Susan's categories for 2024

Hello!

I'm Susan and I'm going to have ten categories for 2024. I'm still remembering how to put images and tickers in, but as I live in London, my categories are going to be based on our tube and rail lines. So let's start...

A little bit later...all my photos work (finally!) and now I'm exploring some of the challenges at the top of the thread. I tend to read mostly library books but, with the bed-bug panic migrating from Paris to London, one library closing due to bugs and another due to bugs *in the books*, my ebook collection is looking pretty good for 2024 :-)

Currently I have a trial of Kindle Unlimited, which I shouldn't have taken up because it's waylaid me with all sorts of nonsense. The "heroes" of romance novels are serial killers now, apparently. That's actually a thing (as the Young People say). It makes the pirates of the 1980s bodice-rippers look pretty tame. I've found a few good things, including Erik Larsen's The Splendid and the Vile, which I can only think was added by mistake, but I won't be continuing with the subscription once the trial finishes. It's expensive here too - £9.49 a month, I think, so I could get nine Kindle Daily Deals every month for the same price and they are better books.

1. The Elizabeth line is London’s newest line, so this category is for books published in 2024.



I love this image of Her Majesty opening the line in May 2022. It was one of her last public engagements. The Earl of Wessex (as he then was, also pictured above) was going to do the opening and people were milling about waiting for him to arrive when the staff at Paddington station took down the plaque with his name on it and set up a new plaque at a lower height :-)

1. One of the Good Guys by Araminta Hall
2. The House on Rye Lane by Susan Allott
3. Death on the Lusitania by R L Graham

2. The Victoria line was named after another Queen. This is my category for Victorian literature, as October is “Victober” on BookTube and it’s made me determined to read more Victorian books all year long.

3. The Piccadilly line has the shortest distance between two stations. Leicester Square and Covent Garden are just 260 metres apart and the trip takes about 20 seconds. This category is for short stories.



1. Epic: Legends of Fantasy ed John Joseph Adams
2. Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
3. The Casuarina Tree by W Somerset Maugham
4. Supporting Cast by Kit de Waal
5. Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap
6. Normal Rules Don't Apply by Kate Atkinson
7. Roar by Cecelia Ahern
8. Bodies from the Library ed Tony Medawar
9. First Thrills ed Lee Child

4. The Overground is the orange line, seen all over London. Many years ago these lines were owned by different rail companies but a London mayor bought them up, rebranded them and they became the Overground. As there are so many parts of the line, it’s perfect for my series reading.



1. The Tinner's Corpse by Bernard Knight
2. The Secret by Lee Child and Andrew Child
3. The Late Train to Gipsy Hill by Alan Johnson
4. The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh
5. A Game of Lies by Clare Mackintosh

5. The Metropolitan line is the oldest part of the tube. This is my category for historical reads.



1. The Wager by David Grann
2. The Temple of Fortuna by Elodie Harper
3. Pompeii by Robert Harris
4. Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris
5. Absolutely & Forever by Rose Tremain
6. Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World by Irene Vallejo
7. The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams
8. Frostquake by Juliet Nicolson
9. Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein
10. Loot by Tania James

*****
I've discovered the historical fiction challenge, so I'm leaving the prompts here to remind myself:

1. Read a work of historical fiction set in the country you’re from
2. Read a work of historical fiction set in a different country to the one you’re from - The Temple of Fortuna
3. Read a work of historical fiction set in your favorite historical time period to read about
4. Read a work of historical fiction set in a time period you’re less familiar with - Act of Oblivion
5. Read a work of historical fiction with a speculative element
6. Read a work of historical fiction about a real historical figure or a specific historical event - Pompeii
7. Read a work of historical fiction of over 500 pages
8. Read a Classic work (written/published at least 60 years ago) or Bonus: Read a Classic work of historical fiction (written at least 60 years ago about a time period at least sixty years before the work was written/published)

6. The Docklands Light Railway trains are driverless, which means you can sit right at the front and have a roller-coaster experience. This is my category for thrillers.



1. African Dawn by Tony Park
2. The Death Knock by Elodie Harper

7. The Hammersmith and City line goes through King’s Cross, home to platform 9 ¾ in the Harry Potter books. This is my fantasy category. This year I want to read one of the Raymond E Feist books every month. I’ve read the first three so far and I can see why they’re so enduringly popular.



1. Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb
2. Servant of the Empire by Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts
3. Morgan Is My Name by Sophie Keetch
4. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas
5. Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb
6. The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
7. Mistress of the Empire by Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts
8. Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb

8. The District line goes to the South Kensington museums - the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, commonly known as the V&A. This is my category for science and nature writing.



1. Pathogenesis by Jonathan Kennedy

9. The Waterloo and City line runs from Waterloo to Bank, taking City workers across (well, under) the river into the City for their working day. This is going to be my category for books about business and all the things that go wrong with it. Will we see another WeWork or Theranos in 2024? Probably.



1. Very Bad People by Patrick Alley
2. Glossy: Ambition, Beauty and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier by Marisa Meltzer
3. Bad Buying by Peter Smith
4. The End of Reality by Jonathan Taplin
5. When McKinsey Comes to Town by Walt Bogdanich
6. How to Stay Smart in a Smart World by Gert Gigerenzer

10. The Central line runs from way out in the west to far out in the east. West End shopping? St Paul’s? The Bank of England? The Central line has something for everyone. This is my final category, for books that don’t fit into any of the others.



1. A Sunday by the Pool in Kigali by Gil Courtemanche
2. The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald
3. Bleaker House by Nell Stevens
4. Femlandia by Christina Dalcher
5. Portable Magic by Emma Smith
6. The Sentence by Christina Dalcher
7. The Binding Song by Elodie Harper
8. Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

Enjoy your 2024 Category Challenge!

What a great set up! I've starred your thread, and am particularly interested in your science/nature category.

What a good idea for categories! Welcome, and happy reading in 2024.

Very unique! Good luck with your 2024 reading!

Great setup, I love everything about it! Happy reading in 2024!

What a great theme! Riding on the tube is always one of the treats of visiting London! Not quite as good but still a treat, was reading What we talk about when we talk about the tube ; the District line by John Lancaster. Enjoy your reading in 2024.

I know nothing about the London rails, so I found the pictures and descriptions amazing. Good luck with your reading in 2024.

Oh very neat setup! I look forward to lurking along!

You've matched your categories to your reading very nicely. Looking forward to seeing what you read in 2024.

>12 DeltaQueen50: Thank you, Judy! I'm hoping it will give my reading a bit more structure.

>13 Jackie_K: Thanks Jackie! I've got some good science-y things on my elibrary wishlist. If only they had more than eight slots available...

>14 pamelad: Thank you, Pam!

>15 Tess_W: Thank you, Tess! I keep forgetting there's still quite a bit of December to go. I want to start right now!

>16 MissBrangwen: Thanks Mirjam!

>17 VivienneR: Thanks Vivienne! I hadn't seen those Penguin books, but now I see there's a whole set. Hmmm!

>18 lowelibrary: Thank you, April! The tube scared me a bit when I moved to London, but it's so very handy.

>19 majkia: Thanks Jean!

It's lovely to have you all here, and I'm going to return the visits now.

Today is sunny-ish here but still quite cool, so that's the perfect excuse to stay inside and read. To be honest I can usually make anything the perfect excuse for that...

>20 dudes22: Hello Betty, and thank you! I think I forgot to refresh the page before I answered the earlier posts :-)

What a great way of planning your categories! It's so inventive. Happy reading on the Tube!

Love this setup! Each line is a perfect match for the category. Looking forward to riding the Tube with you in 2024!

I love your categories!

>23 MissWatson: Thank you, Birgit! I mostly take the bus now, but I'll always be a Tube nerd :-)

>24 rabbitprincess: Thank you, rabbitprincess! I just hope I can get relatively equal numbers of things in each category...

>25 mysterymax: Thanks Max!

Happy post-Christmas, everyone! I hope it was filled with bookish goodness. One of my friends said that she hadn't received any books, but she'd bought members of her family things that she also wanted to read, so she's playing a long game there :-)

I bought myself the second trilogy in the Raymond E. Feist Riftwar series, as the library copy had an 18-week wait and was three books in one, meaning 2000+ pages to read in three weeks when I eventually got it. I decided that the Kindle version (also three-in-one) was a better option. Then I thought I might just start the first one (i.e. book 4) and I finished it in a couple of days. I've made myself wait a bit before book 5.

I also want to read two of the trilogies in the Robin Hobb Realm of the Elderlings series next year, which means rereading the first three books as I read them years ago. The elibrary had the first one available, so I've started that and I remember how much I enjoyed it last time. I've read the Liveships trilogy and the Rain Wilds quartet but not the second and third trilogy about Fitz. I thought the series was complete but a BookTuber mentioned that it might not be, which is exciting if it's true. I do love lots and lots of story :-)

My goal of having an equal-ish number of books in each category has led me to *plan* January. I never do this - I tend to read whatever comes into the library as a reserve and fill up the rest of my schedule with random books from my Kindle or my small hard-copy stash. But, if I'm aiming for at least one book per category per month, January will look like this:

Books published in 2024: None yet, so I'll have two fantasy picks.
Victorian writing: A Thousand Miles Up The Nile - I am going to finish this. Yes!
Short stories: I've started Epic: Legends of Fantasy edited by John Joseph Adams, which has 17 stories. I'll read 14 in January and then, if I'm still trying to read one short story every day, I'll start The Casuarina Tree by W Somerset Maugham, which I bought after reading The House of Doors earlier this year.
Series: I want to continue with the Sister Fidelma series by Peter Tremayne. I reserved book 5 from the library months ago but it's showing no signs of arriving so I think I'll get the Kindle version. Other possibilities for this category are the next Cadfael novel or book 2 in the Elly Griffiths Mephisto series. But I have a lot of series. There's a List...
Historical: So many possibilities here! I'm going to participate in the 2024 "Historathon", which is NF works about history, and the prompt for the first quarter of the year is a book from pre-history to 500. I think Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World might be perfect for this one.
Thrillers: Undecided yet. I'll have to investigate the depths of my Kindle OMG.
Fantasy: Servant of the Empire and Assassin's Apprentice. The second one is a reread and I'm enjoying it so much.
Science and nature writing: Frostquake, about the very cold British winter of 1962. This may be more history than science, but climate and weather are scientific :-)
Business: Very Bad People, which I'll be starting this afternoon but probably won't finish this year.
Everything else The Egg and I is ready to pick up at the library on Tuesday. The writer Lissa Evans does a literary Advent calendar on Twitter and this was one of the books this year. I loved the extract she shared, so reserved it. But I'll never have trouble filling up this category.

Your reading plan for January sounds interesting.

Wow. Big plans!

>26 susanj67: I'm currently reading Assassin's Apprentice for the first time (my first ever book by Robin Hobb) and I absolutely love it.

Happy New Year, Susan! It's great to see you back! Many good reads ahead.

>28 hailelib: Thank you! I hope it is :-)

>29 mysterymax: Max, they are, but I read a lot and I've already started some of them, so I'm a few hundred pages in overall :-)

>30 MissBrangwen: Mirjam, I'm so pleased to hear that! I've read some awful fantasy this year - I thought I'd try the YouTube favourites but oh dear. So I'm going back to the old-school writers instead. I love how slowly Assassin's Apprentice starts - lots of world-building and history so that we're really immersed in it. And none of the characters speak like 21st-century American teenagers.

>31 vancouverdeb: Hello Deborah! It's lovely to see you too. Are you going to have a thread here, or somewhere else?

It was sunny in London when I woke up this morning, but I think the weather has had a change of heart. Now it looks like a good day to stay inside with my books. I'm losing track of what day it is, which always happens at the end of the Christmas break. I'm back in the office on Tuesday, though, so I'll have to know when it's Tuesday :-)

Last night I started Papyrus, which looks promising. Heh - the first touchstone suggestion is "Asterix and the Missing Scroll", but it's definitely not that! I've fixed it now. The cover says it's sold a million copies, but it's translated from Spanish so maybe it was a big hit in Spanish-speaking countries before the English-speaking ones, or maybe I just haven't been paying attention. It was a Kindle Daily Deal recently.

