuge and daring they manage to return to the wall, but not without retrieving the ring as well as the Eagle.
There's a fair amount of adventurous goings on, some of which relies on a pretty high level of co-incidence and unlikely good luck, but then the best stories often do.
There's also quite a bit about how Esca feels being from a subjugated people and how slavery is wrong. Which is it, but at times it meant that this felt a little bit preachy.
I was also a little surprised at time to see words that are not in common use, or were not explained. Example, at one point Marcus is described as having changed his dress and is wearing the brocos of the british. Now I'm assuming they are a form of trouser, but that was never main clear. I wonder how much assumed knowledge is in here and how much of that would be actually held.
I'm not this book's target audience anymore, so I can't tell how well it works.

Re-read 2023.
My review seems both fair and a bit harsh in places. I enjoyed this re-read. It still feels a little high on the co-incidence chart, but I think I can forgive it that.

Helen's Film club (late write up, it was Sunday) was To Catch a Thief. It's all beautifully shot, the colours and landscape are lovely, while the masquerade ball is a glorious excuse to raid the dressing up box. I was surprised at how much of the film was in French, which was way beyond my level. Initially I wasn't entirely convinced by Cary Grant as a former cat burgler, but he carried it off. All great fun.

>95 Helenliz: Love that movie! Hmm, maybe I'm due for a rewatch.

>95 Helenliz: - I love that one! It's on my list to introduce TW to....

>95 Helenliz: I am so happy that you watched it, Helen! And even happier that you liked it. Hooray.

>98 Crazymamie: Think of it as cultural education. I have Amber for the ancients, and Mamie for films. Happy with that! Anyone else like to teach me something, just pile on in!

Book: 6
Title: Ghost Wall
Author: Sarah Moss
Published: 2018
Rating: ****
Why: clearing the backlog of library books!
Challenge: Woman author, CAT, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #15. Read a book by an author in 2023 who you read a book written by in 2022

This is set on the wide open spaces of a Northern Moor and yet it manages to be incredibly claustrophobic throughout. Sylvie and her parents are part of a group taking part in an experimental archaeology project living like iron Age people. The book starts with the first person account of a young woman that is sacrificed by her people and placed in a bog. The rest of the books is narrated by Sylvie. We inhabit her head, rather than she tells us the story, it is very intimate. As the book progresses we become more aware that all is not necessarily well in Sylvie's life. She and Molly, one of the students, are often sent off to forage for food. In these outings Molly asks questions and we learn more about the threat of violence from her father that hangs over Sylvie's life. I think this is set in the 1980s, when the author & I were both in our late teens. I, too, remember that schools were allowed to use the cane or strap when I was small (not that I ever knew of it happening. Molly is a different character to Sylvie, daughter of a single mother she has quite a different perspective on life and it is Molly that bends and breaks the rules and takes the decisive action at the end that will surely change Sylvie's life.
This is very intimate and while set in wide open spaces, it is impossible to escape the feeling the Sylvie is so trapped in her situation that she and her mother are incapable of making any move to change how they live. It takes a really quite shocking proposal to trigger the final events. After which nothing will be the same again. Bizarrely, this is a hopeful ending.

>100 Helenliz: - Great review. I "liked" this one when I read it, but it was so disturbing...

>191 Helenliz: Thanks. It's a good book, but not one that you could honestly say is thoroughly enjoyable. You'd not sit down with it and a tea and relax.

>102 Helenliz: - Definitely not!

Hello, Helen. I have Ghost Wall in the stacks. I started it once, but as Katie says, it is disturbing, and I was not in the right mood for it. Maybe this year I will get back to it. Your review is excellent.

>104 Crazymamie: I can understand this not meeting a mood. It is very disturbing, all the more so for it seeming to be entirely normal in Sylvie's head.

>100 Helenliz: Great review, Helen! Claustrophobic and disturbing describe it well although despite that, I enjoyed it a lot.

Helen's Film club this week was Suspicion, staring Cary Grant & Joan Fontaine, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. She's a shy single daughter of a general, destined to be a spinster and look after her parents. He's a society gent, a man about town. She knows nothing of him and it shows, she gets swept off her feet far too easily and without the parental inspection that might have uncovered more of the information that comes to light later. When we meet her, she's reading a book in Child Psychology, but she seems to not use those braincells when it comes to her husband and her marriage. That he is a gambler and liar is not immediately apparent, but soon becomes so once they marry. Cary Grant does a fine line in menace and makes a convincing villain, Joan Fontaine does helpless female well - the character would do well to use the brains that the opening sets up.
The ending feels like a false note, I can't say I believed it.

>106 VivienneR: It is good, I will read more of her work.

Okay, so here is some interesting trivia about that particular film, Helen. Grant's character was supposed to kill Lina, but the studio made Hitchcock change the ending because Cary Grant could not be a killer. Heh. Hitchcock was not happy about it, but he did it.

>108 Crazymamie: Hitchcock had it right, it's unconvincing.

I totally agree.

I love the movie "Suspicion" but I totally agree that the ending shouldn't have been changed. The movie is based on the novel Before the Fact by Francis Iles which is also very good.

>111 DeltaQueen50: I did see it was based on a play from the opening titles, didn't realise it was a book first as well.

Ohh, and the library has a copy. Well I never...

Book: 7
Title: Run
Author: Ann Patchett
Published: 2007
Rating: ***
Why: clearing the backlog of library books!
Challenge: Woman author, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #3. Read a book that came into your possession in 2022

This didn't go where I thought it might at the beginning. And this will contain plot spoilers. Doyle is Irish American and his wife, Bernadette, has just died when her sisters some round asking for the statue back for the family. Tradition has that it goes to the daughter most like the statue, and Doyle only has boys. Doyle refuses because his two youngest sons have it in their room, they think it is their mother. And then the story gets subverted. The boys are adopted and black. They are brothers, given up by their birth mother and taken on by Doyle and Bernadette, while he was the Mayor. The family story slowly unrolls and the family have several crises to get through. The turning point in the story comes when Doyle and the boys (now 20/21) attend a speech by Jesse Jackson. Tip determines to break away and as he tells his father, so he steps into the road and into the path of an oncoming car. He is pushed out of the way by a woman, Tennessee Moser. And we discover that she is Tip & Teddy's birth mother. Tennessee was with her daughter, Kenya, and the lives of Doyle and his sons will be intertwined with Tennessee and Kenya from here on. Told mostly over the space of a day with back story being filled in in places, this is a lovely discourse on the nature of family and what binds families together. There is clearly great love between the various men folk, be they ties of blood or not.

"And this will contain plot spoilers." Thanks for the warning! I haven't read that Patchett yet, so I am going to skip the review :)

>114 katiekrug: I do try not to write heavily spoiler-y reviews, but this one defeated me!

Book: 8
Title: Dearly
Author: Margaret Atwood
Published: 2020
Rating: ****
Why: Working my way through her back catalogue!
Challenge: Woman author, Audio, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #15: 'I liked that author" - Read a book by an author in 2023 who you read a book written by in 2022

A selection of poems written and read by Margaret Atwood. This has the feel of a collection written late in life, there is a sense of the passing of years, of a handing on of responsibility and grief at loss. And yet there is also vibrancy in here, there is anger at the state of the world and what we have done to our planet and a railing at the body;s inability to carry on when the mind is willing. Divided into 5 themed section, the last is the most obviously regretful, but that is where the love lives. The Invisible Man particularly. While told at a sedate pace, I wonder if reading these and being able to mull over each one would have made for an even more satisfactory reading experience.

>115 Helenliz: I really enjoyed this volume too Helen.

>116 Caroline_McElwee: It was really very good. I can see myself reading these again and being able to take more time over them that audio in the car allows for.

>113 Helenliz: The thing I remember most about this novel is that I read it in an airport where I was feeling terrible and had hours to wait. It was a brilliant distraction. The plot, not so much.

>118 charl08: Parts of it were pretty obvious that the twist was going to be along those lines, others were less predictable. But it remained an enjoyable experience.

Book: 9
Title: Der Wackelzahn
Author: David Mills & Julia Crouth
Published: 2003
Rating: ***
Why: in German...
Challenge: New author
TIOLI Challenge #3. Read a book that came into your possession in 2022

Short story about a boy who gets a wobbly tooth that takes all week to fall out. He then has a host of different advice what to do with it.
The downside with the dual language is that I have a tendency to read the English and go "oh yes, I can see ho that's arrived at", whereas if I didn't I'd have to work harder at reading the German text.

>115 Helenliz: I love Atwood, but I could not listen to her read - her voice really bothers me. Adding it to The List, but I'm going with the print version.

January:
Well it's too dark, too cold and its far too long, but apart from that, not too bad.

Read: 9
M/F: 1.5/7.5
One book co-authored

Audio: 4
Paper: 4

Owned: 1
Library: 8

New authors: 4
New books: 8
Re-reads: 1

Let's see how that changes as the year progresses...

>121 Crazymamie: It's an unusual voice, I grant you. I think in paper format allows you more time and space to revisit in a way that driving while listening to an audio book does not.

Book: 10
Title: The Secret Seven
Author: Enid Blyton
Published: 1949
Rating: ***
Why: CAT ticking
Challenge: Woman Author, Audio
TIOLI Challenge #17: Read a short story

I missed these as a child, and I'm not sure why. Potentially my parents may have thought that I would have got far too many ideas from Peter - I was almost as bossy, given the chance.
I do have to say that the middle class-ness just oozes off this. The children meet, in winter, in a shed that's warm because it is next to the boiler house for the greenhouse. Like you do. And Jack's sister has a governess. These aren't your everyday run of the mill kids, and I doubt they ever were. It's not exactly representative. Peter is over the top domineering, probably because that's how is father is, being (probably) of the local landowning classes. And while they are not entirely belittling to the girls, Janet is the one that gets to sew costumes, she doesn't get to go out and use the disguises - the 4 boys do that.
It's amusing, it's pretty unbelievable now, I think if they ever were for me, that time has passed.

>123 Helenliz: I credit Enid Blyton with my love of reading from childhood, but even during my most fanatical Blyton phase, I never could get into the Secret Seven - I just found them really quite boring. I was definitely a Famous Five fangirl!