Susan, yes I have a thread in the 75’s for 2024, and had one in the 75’s in 2023 . I’m just heading to bed , but I think we will have a mix of cloud and perhaps a peek of sun .

I sincerely wish you health, happiness, contentment and many exciting books.

Hi Susan, I am very happy to have found you and look forward to many BBs.
Papyrus sounds very interesting and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the book. My local library has a copy of it and I've put it on the watch list once. At over 750 pages it will be more of a holiday read.

>33 vancouverdeb: Deborah, I hope your New Year's Day has turned out well :-)

>34 Ameise1: Thank you, Barbara! It's lovely to see you again. My Kindle version of Papyrus has page numbers and it says 542, with the text ending on page 492. That's still pretty long, but not as daunting as 750:-) The writing style is interesting - it's not a straight narrative of Ye Olden Days but includes modern references and quotes and skips around in time.

I've read my short story for today, and it was The Burning Man by Tad Williams. I've never read any Tad Williams, but apparently it's set in the same universe his one of his famous trilogies, but hundreds of years before that story starts. There was a witch, but there were no dragons.

This morning I went down to the big Tesco over the river, which is always exciting (no, I don't get out much). I thought things would be busier in the mall but even Burger King was closed (unofficially - the website said it should have opened at 10) so I couldn't get a coffee. I also couldn't get a cheeseburger and fries, though, so that was probably just as well. My best food discovery of 2023 was the Itsu frozen gyoza dumplings, (which I was charmed to learn are called "potstickers" in the US), so I stocked up on those and various other things for the freezer.

Suddenly my Christmas break, which yesterday seemed very long, seems very short. Tomorrow I'll be back at work, but at least the canteen will be responsible for lunches so that's something.

The Guardian has this article on little changes people can make to their lives, which I thought was interesting: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/01/100-tiny-changes-to-transfo... Shortly I'm going to do the ironing so that Future Susan doesn't look at the ironing basket and feel annoyed later :-)

>35 susanj67: Interestingly, the Spanish version has 452 pages and the German edition has 752 pages. Why is there such a big difference?
All the shops are closed here today too. Perfect for staying lazily at home in the trainer.
There are some good points in The Guardian article.
Oh, how I've missed your posts. I'm really glad you're back.

>36 Ameise1: Barbara, you are very kind :-) That is interesting about the extra 300 pages in the German edition! Maybe it's a different font or a different way of doing the notes at the end? But even then, 300 pages is a lot.

Well, I did the ironing, so Current Susan is very pleased with Past Susan :-) I'm also putting a jigsaw together and watching 9-1-1 on Disney. My subscription ends on 7 January and I'm going to see how long it is until I really want to watch something enough to resubscribe to one of the streaming services. I got Netflix in 2016 and since then I've always had one, and often more than one, but we are lucky to have tons of free stuff on the terrestrial channels' catch-up services here, so I thought I'd investigate that more. I cancelled Netflix in July and I haven't missed it so far.

Hello Susan, Glad that you have a thread and I will follow your reading. Having you got any good non fiction recommendations for me? I think we have swapped some ideas in the past!

>38 mdoris: Hello Mary! I can recommend Hags: The Demonisation of Middle-Aged Women, which is very good (also 99p on Kindle today for UK readers). And The Case Against the Sexual Revolution is an interesting one too.

Today's short story was As The Wheel Turns, by Aliette de Bodard. There was a dragon off the page but no witches. The next one in the book is 110pp, which I would call a novella rather than a short story, so I think I'll save it for the weekend and skip to the one after that for tomorrow.

The building manager just emailed us all about a mystery car in our carpark. The letter includes: "This car has been parked in the same spot for Over a Month now." Maybe the leading capitals are supposed to make it seem even longer.

The library is finally open again, so I returned a couple of books and picked up my reserve, in which the first date stamp is 1993. It's in pretty good condition, though. I managed to get out again without picking up a stack of other things.

Hi Susan, thank you. I see that I can't view your library as there is a private setting. I have read The Case Against the Sexual Revolution and seen the author interviewed several times. I thought she made some very valid points1 I will look up Hags, that sounds right up my alley. Not available yet in Canada.

The library stack is always a challenge and it is very hard sending books back unread and then having a long wait again. Trials and tribulations.

>40 mdoris: Mary, I hope Hags is available in Canada soon. I found myself nodding along as I read it, recognising everything the author wrote about. Depressing! I'm really going to try and stop reserving things at the library so much this year, and try and finish what I already have.



Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

I've finished my first book of the year, which admittedly I started a few days ago, so it's not an amazing feat of page-turning. This is a very rare reread for me, as I left it too long to continue with the series without reminding myself what had happened. I love the world and the cast of characters, and particularly the way the story had plenty of time to tell itself. The cover above is the ebook version from my library and the quote on the front is from George R R Martin. It says "In today's crowded fantasy market Robin Hobb's books are like diamonds in a sea of zircons", and that is very true!

I'm tempted to start the next one straight away as the library has the ebook available to borrow, but I do want to continue with the Raymond E Feist series so that's going to be my next fantasy read.

>41 susanj67: Rereads become necessary when it gets to be too long between books! I'm going to have to reread The Inheritance Cycle since a new book has come out.

>42 mysterymax: Max, I see it's been 12 years since the last book! How annoying for all the box-set publishers with old stock :-) I usually only start a series once it's finished, with a few exceptions (Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series being one of them, and I also read the first couple of Game of Thrones books). I like to know there's going to be an ending.

Hello, Stranger! Nice to see you back again. And I love your category set-up!

Happy new year.

Love your category! I lived in London for a while.
Hoping your year's reading is not affected by leaves on the line or driver's strikes!

>44 katiekrug: Hi Katie, and happy new year to you and TW!

>45 Helenliz: Thanks Helen! There are strikes of some kind later in the week, but not on this thread :-)

Love your setup! What a great idea.

It's great to find that Demelsa Haughton is coming out with another Ravenburger puzzle this year , Susan. I'll be eager to see it . I love her art. I didn't think I'd ever call puzzle images " art" but they are . I've done 4 or 5 of her puzzles, which I listed on my thread. I'm close to finishing off a 500 piece puzzle by her, Enchanted, a Christmas themed puzzle.

>47 JayneCM: Thank you, Jayne, and welcome!

>48 vancouverdeb: Deborah, I'll post a link as soon as I see it :-) I did her Hallowe'en one in October (harder than it looks, I thought).

Today's short story was The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi, who wrote The Windup Girl. I worked from home today so I used my getting ready/commuting time to read it, even though it was a long one. I liked it a lot. I've also read a bit more of Very Bad People, which is by one of the founders of Global Witness.

And I've realised I have a couple of hard-copy thrillers for my thriller category. I bought a pack of three set in Africa, and it must have been before I got a Kindle because I remember thinking I'd get them just so I never ran out of things to read. Imagine a time like that :-)

>48 vancouverdeb: Oh yes, another puzzle lover here! I have her 1000 piece The Secret Garden and will have to keep an eye out for the new one.

>50 JayneCM: Jayne, horray for more puzzing love! I discovered eBay as a source last year and went on a bit of a spree. I'm now on a no-buy, with exceptions...

I Googled this morning and can't see Demelsa's new one yet, but I did find some Ravensburger pre-orders on a UK site: https://puzzlesgalore.co.uk/collections/ravensburger-2024-releases?page=1 I *love* the first one - "On the 5th Day". The listing says it is 1500 pieces but later says 2000 and the price is the usual UK price for a 2000-piece Ravensburger. It looks to me like David Galchutt's artwork. That's one I'll be getting as soon as it's available.

I've got a puzzle on the go. The bellringing society I'm secretary of celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, so we had a jigsaw puzzle made to sell. I finally managed to clear the dining room table of other anniversary stuff (mostly calendars and puzzles) for Christmas, so have finally got mine open.

They're lurvely, if I do say so myself. Available in 500 or 1000 pieces for £15 or £20 and we can post at a small extra cost >;-)

Another puzzle lover here! I just posted my most recent completion on my thread. I mostly stick to 1000 pieces but will do a 500 piece one if I need to feel like I've accomplished something :)

>52 Helenliz: Helen, what a good idea to mark the anniversary! They look lovely.

>53 katiekrug: Katie, very pretty! I've never tried an eeBoo. They're fairly expensive here and I am notoriously cheap but there are a few I'm very tempted by. I usually do 1000 pieces but I like the 2000-piece ones too, mostly because the boxes aren't twice as big as the 1000-piece boxes so I can store more pieces in a smaller space. I'm going to have to donate some of them, though - there are limits!

II love your categories. Hope you have a great year of reading!

>52 Helenliz: I love puzzles too. These look lovely.

>55 thornton37814: Thanks Lori!

>56 JayneCM: I think there are too many puzzles and not enough time. A bit like books :-)



A Sunday by the Pool in Kigali by Gil Courtemanche

This is a novel about the genocide in Rwanda. The main character is a Canadian journalist who lives at the Hotel des Mille-Collines in Kigali as the situation gets worse and worse. It's incredibly violent and quite hard to read because of that, but definitely worth reading. Rwanda is in the news in the UK at the moment because of the government's plan to send asylum-seekers there and it seems that progress has been made in drawing the population together as Rwandans rather than Hutu and Tutsi. I read somewhere that it's on track to become a first world country. But this novel makes me wonder whether those long-standing hatreds will ever really go away.

Late last year I read Kennedy 35, which is part of the Charles Cumming "BOX 88" series, and one of the timelines in that novel related to the genocide, and the escape of one notorious killer overseas. The author included a reading list at the end of the book and this was one of the books mentioned. Some time ago I read We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, which was also on the list.

Today's short story was Rysn by Brandon Sanderson, which I didn't understand. However, one of the characters said "Wow", which I disapproved of. Yesterday I read Sandmagic by Orson Scott Card. That one was OK but I was on the bus at the time, very wet due to heavy rain on the way home, so I can't say I was concentrating on it that much.

That feeling when you accidentally press the "Eco" button on the washing machine and now your towels are going to take 3 hours 10 minutes.

During that time I can at least finish Very Bad People and read today's short story. And maybe do a bit of my tax return (shudder).

Happy Saturday!

Very Bad People by Patrick Alley

This is subtitled "The Inside Story of the Fight Against the World's Network of Corruption" and the author is one of the founders of Global Witness. Their campaigning started in the 1990s and is still going strong today. Each chapter looks at one of their investigations, including the illegal timber trade that was funding the Khmer Rouge, blood diamonds in Africa, offshore oil in Africa and where the kleptocrats spend their money after it's been looted from the poor countries they control.

Towels update: 1 hour 53 mins left.

>58 susanj67: I always assumed that "eco" meant a short cycle, till we got our new washer-dryer last year. Now I think it means "powered by candles".

>58 susanj67: - Good to see that meme is still a favorite here :)

When our house got flooded in 2021, we had to get a new washer and dryer, and they are still a bit of a mystery to me. So many buttons! I usually stick to the "normal" setting for everything :-P

>60 Jackie_K: *snort*
I'm finding a load of clothes now have wash at 30C, when my washing machine does 20C and 40C. I've taken to 40C and crossing my fingers. So far, so good.

In other domestic appliance news, we've recently got a hybrid car and that's got us an electricity tarriff that's cheaper overnight (to charge the car) so I've taken to putting the dishwasher & washing machine on overnight as well, on a delay. To confuse matters, they do this differently. The dishwasher adds a delay to the start, so 1 hr means it starts in 1 hr. The washing machine allows you to set the end time, so 3hrs means that the cycle will end in 3 hours, but as different cycles are different times and the time is weight dependent, you're never quite sure when it's going to start! I get easily confused and have got it wrong more than once.