>123 Helenliz: I was very disappointed as a child that there were no mysteries to solve. (The boiler for the greenhouse passed me by. I wonder how many of those really existed!?)

>124 Jackie_K: I read Noddy and The Faraway tree, but neither of the Secret Seven nor the Famous Five. Not sure what I read instead, but I was never short of reading material.

>125 charl08: ha! Yup, I can see that might be a disappointment. I suspect boilers for greenhouses did exist, but you'd be talking about a large greenhouse on an estate, bringing on pineapples and the like, rather than my 6 by 8 structure!

I read all of the Famous Five and a few of the Five Find-Outers and Dog. I too found the Secret Seven boring (or there were too many of them for me to keep track of).

Hello, Helen!

>123 Helenliz: I have never read these books, but I LOVED reading your review. Adding my thumb if you posted that.

>123 Helenliz: Great review! The Secret Seven never reached the standards of The Famous Five but I read everything by Blyton that I could lay my hands on. Luckily I had lots of aunts who delighted in buying me books.

>128 Crazymamie: Hi Mamie, review posted to the book page. >:-)

>129 VivienneR:, >127 rabbitprincess: OK, I'll give the Famous Five a go, another classic series I seemed to miss. I know she was out of fashion when I was a child. Maybe that was it.

>115 Helenliz: Nice review of Atwood's collection. I found "Songs for Murdered Sisters" particularly moving.

Happy Friday, Helen! Just checking in...

>131 mathgirl40: It was difficult to pick a favourite, I agree.

>132 katiekrug: *waves*. Happy Friday. I'm here. Work's gone bananas, and I'm reading two very long books. It'll be a bit quiet until I break the back of either!

>133 Helenliz: Hope you get some relief from the busy-ness soon, Helen. Although I guess given the economic climate maybe being a busy business is a relief?

>134 charl08: its all in a good cause, and there is an end date, so just got to get through it.

That's it, I've bailed on The Bone Clocks. At 600 pages in hardback, it makes for a very uncomfortable bed book. And it wasn't grabbing me, a bit too fanciful. So while I will wonder what happened to Holly Sykes, I'm not sure that I want to make the investment of time & sore wrists to find out.

Next up if Kafka. Which has the benefit of being much shorter.

>135 Helenliz: An end date sounds promising.
I've never read Kafka, but wishing you joy with it.

Happy Saturday, Helen! I have also never read Kafka, but I do have Metamorphosis on the shelves. A Penguin Deluxe edition, even, so deckled edge pages!! Good for you for setting aside a book that wasn't working for you.

Good on you for setting aside the book that's not working for you. I've gotten much better about doing that, too.

>136 Helenliz: Hello Helen! Stopping by to say hello and see how your reading is going. Congratulations on working through your library list at long last! And also adding my kudos for setting aside a book that's not working. Life is too short and work is stressful enough without having to be stressed by not finishing a book.

I read Metamorphosis in college and it brought out some lively discussion in class. Reading it also helps with the cultural references when people talk about a "Kafka-esque" whatever.

And so so glad you finally saw "Casablanca"! Speaking of many cultural references. I've seen it many times, and each time there was something extra that I gained from watching it. Some extra layer or event that I didn't really catch before.

>138 Crazymamie:, >139 katiekrug:, >140 threadnsong: I'm feeling very proud of myself.

>137 charl08: it has the benefit of being short!

>140 threadnsong: I'm looking forward to it partly for that reason. Feels like something we know without having actually read.

Helen's film club watch today was Sabrina. It left me slightly uncomfortable. The story's simple enough, daughter of a servant falls for the son of the house, father sends her away to get over him and she doesn't. But she comes back changed and he falls for her. His family steps in to split them up, primarily for reasons of class and money. Elder brother acts a deputation to buy her off. And then it turns a bit muddled. There's a significant age gap between the two, uncomfortably large, in fact. It's visually attractive, the clothes are dreamy, and she definitely ends up with the better brother. It's just that Bogart appears far too old for Audrey Hepburn.

I loved Sabrina as a teenager, but when I re-watched it a few (several?) years ago, I had a similar reaction to yours. The re-make with Harrison Ford in the Bogart role feels less problematic (age-wise), but I still don't love it.

I actually love both versions of Sabrina, but I get what you are saying. Bogart is too old for the role, and I say that as a huge Bogart fan. Cary Grant would have been a better fit - he was only 5 years younger than Bogart, but he carried it better.

>140 threadnsong: I tried reading Kafka once.... didn't really understand him... so I gave up! :)

>127 rabbitprincess: As a kid I much preferred the Famous Five to the Secret Seven or the Five Find-Outers!

I too love Sabrina, though I also agree the age gap is ridiculous. I just accept it as part of the suspension of disbelief most movies require!

Book: 11
Title: Metamorphosis
Author: Franz Kafka
Published: 2000
Rating: ***
Why: Because I read The Cockroach last year and that's Metamorphosis in reverse.
Challenge: Translation
TIOLI Challenge #14. Read a book with a connection to a book you read in 2022

Metamorphosis is the longest of the stories in this collection, and the most well known. I knew the surmise, Gregor wakes up one morning to find he;s been transformed into an insect of some description. The exact nature of this is not described, but it has multiple legs and a hard carapace, so I'm imagining some kind of beetle or roach. Which at 6 ft would clearly be quite disconcerting for all concerned. The way the family respond to him and his condition is explored. There is then the impact on the family's finances, with father and daughter going out to work and mother taking in sewing and lodgers but unable to move to a smaller apartment because of Gregor. I wasn't expecting the ending. The title could be applied to more than one protagonist in here. It's thought provoking and I'm glad I've read it.
There were a number of other stories in the collection, and they all have a sense of unease and a dark underside. I liked the last story, The Hunter Gracchus the most.

Helen's film club was an old fave - The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn. You could spend a lot of time picking with what's wrong with it, but that's to miss the charm and sheer delight in it.

Book: 12
Title: The Red House Mystery
Author: AA MIlne
Published: 1922
Rating: ***
Why: Because it was mentioned in another mystery I read last year.
Challenge: Interesting Times
TIOLI Challenge #7: The Stendahl Challenge - Read a book with either the word “Red” and/or “Black” in the title

In the introduction, written a couple of years after AA Milne had produced the Winne the Pooh stories for which is is most well known, he describes how he wrote the detective story he wanted to read. And so we have an everyman amateur detective, and a trusty sidekick. Anthony and Bill are really very engaging, even the way they play up to the Holmes & Watson roles is amusing. I liked the way that he would not always immediately see the importance of what he had just seen, it required some thought to solve this. Bill, meanwhile, bounds around more like an excitable puppy. In this country house mystery there are all the requisite elements, a love interest, a hidden passage and a fair amount of deceit. It makes for an interesting diversion and makes you wonder what else he might have written had the world's most famous bear not happened along.

Hello, Helen!

>146 Helenliz: Good review - I really hope to get to that one this year.

>147 Helenliz: I love that movie and completely agree with your thoughts. I also love Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk. My Dad and I watched those movies every time they were offered.

>148 Helenliz: I have always wondered about this one. I am a BIG fan of Winnie the Pooh, and Birdy bought me those books in the Folio editions, which are full of gorgeous.

>148 Helenliz: I read this book last year and enjoyed it a lot.

>148 Helenliz: Ooh, my library has an audio e-copy so I have put a reservation on it.

No pictures, but it was pancake night in our house. A truly double handed affair; he can't make batter, I can't flip a pancake. 2 batches polished off 😋

>151 charl08: enjoy! like >150 lowelibrary: & I did.

>149 Crazymamie: HI Mamie.

Pancake night sounds delightful. And delicious. Birdy makes the world's best pancakes, and I love that all I have to do is eat them.

>152 Helenliz: We are currently in the (very long and drawn out) throes of ripping out our kitchen and building/installing a new one, and neither of us could face making pancakes, so it was shop-bought pancakes for us. Hopefully the blimmin' kitchen will be finished by next year's Pancake Day!

>154 Jackie_K: that sounds painful. Hoping for better things next pancake day.

Reading Oliver Twist.
Just got to that bit. Nancy, oh! Poor Nancy.
😢

Helen's film club entry this week was Breakfast at Tiffany's. I can't help feeling that the film sugar coats it even more than the book does - what is she and how does she get her money is left very vague. I was left with a feeling that she'd re-invented herself so many times she no longer knew who she was or what she wanted. Hepburn is luminous throughout and the cat long suffering!

>157 Helenliz: I saw this years ago at one of Melbourne's original art deco cinemas, The Astor. The drag queens dressed as Holly Golightly added a lot to the experience!

https://www.astortheatre.net.au/

Book: 13
Title: Flowers for the Judge
Author: Margery Allingham
Published: 1936
Rating: ****
Why: Read with Liz and I'm one behind her
Challenge: Interesting Times, Woman author
TIOLI Challenge #12. Read a book where the first two words in the title begin with the same letter

It's been a while since I've read a Campion story, and so this was a refreshing change. Set at a publisher's we start 20 years earlier, with one cousin of the family vanishing into thin air. In the resent of the book, another cousin is found dead, leaving a neglected wife that was finding friendship with another cousin. Mike is then arrested for murdering Paul (which, frankly, sounds like a service to mankind). And so the police start going about their business, the family rally round and Campion, as a friend of the family, tries to make headway.
It is all quite satisfyingly complicated and there is a resolution that is equally satisfying in it's rightness.

>158 pamelad: I can imagine! The outfits were just soooo glamorous.

>157 Helenliz: - That's a case where I liked the movie better than the book, I think. I wonder if, given when it was made, they had to be somewhat circumspect about Holly's circumstances...

Have a good week, Helen!

>161 katiekrug: I think you're right, given the time, maybe they could be more explicit on paper than on film.