>58 susanj67: I do not regret going back to standard PAYE. Especially not about now.

>58 susanj67: Asides like yours make me glad my Maytag washer is 35 years old and still working perfectly!

>60 Jackie_K: Jackie, I think they're birthday-cake candles, too...

>61 katiekrug: Katie, that meme will always be a favourite :-) I don't explore much with my washing machine either. I used to pick the "light" programme for speed, but I read somewhere that it's best to let it do a normal wash, which is 2 hours 40 for towels. I basically spend my weekends being a laundry concierge. I have no idea how larger households get all their laundry done.

>62 Helenliz: Helen, I think you'll be fine at 40C :-) How exciting about the new car! The buses on my route to and from work have recently been switched to new electric buses, so now I have to pay attention at the bus stop. I used to be able to hear the bus coming, but now they just appear silently. The drivers must be entertained by all the people suddenly realising and flinging their arms out to signal for them to stop.

>63 mysterymax: Max, I love stories like that!

Today's short story was The Road to Levinshir by Patrick Rothfuss. I'd be tempted by The Name of the Wind but apparently there's still one book in the series yet to be published, so it's a "No" for now.

>51 susanj67: Thanks for the link to the New Ravensburger puzzles, Susan. I love them all, but if I could just pick on, I think I would chose Coastal Cottage. I have done the Dog Walker puzzle, but here it was released as a 500 piece puzzle rather than the 100O piece puzzle shown in the link. I did read somewhere that Ravensburger is going to downsize there 1000 and 2000 piece puzzle boxes over the next few months. I sound like a real puzzle nerd, which I suppose I am. I did do Demelsa Haugton's Halloween puzzle a year and a half ago. I really loved it, but yes, her puzzles can be unexpectedly challenging. I have Demelsa's 2000 piece If Fish Could Walk waiting, but since I just finished a 2000 piece puzzle, it will have to wait until I want to brave another 2000 piece puzzle.

https://www.ravensburger.us/products/jigsaw-puzzles/adult-puzzles/if-fish-could-...

>65 vancouverdeb: Deborah, that is great news about the smaller boxes! I also have If Fish Could Walk, but I haven't done it yet.



The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald

This was an entertaining read, and apparently it's famous in the US. It's a memoir of the author's early married life on a chicken ranch in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1920s, although not published until 1945. I saw an extract in a literary Advent calendar on Twitter and reserved it from the library, so it doesn't really fit my categories. It's lucky I have the catch-all category for just such books!

Yesterday's short story was While the Gods Laugh by Michael Moorcock. I think today I might switch books and read one by Ali Smith. The fantasy stories are mostly good, but quite often set in complex worlds that are the subjects of series of books, so they can be a bit much in a short form.

It was supposed to snow in London today, but it didn't snow in my bit of it.

I remember The Egg and I! That was a long, long time ago.

>66 susanj67: I have The Egg and I waiting on my Kindle - hopefully I will get to it this year. There was also a 1947 film made of the book starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray.

I think I know what the new Demelsa Haugton puzzles is. It was in my Instagram feed today and apparently is available in the US at Barnes and Noble and shortly to be available at Puzzles Canada , an online puzzle vendor I use. It's called " Rabbit Recital " - here is link. It's a 500 piece puzzle, at least here in North America. Maybe there will be others?

https://www.thepuzzlecollections.com/product/ravensburger-demelsa-haugton-rabbit...

I'm enjoying the puzzle discussion on this thread! I don't do puzzles often, but I enjoy them -- and I'm currently working on this one, to which I treated myself for Christmas: https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Square-Piece-Puzzle-Galison/dp/0735371180.

Susan, I'd missed you had a thread this year.

I'm going to be giggling at your Docklands LR category being "thrillers" for some time.

I have a very limited grasp of what my washing machine settings mean either. However, I recently bought some rubber ball things from Lakeland that you put in the drum. They claim to save half the soap. I am choosing to believe them (so far).

>67 mysterymax: Max, their life with the chickens was nearly a hundred years ago, which is a bit sobering! It really didn't seem that old-fashioned as she wrote about it, although there was no electricity in the house, no phone, no running water...

>68 DeltaQueen50: Judy, I hope you enjoy it. It might be best read a few chapters at a time rather than straight through. I had to get it back to the library so read it nearly all at once.

>69 vancouverdeb: Thank you Deborah - that's gorgeous! I've had a hunt around but can't see it here yet, even with the name. Still, it is only 10 January...

>70 christina_reads: Hello Christina! That's a very pretty puzzle! I love the colours, and it has plenty of things in it to be interesting.

>71 charl08: Hi Charlotte! Some of my categories were a bit of a stretch :-) I've seen those ball things from Lakeland and wondered about them..

I decided to stick with the book of fantasy short stories, and yesterday read Mother of All Russiya by Melanie Rawn, which was a true historical story with added magic. Today's was Riding the Shore of the River of Death by Kate Elliott. I've started the next Raymond E Feist book, which is promising so far, one chapter in. I got the bus to work this morning and the air-conditioning was on full blast. I think it was colder inside than out, but I did manage a chapter before putting it away and shoving my hands in my pockets.

>66 susanj67: I also have The Egg and I on my TBR shelf and now that your have brought it to my attention, AGAIN!, I can hopefully get to it this year.

I admire anybody who has the patience to put together puzzles. My husband usually does 1000-2000 piece puzzles and prefers Ravensburgers or Springbook (his fav).

I’m enjoying the puzzle conversation here. I’ve been doing some small ones online lately.

It's made me want to set up one of the many puzzles I have ... talking about a TBR pile - my TBP is almost as big, but I get carried away and instead of doing a few minutes at a time I wind up spending a whole day... and right now I have too much to do with my new book coming out in Feb. Ravensburger makes wonderful puzzles, but right now the puzzle that has actually made it upstairs in a 2000 pc Heye puzzle, of an orchestra. I'd be insane to start this, but I hear it calling! It's very funny, everyone is doing silly stuff.

>73 Tess_W: Tess, The Egg and I seems to be very well known! I'd never heard of it till just before Christmas :-) You'll always have an excellent gift idea if your husband is a puzzler!

>74 hailelib: There are some good online apps for them, aren't there? I've just bought a new tablet to use as an ereader, and I *must not* download puzzle apps or games of any sort :-)

>75 mysterymax: Max, I sometimes try and limit my time by watching an episode or two of something in the background. However, I have ended up puzzling until my ear buds say "low battery" and switch themselves off, so I'm not saying it's a foolproof idea :-)

Short story update: Wednesday's was Bound Man by Mary Robinette Kowal and yesterday's was The Narcomancer by N K Jemesin. I didn't like that one, but I didn't like the full-length book of hers I read either. I have four more and then I've finished the book.

In library news, I took a couple of things back and borrowed Bleaker House because I loved the author's novel Briefly A Delicious Life. And I got an email this morning to say The World The Plague Made by James Belich is ready to pick up But I'm at home today so that will have to wait until Monday. I can't get a touchstone to work for it, but I think it's new.

Another chilly day in London, so perfect to stay inside. I'm doing laundry but without pressing any incorrect buttons. And...drumroll...I've just submitted my tax return. Huzzah! It always hangs over my head and the deadline is the end of January. The tax people send "nudge" text messages which are annoying but also quite useful. There is a degree of inconsistency about the form, though - for "Tips" I put "0" and the page said "DO NOT PUT 0 - LEAVE THE BOX BLANK". The next time I had nothing to record I left the box blank and got the message "DO NOT LEAVE THE BOX BLANK - PUT 0". But it's done now and I feel just as zen as the people in those ads they used to run. The day stretches before me with no annoying deadline in the background. Every year I promise myself I will be more organised and get it done in, say, May or June. Maybe one day I'll get there.

Yesterday's short story was Strife Lingers in Memory by Carrie Vaughn. Today I'm going to be focussing on two NF ebooks that came in at the library. I've got Peter Frankopan's The First Crusade and The Wager by David Grann. I thought that one was months away, but it appeared yesterday and isn't too long. I'm going to bookhorn it in as I know the reserve list is long.

I've got The Wager on my library WL - it sounds really good.

Good on you for getting the tax form done. We are just starting to get the various forms needed to complete ours (deadline is 15 April) and I'm shoving them all in a folder to give to The Wayne, who will procrastinate until the weekend before, thus inducing mild agita in me...

>77 susanj67: I am deleting all the HMRC reminder emails as soon as I see them, and will do my tax return at the last possible moment, as is Right and Proper.

>78 katiekrug: Katie, it *is* really good - I'm about 150 pages in, although I did get sidetracked this afternoon.

>79 Jackie_K: Jackie, that is the time-honoured way :-) I hate the way it looms over us at this time of year. We're constantly told that the Government knows everything about us, so why can't they put it to good use?!!

This afternoon I've been watching Darby and Joan, which was made for Acorn TV, and I really enjoyed it. It stars Greta Scaachi and Bryan Brown, who team up in Australia and solve mysteries. It's now available free in the UK on the UKTV Play app. I'm doing a 2000-piece Aimee Stewart puzzle at present, so it was good background entertainment for that.

The Wager by David Grann

This is subtitled "A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder" and that is accurate :-) The Wager was one of the ships in a fleet that set out from Britain in 1740 to capture a Spanish galleon on its way back from the Philippines to South America with treasure. But things went badly wrong for the ship, which was wrecked off the south coast of Chile, with its crew marooned on a small island...

The book seems to be all over social media at the moment, and some of the romance and fantasy gals I follow on YouTube have "hauled" it, as a foray into non-fiction. There are definitely no elves, though, and no real heroes. It's very well done, though, and I whizzed through it. I've returned it to the elibrary where 19 people are waiting for it.

>81 susanj67: - I have this on a list for my husband as he likes all books about sea disasters.

>82 dudes22: Betty, it's a good choice!



Bleaker House by Nell Stevens

This is mostly a memoir about the writer's trip to the Falkland Islands to concentrate on writing her first novel. In between the happenings on Bleaker Island, there are bits of the novel she's trying to write, and another story too. Everyone in her MFA class got a grant to go somewhere for three months and her tutor tried to suggest that maybe Rome might be better, but she was determined to go to the very bottom of the world. I liked this a lot. I saw it reviewed on a BookTube channel I follow, and it was right there on the shelf at my library, which seemed like a Sign. As I mentioned above, I loved the author's Briefly, A Delicious Life (which was not the novel she was working on in the Falklands).

Yesterday's short story was The Mad Apprentice by Trudi Canavan and today's was Otherling by Juliet Marillier. The final "story" in the book is by George R R Martin and it's 200 pages long, which is not a short story in my opinion. I think it's set in the same universe as Game of Thrones and I might read it this evening to take the pressure off tomorrow. OMG it has its own touchstone! It's The Mystery Knight. The alternative is finishing a thriller set in Zimbabwe.

>83 susanj67: I like the sound of that one, I've added it to the (creaking at the seams) wishlist.

>84 Jackie_K: Jackie, I'm always happy to be a bad influence ;-)



Epic: Legends of Fantasy edited by John Joseph Adams

Today I read the last story in this book of fantasy stories and novellas, and it was The Mystery Knight by George R R Martin. It was indeed set in Westeros and there were a lot of baddies in it, and grisly deaths.

I liked most of the stories, but reading a new fantasy thing every day is a bit overwhelming. This would probably have worked better if I'd read, say, one a week and mixed in some other types of short stories. But it was an elibrary book, so that wasn't an option. I will keep it in mind for next time, though.

At lunchtime I picked up a new reserve - The World The Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe, which has very small print on a very large number of pages and is published by the Princeton University Press. I'm not sure I'm up to it, but I've read the introduction and I'll keep going until it gets too hard.

Susan, I am so happy that you decided to have a thread this year! I love your categories. And your current puzzle looks fun - we just finished a 1,000 piece Ravensburger - Midnight at the Library, and the humor in it made us laugh. For example, Goldilocks and the three bears are reading books on home security.



The Wager looks good - adding that to The List. And Bleaker House! You have reminded me that I have that one in the stacks. I've made a note that you loved Briefly, A Delicious Life, which also sounds good.

Good work getting the taxes done so promptly. Your post makes me thankful once again that we have ours done for us. So much crazy that I am happy to sidestep.

Here's hoping that 2024 is kind to you and that we can get into some sort of mischief together this year.

Hello Mamie!!

I love that puzzle - I've never seen it in the UK so I hope it's released here at some point. It looks like lots of fun. I'm sure we can find mischief - I'll have to give it some thought :-) Ooh, maybe we could read some "romantasy" and be appalled :-)



African Dawn by Tony Park

This is my thriller for the month, and is one of my small number of hard copies. As I mentioned above, I think, I bought a pack of three of this author's books from The Book People when they used to come to office buildings in the Before Times when people still worked in offices. It must have been pre-Kindle, so I've had them for ages. I didn't love the first one I read, but this one was better. It's a "sprawling family saga" set in Zimbabwe during and after the war and one of the characters is a black rhinoceros. I'll read the third book next month and get them out of the house. Hurrah!

I've started two new volumes of short stories - The Casuarina Tree and Sabrina and Corina and I'm alternating stories from those.

>87 susanj67: I've also started The Casuarina Tree because it was mentioned in the book I just finished, The House of Doors. I just finished the story P&O and am relieved because the others (I started with The Letter then went back to the beginning) gave me the impression that Maugham hated everyone. How are you finding the collection?

>88 pamelad: Pamela, I bought it for exactly the same reason! I've only read the first one. The story was good, but my Kindle ebook seems to be based on an OCR version of the hard copy, and it has quite a few typos, which irked me slightly. Then I remembered I was reading a book on a screen and it's *magic* :-)

>89 susanj67: The edition I’m reading also has typos but I’m forgiving it because it’s free on KoboPlus. An editor would have been useful.

>87 susanj67: I'm trying to read a book for every African country, this will definitely go on my WL for Zimbabwe.

>90 pamelad: Pamela, I read the P&O story last night and liked it a lot. I've never really bothered with short stories because I like lots of plot and huge series of books, but I think I may be converted! I suppose not everything has to be the same.

>91 Tess_W: Tess, if you haven't read Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight then I have to recommend that for the Zimbabwe slot. It's a memoir and it's fabulous.

>92 susanj67: TY, I will put that on my list!

>92 susanj67:, >93 Tess_W: I'll second that recommendation - one of my favorite memoirs.

Hello, Susan! Happy Fridaying! Your romantasy thoughts made me laugh - I would be down for that anytime. *grin*

I read both House of Doors and The Casuarina Tree last year, and it was wonderful to read them close together. And I watched a very good documentary on Maugham earlier this year - "Revealing Mr. Maugham" (made in 2012 and directed by Michael House). I rented it from Amazon Prime, but it might also be available on other streaming services.

>93 Tess_W: Tess, I'm sure you'll love it :-)

>94 Crazymamie: Mamie, happy Friday to you! You have more of it to go than I do. I will investigate a romantasy candidate. The House of Doors was excellent, wasn't it? Such a great read. I have The Garden of Evening Mists reserved at the elibrary and it's getting close. I read Murder on the Verandah, which is about the case in the book and it was an interesting read but more about the British living in Malaya at the time than the specific case. I just don't think there was that much information available about the case and it showed. I've checked for the film and it's available on Amazon here too, so I've made a note - thank you! I think I'd like to read some more Maugham first.

This evening I'm going to read more of Servant of the Empire, which is going well. I gave up on The World The Plague Made as it's too academic for me and too long to get through in the time I have it from the library. I don't like giving up, but there's no point feeling dumb for 450 pages.

>95 susanj67: Hi Susan, I loved your honesty with "I don't like giving up, but there's no point feeling dumb for 450 pages."! I'm sure we have all felt that! Interesting that there is a book Murder on the Verandah about the case in House of Doors. Me too I thought HofD was wonderful and I have his other books now on reserve too.

>86 Crazymamie: - I just bought that one (along with two other puzzles) on Amazon. This after going through and organizing my puzzle hoard and thinking how I have too many... *shrug*

Happy weekend, Susan! I hope it's a warm, book-filled one for you.

>96 mdoris: Mary, there was a time when I might have slogged through it, but that time has passed :-) It's a beautiful book, though, with lovely expensive paper. It would have been a pleasure to read if only the content was a bit more "me".

>97 katiekrug: Katie, ooh, a puzzle haul! Exciting! I also have too many. My weekend has been book-filled but not that warm.

Yesterday was very cold (for London) and today there's a storm blowing in. I was going to go down to Ikea at Greenwich, and then to the Greenwich Retail Park, which has a Hobbycraft, Dunelm, HomeSense and various other large shops, plus a McDonalds. But I'm putting it off until it's warmer. It's a bit of a walk from North Greenwich station, or a bus ride, and I could just look up things online I suppose. I was at a bit of a loose end yesterday because I've spent months doing everything but my tax return. I kept thinking that, once it was done, I would have plenty of time to do All The Things. But I don't really know what Things I was thinking of. I did make quite a bit of progress with Servant of the Empire but today I've dowloaded The Tinner's Corpse from the elibrary for my series read for January. It's number 5 in the "Crowner John" series by Bernard Knight, about a man who takes on the office of coroner in the 1190s. I like all the nerdy legal stuff, although there are aspects of the characters that annoy me.

It's cold here, too, believe it or not. Currently just 21F (-6C) and only going to 45F (7C). There is even a wind chill advisory, so I am practically giddy. I think you are wise to stay home - you made me laugh about doing All The Things but not knowing what they were - sounds like me. I am also staying in today - laundry and books and some puzzling are my plan. We are currently doing a 2000 piece puzzle that we realized will not actually fit on anything we have, so Craig is building me a puzzle board for it. Heh.

>95 susanj67: I have not read Garden of Evening Mists, but I have it in the stacks. I did read A Gift of Rain several years ago and remember liking it. Interesting about Murder on the Verandah.

>97 katiekrug: We had a lot of fun putting it together and reading all the book titles - Dracula is reading Pride and Prejudice, which made us laugh. And you can never have too many puzzles, just saying... We recently ordered a few more from Amazon, too.

>99 Crazymamie: Mamie, I love that you're giddy about the wind chill advisory :-) And that does sound chilly for Georgia! I might also do some puzzling - I need to investigate a good series to watch while I do it. I'm finishing up The Coroner, which is about, yes, a coroner, in Canada, but it's a bit depressing.

I did a declutter of one of my kitchen cupboards, so that was satisfying. I have lots of boxes left over from the beauty box subscription a few years ago, so I'm using the bottom halves of those to organise things. I don't need matching clear plastic pantry storage, which doesn't mean I'm not going to buy it when I find some, but in the meantime I can still be organised, Luckily I never throw out a good box :-)

>99 Crazymamie: - I've been thinking of getting a 2,000 piece puzzle that I saw but it won't fit on anything I have either. My hubby made me a bigger ironing surface, so I could probably get him to do that for a puzzle.

>101 dudes22: Betty, you could try foam core sheets from a hobby shop, taped together if necessary.



The Tinner's Corpse by Bernard Knight

This is book 5 in the Crowner John series, about a coroner in Exeter in the 1190s. This time Sir John de Wolfe is called in when the overseer of a group of tin miners is found murdered. But the corpses quickly pile up. Is a Saxon with a grudge to blame, or is there more going on? This had plenty of legal nerdery, but once again Sir John can't seem to stop himself cheating on his wife. Or, as the book says, "sharing his favours with several women". As everyone seems to be (a) filthy dirty and (b) mildly drunk at the best of times, I just feel sorry for the women concerned.

Today I would like to confess three moments of weakness in the Kindle store, which I blame entirely on two BookTubers and Anne de Courcy, author of Five Love Affairs and a Friendship, which I am currently reading.

Moment 1: Varney the Vampire, a "penny dreadful" Victorian novel (or series of episodes) about a vampire, which is apparently over 1000 pages long.

Moment 2: Esther Waters by George Moore

Moment 3: Wintercombe, the first in a quartet of novels set in the English civil war by Pamela Belle.

I'll try and do better tomorrow.

>102 susanj67: I might go the route of the foam core boards...as waiting for my husband to make a board could take a while.

>103 mysterymax: Max, it's the method used by KarenPuzzles, and seems to work well for her. I have a table that can fit up to 3,000 pieces (4,000 for a Castorland puzzle) but that's my limit.

Imagine my excitement when I checked the library reserve shelf at lunchtime and found a book with my name on it. The library website hadn't said anything was ready. But it was a children's book with my name on it by mistake, so I handed it in at the desk :-(

In other news, fans of ebook freebies may be interested in the "Stuff Your Kindle" days this year. (Despite the "Kindle" reference in the title the books are free across multiple platforms). Historically they've been for romance books and you can sign up here for an alert: https://www.romancebookworms.com/ The last one was 27 December so the next one should be in March some time but now there are also going to be days for cozy mysteries (25 January) https://cozymysterybookclub.com/bookblast/ and "witchy" books (27 January) http://www.witchybookworms.com/ Because if there's one thing we all need in our groaning ebook libraries it's more books, right?

>100 susanj67: "I don't need matching clear plastic pantry storage, which doesn't mean I'm not going to buy it when I find some..." Made me laugh! Sounds like me - I have been on an organizing kick, and storage containers are my new drug of choice.

>101 dudes22: I highly recommend this approach - my new puzzle board was finished that same day and we are already using it.

Susan, I am jealous that you have a table that will fit a 3,000 piece puzzle. We used to have a huge dining room table that we used all the time in Indiana since I hosted most of the family get-togethers, but we hardly ever used it down here, and it barely fit into the smaller dining room area in this house, so I gave it to friends of Daniel's who absolutely love it. Anyway, we had been looking for the perfect table and chairs for the bay window area just off our kitchen, and we finally found it this past summer. It looks like it belongs in a fairy tale cottage, and I am in LOVE with it, but sadly, it is too small for a 2,000 piece puzzle.

I loved your Kindle confession! I am most intrigued by Varney the Vampire - must investigate further.

>105 Crazymamie: Mamie, I was also intrigued by Varney, which I'd never heard of before. There's a fancy hard copy re-issue in two parts, with illustrations, but of course I bought the 99p Kindle version :-) Apparently it was a big influence on Bram Stoker, and is a famous source of vampire lore.

My table is 90 x 90 cm, but it can be extended. One side extended is enough for a 2,000 piece puzzle but I need both sides for 3,000 pieces, unless it's a Castorland one as their high-count puzzles have tiny pieces. It's lovely that your former table has found a good home!

I've managed not to buy any Kindle books today, or any other books. Actually I've bought nothing at all, apart from a quick trip to the supermarket after work. But groceries don't count, not being entertaining.

>102 susanj67: I've read a few short stories including him, but not tried the full length novels. Mind you, I need another series like a hole in the head...

Just 3 moments of weakness? when the day provides so many opportunities for moments of weakness, that's practically being strong!

>107 Helenliz: Helen, there are better series out there, and 15 books in this one...

I've had another day with no Kindle purchases. Go me! Or, rather, don't go. But the most recent Jack Reacher came in to the library as a reserve, so I picked that up at lunchtime.

In other news, I've started Frostquake, which is nominally about the terrible winter of 1962/63. But it's actually a name-dropping memoir in which the bad weather features only tangentially (121 pages into it). It will have to go in my "History" category, leaving "Science and nature" empty for January unless I can find something else. Maybe 12 Birds to Save Your Life could fit the bill. Oh, I see what I did there :-)

>102 susanj67: the Knight series looks interesting. Off to find book # 1..........