I've been watching the BBC series The Art that Made Us, an 8 episode series covering about 1500 years. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0bvgs3f
It features a number of books, plays & poems and so I wrote then all down. This is for future reference (I spot a challenge coming on ✔️ for those I have read)

Y Goddodin, Bard Aneirin
✔️Beowulf
Pearl
✔️Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer
The Vision of Piers Plowman William Langland
Revelation of Divine Love Julian of Norwich
The Book of Margery Kemp Margery Kemp
Foxe's Book of Martyrs John Foxe
On Monsieur's Departure, Queen Elizabeth I
Othello William Shakespeare
✔️Paradise Lost John Milton
Micrographia Robert Hooke
The Rover Aphra Behn
A Modest Proposal Johnathan Swift
✔️Vindication of the Rights of Woman Mary Wollstonecraft
A Man's a Man for all that, Robert Burns
✔️Mansfield Park Jane Austen
The Interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano Olaudah Equiano
Rural Rides William Cobbett
✔️North and South Elizabeth Gaskell
✔️Picture of Dorian Grey Oscar Wilde
Easter 1916 WB Yeats
Taste of Honey Shelagh Delaney
Going Going, Phillip Larkin
✔️Buddha of Suburbia Hanif Kureishi
✔️Trainspotting Irvine Welsh
✔️Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone JK Rowling

Hello, Helen!

>158 pamelad: I love both the movie and the book, but if I could only have one I would choose the movie because Audrey Hepburn. I liked your thoughts on it.

>162 Helenliz: Such an interesting list. I read the same ones as you except for Buddah of Suburbia and Trainspotting.

>163 Crazymamie: Having read the book first, I think I prefer the book. But I certainly had Hepburn in mind when reading it.

It was a great series, lots of fabulous art and analysis by historians and current artists in a similar field. I can't honestly recommend Trainspotting. I get it that it speaks to a certain time and place, but I can't say I enjoyed it.

>164 Helenliz: I do have a copy, but it is not calling to me. It's on a list, and I have a weakness for lists.

Book: 15
Title: Chivalry
Author: Neil Gaiman
Published: 1992
Rating: *****
Why: A change from Dickens!
Challenge: Audio
TIOLI Challenge #17: Read a short story

This is small but perfectly formed. I listened to this in recording, with the narration and Mrs Whitaker played by Glenda Jackson. Mrs Whitaker discovers the Holy Grail under a fur coat in the Oxfam shop one Thursday morning after collecting her pension from the post office. She thinks it will look nice on the mantlepiece, and so it does. She's then visited by Galahad, who is on a quest to discover the grail. Before she will let him in she asks to see some ID and his identification is a work of genius. He offers her precious objects she offers him a cup of tea and a sandwich for the journey home. It a fabulous mis-match, full of comedic moments, but pathos as well.
Just brilliant.

Book: 14
Title: Oliver Twist
Author: Charles Dickens
Published: 1838
Rating: ***
Why: Classic CAT
Challenge: Audio
TIOLI Challenge #8. Read a classic whose adaptation into a movie or play you've seen

I don;t know what you can say about this that hasn't been said already. I was slightly surprised that what I remembered from the film musical took place within the first half of the book - I remembered nothing about the unveiling of Oliver's identity or Mr Monks and his shenanigans. I also had forgotten quite how feeble Oliver is at times - I'm surprised if he'd have made it in the tough end of London. There is a huge level of co-incidence that you need to suspend disbelief over, but I suppose I can live with that. It feels, as so often with Dickens, that he spends a lot of the book setting up the final few chapters, and so it is here. The pacing is uneven, and, at times, it feels that we're revisiting certain characters for padding's sake.
It does feel like there is a certain amount of glee with which the fate of the less reputable characters are dealt with. But then, the Artful Dodger just vanishes, and he's one of the more memorable characters. And poor Nancy. Oh!

>166 Helenliz: - Oh, this one sounds fun. I've not heard of it before.

>167 Helenliz: - I've only ever seen the musical. My Dickens reading is not impressive!

February:
Having finished 2 today, I'm not going to finish any more.

Read: 6 (15)
M/F: 4/2 (5.5/9.5)

Audio: 3 (7)
Paper: 3 (7)

Owned: 1 (2)
Library: 5 (13)

New authors: 0 (4)
New books: 6 (14)
Re-reads: 0 (1)

That's fun.

>168 katiekrug: It was tremendous fun!
I'm gradually working my way through some Dickens, one every now & then. He's a bit much all at once though!

Hello, Helen! February stats already done and dusted - good work. I am hoping to finish up at least one more.

>166 Helenliz: SOLD! I have never heard of this one, but onto The List it goes. Excellent review. Adding my thumb.

>167 Helenliz: Birdy and I both thought this one was a bit of a slog.

>170 Crazymamie: I'd only forget if I didn't do them quickly!
It is great fun, from the first sentence onwards.
hmm. I think I agree with you. It certainly sufferes from some very uneven pacing.

Helen, Birdy and I just finished listening to Chivalry, and we agree with you that it is brilliant. Completely delightful, and just what we needed. Thank you so much for bringing it to our attention.

>172 Crazymamie: yay! So glad you enjoyed it. That must be the fastest conversion from being on the list to having been ticked off the list imaginable!
>:-D

We loved it! I listened to the sample, and decided it was just the perfect fit for today, so we dove right in. Definitely my fastest conversion!

>166 Helenliz: Oh, I read this one as a GN. It was lovely, but I imagine Glenda Jackson would be perfect.

>175 charl08: It was just delicious. >:-)

Plan for March (before I loose track).
KiddyCAT: Historical Fiction Lantern Bearers
Classic CAT: Film Taming of the Shrew
AlphaCAT: G&A The Amber Fury, The Lantern Men
Series CAT: YA Five on a Treasure Island
Random CAT: Water Five on a Treasure Island would probably work here too.
Shelterbox book: My Pen is the wing of a bird

Hello Helen! I have not read Oliver Twist but I like your observation: It feels, as so often with Dickens, that he spends a lot of the book setting up the final few chapters, and so it is here. I do think it is good to read some of his books, if only for the cultural relevance. Or the feather in one's cap. Or both.

And Errol Flynn! Yes, he makes a splendid Robin Hood. Agree on suspending disbelief and just sinking in and enjoying the film.

Look forward to your review of "Shrew" when it comes.

Book: 16
Title: Kiss of the Spider Woman
Author: Manuel Puig
Published: 1976
Rating: ***
Why: library book, that needs to be returned
Challenge: New author.
TIOLI Challenge #3. Read a book which you did not purchase

I really don't know what to make of this. I particularly don't know what to make of the extensive footnotes describing the basis of homosexuality.
The two protagonists seem to have been brought together by random chance, but we discover that's not the case. Molina, it turns out, is a grass, tasked with finding out information about Valentin in exchange for parole. But is it that simple? I'm not sure. Especially with what happens at the end, I'm not sure who is using who, who is trapped in who's web.

Book: 17
Title: Five on a Treasure Island
Author: Enid Blyton
Published: 1942
Rating: ***
Why: I was told Famous 5 were better than Secret 7.
Challenge: Woman author, CAT
TIOLI Challenge #3. Read a book which you did not purchase

This was fun, if somewhat far fetched.
Julian, Dick & Anne spend the holiday with their Aunt, Uncle & lone cousin, Georgina - who does not want to be a girl in any way. it's never made clear why, but she has cut her hair short and only answers to George. In contrast Anne is quite a girly little girl. And both annoyed me in their own way.
It is all infuriatingly middle class.
Having said that, George has certain scruples, she won't accept sweets from the other children as she can't reciprocate. Julian and the others have to navigate a very lonely little girl who is rather set in her ways.
The finale seems very unlikely, but you've got to admire the inventiveness of the author in setting up situations and then giving the children a means of getting out of them. At times it felt a little like the sharing message was being shoved down your throat and the finale was even more middle class angst.
I agree with the people who said that these were better than the Secret Seven, but I'm not sure that I would ever have been all that thrilled with them. My childhood was much gritter than this.

Book: 18
Title: Two Stories
Author: Sally Rooney
Published: 2020
Rating: ***
Why: short.
Challenge: Woman author, New Author.
TIOLI Challenge #3: Read a book which you did not purchase

Two short stories, each concerning relationships. In both you dive into a situation and want to spend longer with them - what happened next?

>177 threadnsong: I agree on Dickens. I read him and I enjoy it afterwards, but it sometimes feels like a bit of a slog at the time. I spread them out a bit...

Been a bit mia. Work's been busy, it's a very busy time for me with ringing (still only half way through the minutes of last Saturday's meeting and I like to get them done in 24 hours). And the weather's been wintery. We've had snow. It did (fortunately) decide to ease up while we were doing the outside part of a fire marshal course - the actually setting off fire extinguishers bit. That was cold.
Will resurface soon, I hope.

Good luck with your minutes. Was it a particularly contentious meeting, or is it just the getting it done on top of being so busy at work?

We had to do a deathly online fire safety course, which will probably need to be renewed soon. My brain retained that most fires in education are caused by arson, but not the colours of the different types of extinguisher.
Good job they're all labelled!

>182 charl08: I never remembered the different extinguisher colours, but the last several years they've all been red, and you have to remember the symbol to figure out the different types. I find that even more difficult than remembering the colours. I'm not sure whose bright idea that was.

>178 Helenliz: That was a memorable movie! I seem to remember reading the book a very long time ago, not sure that it had the same impression on me.

>184 VivienneR: Should I look out the film? It was a very odd book.

Fire extinguishers, pick cream (foam) or CO2 (black) before having to think about any of the others. They should be red with a coloured band that indicates the contents.

>182 charl08: Minutes done & sent out in first version. 8 pages is surely far too long. It was pretty long and there was quite a lot of discussion. We'd be better off splitting the meeting in 3 than trying to do it all in one go. We receive reports for last year, plan for the AGM (in June - this meeting is in March - that's surely too early) and then we've all had enough once we get to the strategy and route forward stuff. I'd have 3 meetings, all of which would be shorter and more focused. That's a job for another year.

Helen's film club. Watched Bringing Up Baby. which is just strange from beginning to end. He struggles to stay in the rather straight laced character, she's just very very odd. All I can say with confidence is that the wedding was well called off.

>185 Helenliz: A screwball comedy classic! I usually find Katherine Hepburn to be annoyingly mannered and brittle, but Cary Grant is always a delight and always Cary Grant. I recommend The Awful Truth with Irene Dunne and Topper, with Constance Bennett.

>185 Helenliz: I watched the film in the late 80's, and this is the first time I knew it was a book! It was groundbreaking at the time, with Raul Julia and William Hurt in the title roles. I think I heard that William Hurt spent time in prisons to get a feel for being in the role.