>109 Tess_W: Good luck, Tess! My elibrary has them all, which is fortunate :-)



Servant of the Empire by Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts

This is book 2 in the second trilogy in the Riftwar series, so book 5 overall. It continues the story from the world through the rift, which we saw a little bit of in the first trilogy, but not very much. I'm aiming to read one of these books every month this year, and I'm tempted to start the next one immediately, but a couple of library books need my attention. One of them is the most recent Jack Reacher, and on Monday I can pick up The Temple of Fortuna from the library. It's the final in an excellent trilogy about Pompeii.

This morning I went OUT for the first time in weeks (other than work). I didn't find a single jigsaw puzzle at HomeSense even though they had heaps last time I went there, but at least I haven't broken my puzzleno-buy. I didn't even get the Missoni Home hand towels I found (!!!).

>102 susanj67: >109 Tess_W: What a curious coincidence! I came across the first book at my local charilty bookshop a few weeks ago and thought: this sounds interesting...

>111 MissWatson: Birgit, that is a co-incidence! The first one was published ages ago, so I wonder whether it was recently donated or it's been lurking on the shelf for years.



The Secret by Lee Child and Andrew Child

I realised recently that I hadn't read the 2023 Jack Reacher adventure, so I reserved it from the library. This one is set in 1992, when Jack is still in the Military Police. The good thing about waiting a while to read it is that now there's not as many months to wait for the next one :-)

Next up, I have Morgan Is My Name, which is the first in a new trilogy about King Arthur (I think). I didn't realise it was part of a trilogy when I reserved it, as the other two books haven't been published yet.

>112 susanj67: I think someone has decluttered their shelves.

>102 susanj67: - A new to me series that looks interesting.

>104 susanj67: I am in the process of trying to get our basement - which became a place to dump everything cleaned out and ready to become a puzzle room - and game room in the hot summer - and I will have a BIGGGG table, LOL.

I am afraid that I had several e-books downloaded at one point and I finally just deleted them. The thought was that I could have books when I traveled without carting tons of weight around, but it never happened. I'm afraid I'm strictly a paper book person, even though I do have my books available as e-books I can't look at the screen long enough to read a book. Somehow it just isn't the same. So I finally deleted them, they were good ones, ones that are out of print in many cases, but I finally had to admit that I wasn't going to read them and I should use the storage space for something else. Oh well. As payment for my sins I am now trying to read Eragon in bed! (Hardcover, 690 pages!)

>113 MissWatson: Birgit, if there was just the first one then maybe they didn't like it :-(

>114 hailelib: I love all the legal stuff, which includes concepts like "presentment of Englishry". That meant the local community in which the victim was discovered had to prove he was not Norman, or they were fined for the death of a Norman person in their locale. Even in the 1190s it was seen as a tax-grab :-)

>115 mysterymax: Max, I have pans for a puzzlarium in my dream house, with a huge table, plenty of storage, a TV on the wall for additional entertainment while puzzling and so on. I just need to win the lottery now. There's definitely a lot to be said for hard copies - some of the books being published these days are gorgeous. Bookshop chains do special editions of some of the big new releases and they are stunning. But I was enchanted with ebooks from the very first moment :-) My new tablet has something called an "immersive reading experience", which seems to turn the app icons into grayscale (or close) so they don't look as interesting. And it works!



Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

This was a good collection of short stories about Latina women in Colorado, and I read one every day as part of my short story project. Some of them were a complete little story, while others left things open at the end, which is usually what frustrates me about short stories. If only there was more story...But I'm going to practice just appreciating what was there, instead of wishing for more.

Something terrible has happened with Overdrive/Libby, which won't let me borrow things. It's particularly annoying as there's a Robin Hobb book that's just become available and I really want it for one of my February fantasy reads, but I just can't get it. The app keeps telling me to enter my card number and then says the library server is overwhelmed. OMG maybe I'm on a list :-)

If you are looking for short stories, I can recommend my most recent listen. Supporting cast, by Kit De Waal. From 2 minutes to 20 minutes long.
I like the idea of a short story a day, I'm not sure if I could be disciplined enough to put a book down after just one.

>115 mysterymax: I'm not a e-reader either. I have read precisely one book on a tablet and nope, not for me. Maybe when I retire and I spend less time at a screen it might appeal more. or when I try and read Alan Moore's Jerusalem this year. 1300 pages hardback... that's going to put a strain on the wrists!

>117 Helenliz: Thanks for the recommendation, Helen! That collection seems to be on the shelf at my library so I'll look for it at lunchtime.

The elibrary seems to be fixed, which is a relief. I know that heaps of people must have experienced the same problem, but I did spend the weekend wondering "Does the library know about this?"

>116 susanj67: A puzzlarium, what a great idea. Sounds so much more inviting than 'a table in the basement'!

>116 susanj67: "But I was enchanted with ebooks from the very first moment " Me, too!! I practically hyperventilated over my first Kindle, which I still have even though you can no longer download anything to it. LOVE ebooks which completely changed reading in bed for me. And it makes reading the Big books so much easier on my carpal tunnel.

Thank goodness they got the elibrary fixed. I really hate when technology doesn't work the way it's supposed to - I have no patience.

I love the idea of the puzzlarium.

Hoping Monday is being kind to you - you know how I feel about Mondays.

>119 mysterymax: But Max, you will soon have the table in the basement. The puzzlarium remains a dream for me :-)

>120 Crazymamie: Mamie, I was *so excited* when the Kindle came to the UK, and I pre-ordered one. I think they were two or three versions into it by the time it launched here. It got stolen en route - the only package from Amazon that's ever been lost. And they made me wait two weeks for a new one. When that one eventually arrived the packaging had "Kindle" written all over it, which was very dumb. Then the Fire tablet came out here in 2012 and finally I could get apps. I'd heard of apps, but we all had BlackBerry phones at work and there was no real app store. Only iPhone owners had apps. Monday was OK - I was careful not to look directly at it, and I just did the best I could :-)



Morgan Is My Name by Sophie Keetch

This is the first in a trilogy about Morgan Le Fay, from Arthurian legend. I loved it. It's the author's first novel, and a couple of the LT reviews weren't that impressed, but I was. It was maybe a teeny bit slow in the middle, but overall it was excellent. Book 2 is out in July, which is very exciting. But now I have a dilemma. It reads like a historical novel, except it's a legend, and there was a bit of magic, so I suppose strictly speaking it's a fantasy novel, but it wasn't fantastical in the dragon sense. I'm not sure which category to put it in. Hmmm.

I was initially resistant to the idea of ebooks, I just loved the look and feel of paper books. But then once I got my kobo I was hooked! Plus having a knackered wrist and increasingly middle-aged eyesight means that my tolerance for big fat heavy books with tiny print has shrunk exponentially.

I love my Kindle! Once I had one in my hot little hands I've never looked back and every year I find myself reading more and more e-books. I would say that about 80% of my reading is electronic.

>122 Jackie_K: Jackie, I also have quite a few chunksters on my Kindle that I wouldn't read in hard copy! And I love the way it's possible to get older books either on Kindle/Kobo etc or Project Gutenberg, when the library copies would be grimly filthy if they were still held at all.

>123 DeltaQueen50: Judy, I definitely make full use of the elibrary :-) I still read hard copies from the library, but that's at least partly because it's very near my office. When I have to make a special trip things might be different.



The Casuarina Tree by W Somerset Maugham

I wonder whether booksellers and librarians are scratching their heads about the sudden popularity of this little collection :-) If they've read House of Doors they will understand, as the legal case at the heart of that book is featured in one of the stories in this volume and Tan Twan Eng mentions it in a list of resources at the end. That's why I bought it, and I really enjoyed the stories. My only gripe was the OCR-based text which had lots of typos, and I paid money for it and everything...It was my first experience of Maugham, but now I want to read everything.

I finally got a kindle a few years ago so I wasn't taking 10 or 12 books in my luggage when we went on a trip. But I still mostly read physical books as I'm trying to clear them from my shelves. (I don't want them to feel neglected.) I usually have one physical, one e-book, and an audio going at the same time.

>124 susanj67: So glad you liked it! I was also appalled by all the typos. So far, my favorite Maugham has been The Painted Veil.

>121 susanj67: Adding this one to The List - sounds good.

How did we get to the end of January already?! It just slipped by. That is crazy about your first Kindle - I cannot imagine having to wait two weeks for a replacement. Was that because they were backordered? I had pre-ordered mine, too, and probably would have cried if it had gone on walkabout. Agonizing. Agree that advertising the contents on the packaging was not a stellar idea. The apps part made me laugh - we are Apple people, so I have never thought about the apps not being readily available on certain devices.

Hooray for Monday behaving itself. Friday is Abby's birthday - she will be 28!! Unbelievable even though I have been here for every minute of it.

>125 dudes22: Betty, I'm also trying to reduce my (small) pile of hard copies, so I have multiple things on the go too. I try to make them all quite different, so I don't get confused :-)

>126 Crazymamie: Hello Mamie! I remember typos being common in the olden days when OCR was a bigger thing than it is now, but I was a bit surprised to see so many. I think Amazon wanted to wait to see if the stolen parcel would show up before they sent me a new one, but it was obviously never going to. And I worked with someone who'd got one as a gift despite not being a reader, so that was an added annoyance. I agree that February has come round very quickly. How can Abby be 28 on Friday?!!! Amazing :-)

Tomorrow there are Strangers coming, as my development is organising window replacements for those flats that need them. I've asked for a quote for a new door to my kitchen balcony, as the door there now has an iffy handle and it's hard to open and close. It's a glass door, though, so falls within the general window upgrade (apparently - I have my doubts but we'll see). I'd love one with a top panel that opens while the bottom part stays closed, like a stable door. I'm not sure those exist in glass, though. I've got to disassemble the huge jigsaw that I hurried to finish last night, and then have a bit of a tidy-up, so of course I'm on the internet instead. I don't know where I am on the inspection schedule, but they're starting at 8. Eek.

I managed to borrow Royal Assassin from the elibrary over the weekend and I read the first two chapters on the way home this evening as I just missed a bus and had to wait 15 minutes for the next one. Thank goodness for ebooks :-) My total read for January is 13 books - not all the specific titles I was trying to read but a decent enough tally anyway.

>122 Jackie_K: My first iPad was a gift and I did put the Kindle app on it but I still mostly read paper books. Now I read at least as many ebooks as the others, especially when it comes to fiction. It’s so handy for bed reading and with overcrowded shelves the compactness is a great bonus.

>128 hailelib: Ebooks are definitely the friend of anyone who lives in a small space :-)

Happy February, everyone! It seems to have come around very fast, although I know that, logically, January this year had just as many days as last year. Unless of course we really *are* the subject of an alien experiment and we just think that...

My plan for today involved going to donate some jigsaws to a charity shop, but fortunately I checked the weekend tube closures and learned that the line I need is not, in fact, working. I'm glad I saw that before I went through the ticket gates and attempted to use it. So instead I'm having a bit of a sort-out. The house looks very tidy after being readied for the door man on Thursday. He came, but when shown the door he shook his head and said they were only replacing glass and not whole doors. The caretaker, who was supervising the visit, shook his *own* head and muttered something uncomplimentary about the managing agent, who apparently had made many mistakes in organising the visit, leaving some people off the list and promising others things that could not in fact be delivered. Like doors. But I'm trying to maintain the tidy look by reorganising some things and it's going well.