>56 Helenliz: And speaking of films made from books, I finally watched "The Talented Mr. Ripley" in part based on your review of the book. The movie reviews just kind of glossed over the plot, and yours was more in depth about the plot line and characters. So thank you! It was quite a good movie. And yes, the end of the movie does describe the state of forensics in the 1950's, not to mention social mores and strata.

I love Bringing Up Baby but it is so chaotic and crazy, I can see it not appealing to everyone. TW was not much of a fan of it...

Book: 19
Title: The Taming of the Shrew
Author: William Shakespeare
Published:
Rating: ***
Why: I reserved it and it turned up!
Challenge: Audio
TIOLI Challenge #3:

I listened to this, and enjoyed it. I still can't quite get over the speed of the marriage or the way Kat seems to submit, but in this it was played with more humour and it felt a little like they were baiting each other than either actually believed what they were saying.
Had entirely forgotten that the main event is supposed to be a play that is laid on. The fact that the first play is never resolved feels rather odd.

Helen's Film club. 10 Things I Hate about You. Having listened to The Taming of the Shrew, I decided that this would be the perfect accompaniment. It's been so long since I watched it that I'd forgotten quite how good it is. The sound track, the chemistry between the couples, the humour, the teen angst, the lot. Heath Ledger is just so luminous. Loved it all over again.

>186 pamelad: OK, adding those to the list.

>187 threadnsong: I think I knew it was a film before I knew it was book. Might have to add that to the list as well.

>188 threadnsong: That's another one I've not seen. Glad you enjoyed it.

>189 katiekrug: A bit too manic for me on a Sunday afternoon, I think.

Helen, I love following your movie reviews. I have not seen 10 Things I Hate About You, so I am adding that one to my list.

I'm another fan of 10 Things I Hate About You. I love Julia Stiles...

>193 Crazymamie: Thank you, I am working through your list (with some deviations and detours!) Glad to have added to your list as well. And Katie agrees with me.

>194 katiekrug: *fist bump* I'd forgotten how good it was. >:-D

>191 Helenliz: Love that movie! I was just the right age to be obsessed with it when it came out -- I definitely saw it in theaters multiple times (and still own the DVD!).

>196 christina_reads: I admit to having had to go hunting for the DVD. I knew we owned it, but it wasn't on the shelves in the front room - it was in his study. It's now back down in the front room.

The other movie from that same era and genre that I remember enjoying is She's All That.

>192 Helenliz: 10 Things is one of the few romantic comedies I like :D

>198 katiekrug: Have a feeling I saw that on the shelves while looking for 10 Things. Taking that one on board.

>199 rabbitprincess: Excellent. Part of me objects to the central surmise of the romantic comedy - that a woman is incomplete without a man. But part of me can get swept up by a good film. And this one is good.

I think I had the soundtrack to that film but can't remember when I first saw it. I'd guessed the student film weekly showings (I think it was £2 for a ticket but the seats were pretty uncomfortable). I loved the setting - not sure if it was a real school but it was beautiful scenery. (Apparently it is -still- a real school in Tacoma, Washington. The joy of google.)

>191 Helenliz: 10 Things I Hate About You is one of my all-time favorite movies.

>201 charl08: It's a gorgeous building, agreed.
>202 lowelibrary: I could see it making that kind of list, yes. It's such a feel good film.

Book: 20
Title: The Amber Fury
Author: Natalie Haynes
Published: 2014
Rating: ***
Why: Working through her catalogue!
Challenge: CAT, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #3

This is an inventive book. You know from the start that a bad thing has happened, because you are told, What you spend quite a lot of the book doing is working out what the bad thing is and who does it. Alex arrives in Edinburgh as a stand in teacher at a unit for children who have been taken out of mainstream school. The main class we hear about is the top form, the 5 who are 15 ish. She isn't an experienced teacher, and these 5 are, in some ways, natural trouble makers, they don;t make things easy. But she seems to muddle through. Alex is in Edinburgh because she's running away from an horrific event in her recent past and the kids soon start tom wheedle it out of her. And so she breaks the 4th wall and tells them some of it. Along side this she goes through some Greek plays with them, and their reactions to the different situations in the plays in interesting.
I'm not familiar with the plays, so have the pleasure of discovering something of them as well as the children. The bad thing that happens is quite startling and the aftermath has significant impact on the children and Alex.
I'm not sure I found Alex entirely convincing, but then if your life is torn apart I'm not sure that I;d be entirely self-consistent either.

>204 Helenliz: - Agreed, that was a good read.

>204 Helenliz: it was. I've got her latest Stone Blind out of the library to read soon.

>204 Helenliz: I enjoyed this one too Helen.

>191 Helenliz: Loved 10 Things. I was significantly out of high school and not sure if I would like it, but totally fell in love with the modern re-telling of this story. And yeah, Heath Ledger was luminous. Such a loss.

>207 Caroline_McElwee: It was a good and interesting read.

>208 threadnsong: I was also a good number of years post school, so it maybe shouldn't have appealed. But it really does work.