I didn't quite finish all the things I had planned for January, but I did read some other things. I thought for February I would attempt the following:

Books published in 2024: The House on Rye Lane, which is waiting for me to pick up at the library.
Victorian writing: A Thousand Miles Up The Nile - I *really* am going to finish this. I've got a Project Gutenberg copy, which I've been reading in the web browser on my Chromebook, but last night I downloaded it as an epub from Project Gutenberg and it now appears in the "Play Books" app on my new tablet, which is magic. I've never tried a Google ebook before, but the app looks good. I'm not sure how it appeared on my tablet, because the tablet copied the apps from my phone and it's not on that. I have "Play Games" and "Play Music", but "Play Books" seems to be a new one for me.
Short stories: I've got Supporting Cast, thanks to Helen's recommendation, and also Never Have I Ever.
Series: Undecided, but maybe another Crowner John book.
Historical:I'm going to continue Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World and for fiction I have The Temple of Fortuna.
Thrillers: Probably the one Tony Park book I have left, and then I can donate them.
Fantasy: Royal Assassin, Mistress of the Empire and A Court of Thorns and Roses
Science and nature writing: I intended Frostquake for this category but it's really historical, so I'll have to find something else. Maybe 12 Birds to Save Your Life
Business: I have Patrick Raddon Keefe's Rogues.
Everything else: I'll see what comes along, as things are always coming along.

January felt like it lasted about a bajillion days to me, so I was glad to see the end of it.

Frustrating about the glass door. I hope it can get sorted soon.

Ah, tidying. My never-ending battle...

Have a good weekend, Susan!

I've watched Karenpuzzles on you tube also , Susan. In fact when I started puzzling in earnest a few years ago , it was her channel I checked out on how to do puzzles quickly, and how to sort quickly ( sort of quickly, if you are me ). I had done a few puzzles with the kids and my husband many years ago, but I was a bit intimidated when I did my first puzzle several years ago. I really love her channel , though I have not watched in some months. She has such a pleasant , down to earth personality.

>130 katiekrug: Katie, I've made some tidying progress! I've also found out where I can take small electricals to be disposed of, so that's good. The library had a bin for them for a while, but it was taken away and not replaced. It did seem popular though.

>131 vancouverdeb: Deborah, I think she's the YouTube queen of puzzling, although she doesn't seem to post as often now as she used to. I also find all the speed-puzzling content boring. But I do like the giant ones she does, and her tips for organising things.

This morning I went to the "Cute" exhibition at Somerset House, which was interesting. https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/cute It looks at how "cute" has become such a "thing", and there were some good exhibits, including parts of a super-fan's Hello Kitty collection of branded objects (including a tin of spam), a games arcade and a Hello Kitty disco.



One of the Good Guys by Araminta Hall

If most men claim to be good, why are most women still afraid to walk home alone at night? That's the question at the beginning of the blurb for this book, which is told from multiple points of view. It starts very promisingly, with Cole. Cole is one of the good guys. We know this because he tells us so. But the story goes off in an unexpected direction and was ultimately a bit of a disappointment. There's also one completely tasteless bit that I'm surprised the author's publisher let her keep in, and two nerdy legal things that are just wrong.

The Temple of Fortuna by Elodie Harper

This is the third book in the Wolf Den trilogy, which starts with The Wolf Den and continues with The House With The Golden Door. It's *so good*. It's one of the best historical series (or trilogies) I can remember. It's set mostly in Pompeii, where the Wolf Den was apparently a real place. It was a brothel, and what book 1 did particularly well was show the horror of the lives of the women who had to work there. One of my big bugbears with historical fiction is the "cheery whore" trope, and this trilogy smashes it into tiny pieces. The heroine, Amara, moves on but her past is always so close and so threatening. I can't wait to see what the author does next. There's a reference in the acknowledgments section at the back to a new book set in Roman Britain, which is very exciting.

Supporting Cast by Kit de Waal

Thanks to Helen for this excellent recommendation! This is a collection of short stories based on characters from the author's full-length novels and I loved it. All the stories are excellent, even the *very* short ones.

>134 susanj67: Hurrah! I'm always worried when I recommend something,- what if they don't like it?! So the hurrah has a side order of phew!

Hello, Susan! Bummer about the door not being included in the replacing of the glass. Love the idea of the type of door you were describing.

I'm impressed with your plans for February - I have some very loose goals, but I try not to write them down as that seems to be the kiss of death for me actually completing them.

Hello Kitty Spam just seems wrong.

>133 susanj67: This looks good - adding the trilogy to The List.

>134 susanj67: Helen already got me with this one, so I am thrilled to see you second it.

Hoping that your Wednesday has been smooth and uncomplicated.

>135 Helenliz: Helen, I know what you mean!

>136 Crazymamie: Hello, Mamie! Wednesday is nearly over, which is probably the best thing that can be said for it. My February goals have changed a little bit with the arrival of some library books I wasn't expecting (right now, I mean - I do accept responsibility for reserving them). Glossy arrived yesterday despite officially being four weeks away and A Court of Thorns and Roses has also shown up early. So now I'm hip, cool and happening. I knew I'd get there one day. I'm about 25% of the way through it and nothing much has happened yet, but apparently the story gets *really* good in book 2, so I've reserved that and it should arrive at the end of April.

And now I think I'll turn in and turn some pages. Well, swipe some pages.

Ooh, excitement! I just bought a ticket for this event at the British Library, which is a reading of Goblin Market and other poems by Christina Rosetti on 20 February at 7pm https://www.seetickets.com/event/the-josephine-hart-poetry-hour-goblin-market/br... The link includes an online ticket option, so anyone can attend. (This site is legitimate, by the way - the British Library is still not back to normal after a cyber-attack last year, so they are selling tickets through this site instead of their own). Goblin Market is one of the things I wanted to read for Victober last year, but I didn't get to it. One of the actors doing the reading is the totally fabulous Shirley Henderson, so it's going to be extra-good :-)

>138 susanj67: Shirley Henderson is an excellent choice of actor for this reading! Have a great time :)

>139 rabbitprincess: Yes, she's one of my favourites. I still remember how good she was as Marie Melmotte in The Way We Live Now. I've got an online ticket as I got lazy during lockdown and it's easier just to click a link than to go in person :-)

Today it is *not raining*. I've been down to the big Tesco over the river, where the freezer cabinets are a whole world of wonder. I wasn't needed to assist anyone this time but a couple of times ago a tiny elderly lady standing next to the pet food said "Can someone tall please help me?" so I got a multi-pack of cat food down for her. Then she said "Oh, they have the chicken one in too - I'd like one of those, please." But *all the packs have pictures of cats on them*. It took me a while...

This afternoon I want to read one of my hard copy library books, as I'm slightly overbooked at present and I need to make some progress. A Court of Thorns and Roses is something I can easily put down, which isn't great. I'm about half-way through it.

The House on Rye Lane by Susan Allott

There are three timelines in this thriller about a house in Peckham Rye, and the story whizzes along. I liked it, although it's a bit scary how 2008 (just after Lehman Brothers collapsed) now seems like a long time ago.

Another sunny-ish day! Amazing. I was going to go out but then Amazon announced that it would delivering a package today (it was supposed to come tomorrow) so now I can't, or at least I can't until it's arrived.

I've just sent Royal Assassin back to the elibrary, half read, and reserved a hard copy to read the rest of it. Time was running out, people were waiting and it was all a bit stressful as I have other things to read. Now I just have to hope the hard copy isn't too grim. Today I think I'll aim to finish A Court of Thorns and Roses, which has even more people waiting.

Yesterday I forgot to read my short story, which is the first time this year :-( I'm not going to give up, though. I'm reading Never Have I Ever, which is weird, but I'm carrying on.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas

Finally I have joined the romantasy world properly and read this OG classic. It was published in 2015, which I think was the beginning of "romantasy" as a category - at least if some of the BookTubers are to be believed. But 2015 probably seems like a long time ago to many of them. The heroine is a human, who goes to live in the world of the fae, and the hero is the High Lord of the Summer Court, who is sometimes a roaring beast and sometimes a hunky man with a mask. Everyone has masks due to something that happened years before.

As this is the first book, there's quite a bit of set-up, and I found it a bit ho-hum until about 75% of the way through it, when suddenly the story took off and I couldn't wait to see what happened next. The "romantic" scenes were less cringeworthy than more recent imitators, but still a bit silly. I do accept, however, that I'm not the target audience for the series, and fae are just the modern version of the pirates who were all over romance in the 80s. I've reserved book 2 from the elibrary and it should be with me at the end of April according to Borrowbox. The True Fans say that book 2 is where the series really takes off.

My next finish is going to be Glossy, which I'm aiming to get through this afternoon. It's pretty short and also interesting.

Glossy: Ambition, Beauty and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier by Marisa Meltzer

This is a book about a brand I've never bought because it seems so ridiculously expensive. The book didn't change my mind, but it was an interesting read, particularly about female company leaders and the nonsense they go through.

Pompeii by Robert Harris

After The Temple of Fortuna, which mostly involved the eruption of Vesuvius and its aftermath, I wanted to read more about Pompeii. I saw this on the shelf at the library, but the ebook version wasn't as grubby :-) I loved the story, which is told mostly from the point of view of the aquarius of the aqueduct in Campania. Two days before the eruption, something went wrong with the aqueduct (at least in the book - I'm not sure about real life) and the aquarius and his team set out to fix it. But they saw strange things as they went - vapour vanishing back into the earth, damage to the aqueduct which looked as though the earth had sprung up and broken one of the pipes, and streaks on the side of the mountain, which turned out to be ash...Other characters are Pliny the Elder, who set out from Misenum to document what was happening, and a corrupt former slave and his family, including a daughter he was trying to marry off.

Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap

This is a collection of short stories, and they're a mix of Filipino folk tale-inspired things, some fantasy, some horror and other things. I really liked some of them, while others were a bit of a miss for me, but that's OK. I'm glad I tried them.

In other news, I went to the "Fashion City" exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands this morning, which is definitely worth a look. They always have good exhibitions and its pretty close to me too, so perfect for a morning out.

I've just been watching some YouTube and discovered another news series, DARN IT. The first one should be with me on the 23rd. It's Blue Monday, which is the first in a series by Nicci French. But right now I have no elibrary books, which is amazing. I should be able to make some progress with one of my own things.

Femlandia by Christina Dalcher

I enjoyed this dystopian novel about the promised-new-land of female-only communities founded by the narrator's mother. Set just after another massive financial crash which has ruined the world, the narrator and her teenage daughter make their way to the original Femlandia as they have nowhere else to go. And it seems amazing. But is it really?

This was my final hard copy library book, but Royal Assassin is ready for me to pick up tomorrow and Portable Magic arrived from the elibrary overnight.

BB for the Richard Harris book!

>148 mysterymax: Enjoy!

It's a bright sunny day in London, even though I thought the forecast was for colder temperatures. I've got the hard copy of Royal Assassin, so finishing that is my priority for the weekend. I'm also reading An Immense World, which I saw on Jackie's thread (Hi Jackie!) and it's excellent.

But right now I'm wondering what triggered Amazon to send me an offer on cereal. It's "based on my recent purchase" but my purchase history includes rubbish bags, Dettol laundry cleanser and Woolite dark wash. It's a mystery.

Oh but wait. I checked my ebook purchases and, um, the most recent is The Winnowing Flame trilogy. GOOD LORD. Jeff, you have some work to do on the algorithm.

Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb

This is book 2 in the first trilogy, which I am rereading. And just as well, really, as I can't remember most of what happened. I started this in e-format but read the second half in hard copy, and it seemed to go faster. The elibrary has book 3 available now, but I'm going to alternate the Hobb series with the Raymond E Feist series, so my next fantasy read will be Mistress of the Empire. I think two chunky fantasy books per month might be a bit stressful.

Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers by Emma Smith

This is an interesting look at books as objects, instead of just a collection of content (like an ebook).

>149 susanj67: Excellent, glad that the BB for An Immense World hit the target!

>152 Jackie_K: Well, it did until chapter 7, when he referred to an individual as "they" and "them". And in a science book, too. I couldn't take him seriously after that, so I've sent it back. It's definitely an interesting topic, though.

>151 susanj67: that sounds interesting.

>154 Helenliz: Helen, it's the sort of book you can read in any order (perish the thought!) - all the chapters are about different things.

In three days the library has produced the following:

Bad Buying
Absolutely & Forever (from the Walter Scott Prize longlist)
The Binding Song, which is by the author of the Pompeii series further up my thread. I thought this was a crime novel but it seems to be horror :-O
And when I was picking that one up this evening I saw Act of Oblivion so I snagged that too. A friend loved it, and I'm interested in the story, which I'm sure was the subject of a TV series a while ago. Hmmm, Google suggests it was called "New Worlds".

Normal Rules Don't Apply by Kate Atkinson

This is a collection of short stories, many with connections to the others, and set in a world that's a bit different. A world where normal rules don't apply, in fact. Overall I enjoyed these, but they illustrate my main issue with short stories - with a great writer like Kate Atkinson I want more, more, more. I don't want the story to stop. After a couple of pages of a story I want it to go on for a whole book.

Today I'm having a day of holiday, as the end of the holiday year is coming up at work and I still have days left. I'm planning to read for all of it, which I think is entirely reasonable :-)

Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris

Its official: I'm a Robert Harris fan. This is an excellent story about the hunt for the men who signed the death warrant for Charles I, and in particular two men who made their way to the US. Ned Whalley and William Goffe were colonels in Cromwell's New Model Army, and Whalley was Goffe's father-in-law. Fleeing England after the Restoration, they went to Massachusetts, hoping to lie low, but it didn't quite work out like that. Most of the people in the book are real, but Harris invented the man who was leading the hunt for them. There's a list of further reading at the end, and I'm definitely going to look for some of the books. I keep intending to learn more about the English Civil War, so maybe this time I'll finally do it.

>157 susanj67: I was about to add this to my wishlist when I saw that I already had it on my library wishlist. I shall have to give this a nudge closer to the top as I am a Robert Harris fan as well.

Hi Susan, hope that you have a fabulous reading day!

Using a day off to read sounds like a perfect plan to me.

>157 susanj67: Wasn't Act of Oblivion excellent! Robert Harris is one of my favourite authors. I also enjoyed Pompeii (post #145). Try Conclave if you haven't already read it.

Oh, a day of reading sounds fantastic!

>156 susanj67: How wonderful, I hope you enjoy your reading day to the fullest!

>158 DeltaQueen50: Judy, I hope you can get to it soon!

>159 mdoris: Thanks Mary! It was excellent :-)

>160 katiekrug: Katie, it was also raining, so there was that...Not that I need an excuse. Today it's not raining and yet I'm still reading...

>161 VivienneR: Vivienne, yes it was superb! Previously I'd read The Second Sleep, which was underwhelming, and then The Ghost, which I loved, and then Pompeii. Thank you for the recommendation for Conclave - I'll see if the library has it on Monday.

>162 Jackie_K: Jackie, it's so nice to make it official and just spend the whole day reading.

>163 MissBrangwen: Thanks Mirjam! It went well :-)



Absolutely & Forever by Rose Tremain

This is one of the longlisted books for the Walter Scott prize for historical fiction despite being set mostly in the 1960s (!) It came in very quickly after I reserved it, and it's *fabulous*. Why have I never read any Rose Tremain before? I must remedy that. I wonder whether there's someone else called "Rose" that I didn't get on with, and I've confused the two authors. Still, it's always nice to find a decent backlist :-)

The Sentence arrived at the elibrary overnight and I also have The Binding Song. I think I'll read The Sentence first as it's new and there will be people waiting for it.

Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World by Irene Vallejo

The title suggests that this is about books and how they came about. It starts with the library of Alexandria, which is promising. But it's mostly just pointless musing about book-related things, with anecdotes from the author's own life and lots of trendy buzzwords. The bits about the ancient world were good, but I expected the whole book to be about that. Every time I picked it up I was reminded that it wasn't what I expected or wanted it to be. And it's far, far too long. The publicity says it's a "million-copy bestseller", but I'd love to know how many of those purchasers actually finished it. I did, but I'm really not sure why. It's taken me *weeks* to get through, but yesterday I realised I could finish it if I just put in a bit more effort. And now I have. Yay!

Bad Buying by Peter Smith

This is a book about business, but there are lessons in it for anyone who buys anything, which is all of us. We may not all be signing multi-million pound supply contracts, but there are traps everywhere for buyers who don't know what they're doing, or how to measure the value of what they get in return for their money. I found it really interesting, and I'm going to send a copy to Oldest Nephew, who recently incorporated a company as step 1 in his life-plan to become a tycoon :-)

I started two new books yesterday to celebrate finishing Papyrus - The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff and Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion. And I've picked up (or clicked on) Frostquake again, as I want to finish it this month too.

>165 susanj67: How disappointing.
>166 susanj67: I hope nephew appreciates his very practical present.

>167 Helenliz: Helen, yes Papyrus was disappointing. If I'd borrowed it from the library it would have gone back fairly quickly but I'd bought it as a Kindle Daily Deal, so I thought I should keep going. That's silly, really.



The Sentence by Christina Dalcher

This is set in a US which abolished the death penalty. A few states brought it back, but with a law which said that, if it turned out someone had been wrongfully convicted and executed, the prosecutor in their case had to die. It's an alarming premise, and it was an interesting read.

>151 susanj67: Added Portable Magic to my wishlist.

>169 hailelib: I hope you enjoy it!



The End of Reality by Jonathan Taplin

This book looks at how four billionaires are selling out our future. The billionaires in question are Elon Musk, who wants to colonise Mars, Mark Zuckerberg, who wants us to spend all our time in the Metaverse, Peter Thiel, who wants to live to be 160 and Marc Andreesen, who is trying to convince the world that cryptocurrencies are something other than a giant scam (I paraphrase that last one).

While I don't think the Metaverse will ever take off, and the US government isn't realistically going to give Elon $10 trillion for his Mars project, these chaps have other projects which are just as damaging. Facebook, for example. And Twitter. (The author acknowledges this).

It's a really interesting read. It was finished at the end of 2022, when Trump as the Republican candidate for 2024 was something that could conceivably happen but surely wouldn't because that would be insane. Well, we can see how that's working out.

The Binding Song by Elodie Harper

This is the first novel by the author of The Wolf Den trilogy, which I loved. The main character in this one is a psychologist starting a new job in a creepy prison in Norfolk, and the setting is very well done - lots of huge skies, incessant rain and general menace. Her co-workers are mostly dreadful, and then there are the prisoners...I think this is classified as horror and I'm not sure I agree with that, but I enjoyed it. The Death Knock is waiting for me on the reserve shelf at the library, so then I will have read everything the author has written so far.

The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams

The "Jericho" in this story is part of Oxford, and the main character is a "bindery girl" at a publishing company based on the Oxford University Press during World War I. The idea is excellent, and the author has obviously researched the time and place a lot. I just didn't really connect with any of the characters, which was a shame. This is the second book set in and around the press - The Dictionary of Lost Words is the first one and there's a little bit of crossover but the main character in that book doesn't appear here. I haven't read the first one. I know!

Next I started Wild by Kristin Hannah (also known as Magic Hour, it seems) but I sent the e-copy back after a couple of chapters as I didn't see anything that made me want to read the rest of it.

So currently I have from the library:

Conclave
The Late Train to Gipsy Hill
The Death Knock
Poverty, By America
Pathogenesis (a random new book from the library yesterday when I went in to pick up Poverty).

From my own books I'm reading:

The Witches: Salem 1692
Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion
Frostquake (this one pretends it's about the great frost of winter 1962/63 but it's really just a social history of the early 60s, including loads of boring stuff about the Beatles, with added cold weather)
Mistress of the Empire

Frostquake by Juliet Nicolson

The subtitle of this book is "How the frozen winter of 1962 changed Britain forever". But that is misleading. As I said in my post above, it's just a social history of the early 1960s. The cold weather happened at the same time as various events but it didn't cause them. If you want a social history of the 60s there are better books, which don't name-drop the author's famous family at every opportunity.

>173 susanj67: Glad to read your opinion. This looked tempting because I remember that winter very well. But I've been disappointed before with Nicolson's grand titles. The perfect summer: England 1911 just before the storm was also a name-dropper for a few people I've never heard of.

>174 VivienneR: Vivienne, I think I've read The Perfect Summer - I definitely read The Great Silence which apparently I liked (finding my old 2010 thread was a rabbit-hole experience!) but this one was a let-down. I think I expected it to be more about the cold, which maybe I shouldn't have given the author is a historian.



Roar by Cecelia Ahern

This is a collection of fantastical short stories, about women. Well, nearly all of them are about women. The main character in one of them is a man performing womanface, because of course it is. No book about women is complete these days without one of the special new women.

I've started Pathogenesis, which is fascinating, despite a reference to a "pregnant person". That would be a woman. An actual woman. That's probably why she's referred to as a "person" - she's not special enough. In a hundred years there will be an LT group for people who collect old hard copies from the days of the madness. "Found a they/them from 2023!" "I've got a tip about a uterus-haver from 2022, if only I can get into town to pick it up in time." "I found two birth-givers in one trip yesterday!"

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

This is an interesting look at the problems in the US which cause such huge inequality. Some will be the same for other countries. I was bemused by the bit where the author said that it is too hard for people to understand the tax system in the US, and that in the UK the government works it all out and just sends people a form to sign. That is most definitely *not* what happens for a huge number of people in the UK. I wondered whether some of his other examples of alleged better practices overseas were accurate.

>175 susanj67: "a man performing womanface"

I don't know what you mean by this. Could you say more?

>175 susanj67: And a chest feeder. I also am horrified by the eradication of women from the language.

>175 susanj67: And referring to a woman as "a person with a cervix". You've got to be kidding me! Way to go Ireland!

>177 KeithChaffee: Google will explain it all.

>178 pamelad: Pamela, yes, it's just the old misogyny dressed up as a new civil rights movement. Insane.

>179 mdoris: Mary, it seems like the Irish referendum was quite a shock to the people who weren't paying attention. Darn those women with their ability to vote...The Guardian (of course) ran an article about "what went wrong". 67% of people voted against one proposed amendment and 74% against the other one. So nothing went "wrong" at all. I'm not sure they understand how referenda work.



The Late Train to Gipsy Hill by Alan Johnson

This is Alan Johnson's first novel, and was recommended by one of this group. I searched my own thread but it must have been on that person's thread, so thank you! I enjoyed this, which involves a lot of Russian gangsters running around London and a hapless young English chap caught up in it all. The London-y bits were all accurate save for a reference to a Marks & Spencer in Regent Street, where I'm pretty sure there is no M&S. It's the first in a series about the main police officer involved in the investigation, so I'm going to add it to my series category. My library had the second one on the shelf when I borrowed this one, so I'll get that soon. It's One of Our Ministers Is Missing. A third one will be published later this year.

I'll be WFH tomorrow as we all have to have the front doors of our flats improved in some way, for fire safety requirements. We were told that the man will remove the door and take it downstairs to the carpark to work on it, but yesterday he was doing one downstairs, right outside the flat. The noise! So it might be a stressful day and already I'm having dreams about not having a door and people appearing in the flat without warning. I might have to turn it into a day of holiday if I can't hear myself think.

Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History by Jonathan Kennedy

This is an interesting look at the influence of germs on human history, but a LT review describes it as very "preachy", which I think is also accurate. The author seems always to bear in mind the pasting he'll get from half-wits with septum piercings if he goes off-message and fails to condemn e.g. all white people for being evil, all the time. There's a lot of that. However, as offence is now taken for the slightest reason (sometimes no reason at all), writers do have to be careful.

The library stack is now down to just two novels and an ebook of short stories. But A Court of Mist and Fury is arriving on or before Friday, so I can't be complacent.

Well, A Court of Mist and Fury arrived, but the writing is so bad I can't wade through hundreds of pages, so I've sent it back. Someone who wasn't expecting it for another few weeks has just had a lovely surprise for their weekend. I'm going to read Conclave instead, and maybe some of my own things. My current short story collection, Bodies From the Library 6 is very good. It's another collection of crime stories and there are some excellent ones.