Not a reading update, but sort of related. Having read Euripides Medea last year, I've booked a ticket to see it in London in April. That'll be different. Just trawling the listings for a good exhibition for the morning. Any suggestions of something I ought to see welcome!

Book: 21
Title: The Lantern Bearers
Author: Rosemary Sutcliff
Published: 1959
Rating: ***
Why: Fitted a CAT!
Challenge: Woman author, CAT, Bingo
TIOLI Challenge #13: Read a book with settings in two or more countries

This is the end of the Roman occupation of Britain. The Saxons are threatening and the Romans withdraw the last remaining Legions to protect Rome.
Aquilla is a Cavalry man in the Legion as it is withdrawn back to Rome, only he decides that his future doesn't lie in Rome, it lies in Britain. His father is part of the group that is trying to support Ambrosius against the Saxon and has requested support from Roman legions in France. The go between is a bird catcher who carries a lantern. Aquilla returns to his father's villa in time to be with his family as the Saxons attack. The remainder of the book covers his life from there. It is actually fairly open about the fate of women, what happens to both Flavia is off stage, but implied. There is a fair level of co-incidence, but I suppose there is in every life. Some of the supporting characters are particularly well done, Brother Ninian, for instance, plays a pivotal role and helps, again, make a point about the less glorious side of war. The book ends as there has been a battle that stops the Saxons in their tracks, and the next generation are stepping forward to take on the banner that their parents have carried for so long.
It is quite complex a read and while there are glorious battles, it doesn't shy away from the darker side, while not necessarily showing those in full detail. It also captures something of the divided loyalties that come into play when a people are divided and families take different sides.

Helen's Film club today was Roman Holiday. A Princess, trapped in her gilded cage, escapes and finds herself befriended by an American Press man in Rome. He shows her the sights, initially as a way of getting an exclusive interview. She uses him to see something of the world. They fall in love and each return to their own world. I'm not sure what I was expecting of the ending, but it wasn't that.

>212 Helenliz: - One of my all-time favorite films!

"Rome. By all means, Rome."

Also, I love Gregory Peck so, so much.

Love in the Afternoon used to be my favorite Audrey Hepburn movie, but a re-watch a few years ago left me with a bit of a creeped out feeling, so RH is now my favorite :)

>213 katiekrug: I can see that - it was a delight to look at. And the ending caught me by surprise - always a good thing, I think.
I did feel a bit uncomfortable when they were sneaking pictures of her unawares, but that was mitigated by the ending.

April plans:
RandomKIT - 7 ages of (wo)man - A Heyer - not got to any in ages Cotillion TIOLI 11
AlphaKIT - D & W The Temple of my Familiar Alice Walker TIOLI 12
KiddyCAT - fantasy for middle grade - I think I have a Tiffany Aching on the TBR pile. Must find it! TIOLI 9
Series CAT - can be read out of order - ECR Lorac, Post after Post-mortem or Crook O'Lune
ClassiCAT - detective/mysteries - The Case of the Late Pig. TIOLI 7
Stone Blind TIOLI 10

>212 Helenliz: I do like that film. The background of the shots is fascinating: a lost world.

Book: 22
Title: Fatal Isles
Author: Maria Adolfsson
Published: 2018
Rating: ***
Why: Richard's fault.
Challenge: Woman author, new author, translated, CAT
TIOLI Challenge #3: Read a book which you did not purchase

This is inventive. Doggerland is a fictional archipelago situated between the UK & Scandinavia, and it borrows from multiple cultures to produce a unique mix. There's a murder and it happens to be Karen's boss's ex wife. So he can't investigate, particularly as he might be a suspect - even if Karen can give him an alibi for most of the timeframe concerned after a disastrous drunken decision.
The story unfolds mostly in the present with the odd flashback to a commune that the victim's family were part of in the 1970s. It's all a long time ago and you wonder what relevance it it - as does the chief of police and the prosecutor, until, gradually, the story unfolds and the past comes crashing into the present. Karen herself has a past, that is revealed slowly and it gives her both empathy and a blind spot. She and the islands she inhabits are certainly an entertaining place to visit (by book, not sure I'd want to go in person!). Be warned though, the second crime that takes place is described in more detail than you'd like or is really necessary.

Apparently I've been here 10 years. Well I never.

>217 Helenliz: Happy Thingaversary!

>217 Helenliz: Happy Thingaversary!

10 years flies by when you're having fun :D

It's amazing how fast it goes - Happy Thingaversary!

Book: 23
Title: My Pen is the Wing of a Bird
Author: Various
Published: 20122
Rating: ***
Why: Shelterbox
Challenge: Woman author, new author, translated, Subscriptions
TIOLI Challenge #4. Read a book with a nationality or ethnicity in the title or author's name

This is a series of short stories, written by Afghan women and translated into English. It aims to present women's stories in across the breadth of female experience in a complex country riven by conflict. Some of the stories are profoundly depressing, other painful, still others offer some degree of hope. They are not necessarily the most polished pieces of writing, but to expect that is to miss the point.

>215 charl08: I know what you mean, parts of it remain familiar, but so much has changed.

Thanks all!

Time for a new thread and March's round up is over there.
https://www.librarything.com/topic/349781#8106583