The first few pages of Conclave seemed strangely familiar. Yes, apparently I read it at the end of 2021. D'oh! But it's 378 pages that I don't need to read today. I'll move on to The Death Knock, which is my last hard copy library book (!)

>180 susanj67: I'm glad you enjoyed The Late Train to Gipsy Hill. I have the next one in the series too and will be keeping an eye out for the third one of the series.

I hope your door repair wasn't too disruptive.

>183 susanj67: I know I enjoyed it but don't remember Conclave being so long.

>184 VivienneR: Vivienne, I'm very pleased to have a new series to follow! The door was completed successfully, but it took five hours in between taking it off and the work being finished. There's a group of workmen and I think mine might have been working on multiple doors down in the carpark, because he was gone for a long time. But he did a good job and cleaned up after himself, and the door now swings closed instead of having to be pulled closed. They also added something to the edges of the doors which has some fire-retarding function, so now it complies with the new regulations. It now seems warmer in the little entry hall - I wasn't aware of heat being lost through the door but maybe it was.

When McKinsey Comes To Town arrived at the elibrary on the weekend, so I've started that. I've also just got Hungry Ghosts, which is one of the Walter Scott prize long-listed books. I'll start that over the long weekend. Easter seems to be coming up very quickly, and Amazon has just sent me coupons for their Amazon Fresh stores, including an Easter egg offer. Ooh :-)

>185 susanj67: Sounds like they did a good job, Susan. I haven't heard of a fire-retardant edge before. It will make you feel safer.

Hungry Ghosts is in at the library. I've added it to my pick-up list.

>186 VivienneR: Vivienne, I started Hungry Ghosts last night and it looks promising!



The Death Knock by Elodie Harper

This is an excellent thriller, but does involve women being kidnapped and held in a basement, giving it a bit of a The Collector vibe. That's the scariest book I've ever read, so I was a bit cautious with this one. But I've taken today as a day of holiday, and it's raining (no, really) so I've had plenty of time to finish it. I wonder whether the author is going to continue with her historical novels after the success of The Wolf Den trilogy, or whether she might go back to books like this one. She's now an auto-read for me, regardless.

I now have no more hard copy library books, which is amazing. I have three ebooks, but one is a short story collection I've nearly finished. This weekend I'd also like to finish Mistress of the Empire, which is one of my own books, so I can stay on track with my plan to read one large fantasy book every month.

Bodies from the Library 6 ed Tony Medawar

This is a very good collection of short crime stories from well-known writers (at at least they were well-known in their time). It's the sixth collection and no, I haven't read the other five, but, um...anyway...This is the onlyone the elibrary has so I'll look out for the others in hard copy. But my next short story collection is First Thrills, which is edited by Lee Child. Hooray!

Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates it. It's quite overcast and windy here, so it's a perfect day to stay at home and read, assisted by the fact that all the train lines near me are closed for the weekend.

I'm making good progress with Hungry Ghosts, and I started First Thrills last night and read three stories. I'm only supposed to be reading one every day for my short story project but I couldn't help myself. I've also found the first three collections of Bodies from the Library in the Borrowbox elibrary, which is a smaller collection than Libby, so I've reserved the first one. Today I want to make some progress with When McKinsey Comes to Town, which I'm about 40% of the way through. It's very detailed, and not all of it is interesting.

Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein

I read this because it's on the Walter Scott prize longlist. It's set in rural Trinidad in the 1940s, and overall I liked it, although there were lots of hard words in it. As I had an ebook I could press the words and get a definition, but some of them didn't even have that. LT reviews seem to be mixed, which I can understand, but I'd definitely like the read the author's next book.

When McKinsey Comes to Town by Walt Bogdanich

This book looks at McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm that seems to be everywhere. Each chapter is about a different company or country and how McKinsey charged a lot of money for advice that ultimately damaged the tax-paying populace, public health, democracy...Some chapters were unnecessarily detailed, and I'll admit to skipping the chapter on sports analytics entirely as anything to do with sports bores me to tears. Other chapters were too short. The final one is about the NHS and just stopped in the middle of nowhere, really. But of course the book repeats the compulsory mantra that the NHS is the greatest thing ever, what with being "free". You'd think the author might understand the difference between "free at the point of delivery" and "free". The former involves paying eye-watering amounts of tax to end up on a waiting list that currently has ten million people on it and people dying due to massive waiting times in A&E. The latter involves money appearing like magic, which it never does.

Today is going to be the warmest day of the year so far, which is not, in itself, surprising as the weather is getting warmer, but it's going to be *very* warm, due to Storm Kathleen. Maybe even 22C!

Yesterday The Grace of Kings arrived at the elibrary, so I started that last night and it's excellent. It's the first in the Dandelion Dynasty quartet and it's going to be my focus for the weekend.

>188 susanj67: We'll forgive the starting at 6 in this instance. I've enjoyed the British library crime classics collections of themed short stories.

I'll post this on a couple of threads, I'm looking for ideas of poetry,readings etc that feature bells &/or bellringing.
Any ideas, throw them my way.
Thanks

>192 Helenliz: Helen, those British Library collections are excellent, aren't they?! I read a couple at the end of last year.

I don't have any ideas for bells, sorry.

So far it's sunny here, but I think the storm is mostly in the west of the country. I'm going down to the big Tesco later, which is always exciting. Before that, though, I'm going to read some more of The Grace of Kings, which I should finish today.

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu

LT reviews seem to run from DNF to five stars for this book, but I really enjoyed it and read it very fast. I think that's important, as it happens, because there are *gazillions* of characters and if you just read a bit at a time it would be very hard to remember who everyone was. A map is also important. There's one at the front of the book, but it's not great and if you have the ebook it's not much use. This one http://kenliu.name/binary/Dara_Map_me.jpg, from the author's own website, is much better. I read most of the book yesterday with the map on my Chromebook and it really helped to fix the world in my head.

The story is a "silkpunk" fantasy about an epic war for control of a kingdom. It's based on Chinese history and myths of various civilisations, including The Iliad, and there was one reference to the "wine-dark sea" which made me smile :-) My main issue with it was the lack of good female characters, but that's true of so much history and myth. There are three more books in the series, so I'm hoping for more women in those.

Mistress of the Empire by Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts

This is the third book in the second trilogy of this series, so now I'm six books in. This one took me a while and was perhaps a bit long, but it wrapped up the story really well. I think this trilogy is the only visit to Kelewan in the series, with the rest of the books taking place in Midkemia, but I'm trying not to read spoilers for the later books. The library has the next one as an ebook but I'm reading Assassin's Quest first as I don't want to forget what's happening in that series. Today I discovered that the library has books 3 and 4 of the Dandelion Dynasty in hard copy (I had thought they had books 2 and 3) and they're still in great condition, so that makes me want to get to them pretty soon too.

First Thrills ed Lee Child

This is a collection of short stories by some notable thriller writers, and I liked it a lot. There are various styles and lengths of story, and there were days when I read three or four instead of just one. I think there are now four volumes, and I plan to continue with them. The only downside is that my list of authors to investigate has got quite a bit longer, which isn't really what I need.

ETA: Correction: The cover above (which is the book I had) is a bind-up of all four volumes of First Thrills, so there are no more (sob).

The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh

This is an exceptionally well-plotted police procedural, and the first in a series (? I've already got the next one) about a Welsh police officer and an officer from the English side of the border, who have to investigate the death of a man in a lake through which the border runs. I gobbled it up and immediately got the next one.



Death on the Lusitania by R L Graham

This is a mystery set on the last voyage of the Lusitania, and the main character is a man acting in some capacity on behalf of the British government. There's death and skullduggery and people who may or may not be German agents. And we know how it ends...This is supposed to be the first in a series, but the author is a husband and wife team and the book says the wife died at the end of last year, so I don't know whether there will be any more or not.



How to Stay Smart in a Smart World by Gerd Gigerenzer

Written before Chat GPT was unleashed on the world and everyone went nuts, this is about the types of AI before that, which have plenty of problems of their own. The author looks at what these problems are, at how the tech bosses make all sorts of promises that are mostly lies and about what we can do to ensure that algorithms don't take over the entire world. My own experience is "not that much". It's another trendy bandwagon on which mediocre managers are jumping because it's fashionable. The first big professional negligence claim resulting from the use of generative AI will see it quickly stripped out and everyone will pretend they never believed in it in the first place. A bit like men in women's toilets, although we're at least edging closer to sanity on that subject. But generative AI is everywhere, and it's really, really dumb. (That's my view, not the author's).

Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb

This is book 3 of my reread of the first trilogy in this long series. LT tells me I first read it in 2017 but I remembered very little about it. It's very long - maybe too long. But now I've completed the series and I can move on to the Tawny Man trilogy, which starts with Fool's Errand. That's not currently available at the elibrary so I'll slot in another fantasy novel before it - probably the second one in the Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu.

Today is the Romance Book Blast, if anyone's interested in some romance freebies: https://www.romancebooklovers.com/

>198 susanj67: Thanks for the heads-up -- checking out Romance Book Blast now!

>199 christina_reads: Always happy to be a bad influence :-)



The Secrets of Hartwood Hall by Katie Lumsden

I follow this author's excellent YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@katiejlumsden so I bought this when it was a Kindle Daily Deal. It's her debut novel and it has one of her favourite themes - "Young woman arrives at a spooky house full of secrets". It was an OK read but I don't think it will stay with me. I do want to read her next book, The Trouble with Mrs Montgomery Hurst, which comes out later in the year.

>198 susanj67: I should read more of Hobb's books and have Royal Assassin on my library list to eventual check out.

>201 hailelib: I really like her books, but I'm annoyed with myself for not continuing with the Fitz story sooner. After the first trilogy I read the next three - The Liveship Traders - which were excellent and then I read the Rain Wilds quartet, but I left the Fitz books too long to remember what had happened and had to reread them.

Today it's raining, but I have to go to the supermarket. I might get the tube to the one near the library and pick up some reserves. Waiting for me are:

Loot by Tania James
Music in the Dark by Sally Magnusson
In the Shadow of Vesuvius: A Life of Pliny by Daisy Dunn

A Game of Lies by Clare Mackintosh

This is the second in the DC Ffion Morgan series, and another good instalment. There was one aspect that annoyed me, but this book introduces an excellent dog so he made up for it ;-)

It's now raining even harder than earlier, but I did get some groceries so I can survive tomorrow without going out again if necessary. I started the Pliny book on the bus home and it looks good, but has weird stains on it. Ew.

Today is day 1 of my "Reclaim Your Brain" plan with the Guardian newsletter.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/dec/14/sign-up-to-reclaim-your-bra...

I signed up five weeks ago but didn't follow the suggestions for week 1, which wasn't a great start. However, I now have all five emails and I've started today. My phone is sitting on top of the fridge with a rubber band wound around it. That means it's not right beside me for mindless picking up and scrolling and if I *do* pick it up, the rubber band provides another reminder that I'm trying not to use it. I'd like to use it just for news, and not games/Instagram. I could delete the games and Instagram, but that wouldn't stop me reinstalling them.

So today, instead of playing MergeTopia and watching YouTube videos, I'm going to make some more progress with the Pliny book and start Loot.

Loot by Tania James

If you've visited the V&A in London, you've probably seen Tipu's Tiger, a famous automaton owned by Tipu Sultan and confiscated by the British after the siege of Seringapatam. This novel is the imagined story of the people who made the tiger and what happened next. I loved it, and now I want to read the author's other books.

>204 susanj67: that's interesting. Mine reports on a Monday morning how much more (or less) I used it over the previous week.

>205 susanj67: also interesting...

>206 Helenliz: I think my phone might also do that, but I have tended to ignore it. But no more! I can't believe I started and finished an entire novel today by 2.30. So far I haven't picked up my phone at all. I did check the BBC news website on my Chromebook at lunchtime, but that has no games on it.