On hand for reading next: Chris Adrian's A Better Angel, Lorna Crozier's Small Beneath the Sky, and Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita.

river101 I will be interested to hear from you regarding
The Riders - Tim Winton. Have you read Cloud Street?, one of my favorites.

Now just started Goshawk Squadron by Derek Robinson. It's about the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War, and so far looks like it could be very good. It was shortlisted for the Booker in 1971.

Now I'm reading The Whole Five Feet, Christopher Beha's memoir of reading the Harvard Classics. Very good.

I also started reading Burke's "Neon Rain" yesterday as I was in the mood for something different and had a rare free afternoon. I quickly found myself nearly all the way through it - I couldn't put it down! I love finding out about a great series when there are already a number of books written instead of having to wait for the next one to come out.

Have you the novel 'Stoneangel' by Margaret Laurence??

It for me was a great read, one of my favorites.

I am still reading The Bean Trees. Trying to find time to finish it!

grelobe

So sad that the author did not live to see it's success.

I think with The Poisonwood Bible, the main reason that I did not like it was that I could not warm to an of the main characters.

PAM

Rouan, I also really enjoyed The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and he is planning, if not a series, at least a sequel. See the link below.

I also picked up another book from the library, Elfland by a new writer, Freda Warrington. I was seduced by the beautiful cover painting which looks like it is by Kinuko Craft. I hope it is good, I need a new fantasy writer. After really enjoying Firethorn by Sarah Micklem, I was completely unable to get into the follow-up novel Wildfire. I was disappointed, since I'd been anticipating it.

Now I'm anticipating Connie Willis's new book about the London blitz, Blackout due (I think) in February. I expect it to be a historical/SF blend.

Rosefolly

Did you know Guy Gavriel Kay has a new one coming out next year? Asian inspired this time. Can't wait for that one!

Most of the stories didn't need PC-ing, but one definitely did. It was a fun read - but the picture, Beloved, oh my. Lovely.

(The Beloved quote comes from the Just-So Stories as it is sprinkled throughout the tales as Kipling is talking to his daughter.)

Anyone who has read these to modern kids: do the kids like the stories or are they too old-fashioned (the stories not the kids)?

Nearly finished "Pole to Pole" (good) and halfway through Christopher Moore's Lamb which I am enjoying.

I have, however, been derailed in my reading plan by that show, True Blood. It's addicting.

Thanks! I'm adding The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag to my wish list so I won't forget to watch out for it.

I received Robin McKinley's newest book a couple of days ago and have finished it. It's a collection of short stories she and her husband Peter Dickinson collaborated on entitled Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits. This is the second one in a series they are working on, the first one being concerned with Water. Supposedly, they are collaborating on a book for each of the elements, but as Robin herself admits, her short stores have a strong tendancy to turn into full length novels which puts a spanner in the works!

I just finished reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. One of few non-fiction books I've read, but very insightful. I really liked it. It's all about different real-life success stories and how successful people have achieved success. This book certainly made me think about what opportunity means and how to take advantage of the opportunities we are given.

Thought it was time to attempt another classic and picked up The Hound of the Baskervilles from the library. Good that they have some of the 'older' books on their shelves.
I can see why the story held the imagination over a hundred years ago, but found Watson's sycophantic adulation of Holmes a bit much. And why does no one recognise Holmes when he appears in disguise? It's as bad as those old 'I Love Lucy' shows where Lucy sticks on a Mexican moustache and a sombrero and husband Rikki doesn't know who she is.

Now reading Wicked. I've seen the show - talk about chalk and cheese!

Also starting reading "The Model Wife: Nineteenth Century Style" by Rona Randall which is fascinating and makes me very grateful that I didn't live back then. Things were so complicated - calling cards for different times of day, who sat next to whom, who you could invite and who you couldn't..... Fascinating to learn the in's and out's of being a "model wife" back then, but oh it was complicated.

I was interested to read the comments regarding Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel. During the declining last years of my strong-willed and often difficult grandmother, I reread Laurence's book and recommended it to other family members. I think it gave us greater patience and understanding.

I have not long read a book by Doris Lessing 'A Diary Of A Good Neighbour' it is about a very strange relationship between a high flying business woman and a 92year old woman that she has befriended. So moving, it brings back to me lots of my aged mothers mannerisms and behaviour. It did also remind me of Stone Angel.

Doris Lessing is a wonderful writer.

The earliest example — from John Gower’s Confessio Amantis of 1393 — suggests that some shopkeeper was making an illicit profit by adulterating his wares: "And thus ful ofte chalk for cheese he changeth with ful littel cost". The buyer was surely undiscerning; though some British cheeses are rather chalk-like in appearance, substituting more than a tiny proportion of cheese with chalk wouldn’t fool anybody for very long.

By the sixteenth century, the phrase had become a fixed expression. Hugh Latimer wrote rather sarcastically around 1555: "As though I could not discern cheese from chalk.""

Is it regional or have I just been living in a hole?

Another opposite to the above would be "like two peas in a pod"

liz/lemonhead, what is so unacceptable to you in some/one of The Just So Stories that it should be made more PC? Is stuff actually re-written or even banned in the US if it doesn't meet with modern political thinking? Just interested.

In one of the stories about how the leopard got his spots, there is mention in the original of the Ethiopian friend being called the "n-word" a few times, which was acceptable back then but not now. That was the only change I knew for sure when I read the originals and then the PCd one.

The PCd one was also less difficult to read - less old language and shorter words for kids to read...

I am reading The Homemaker by Dorothy Canfield. Anyone here heard of it? It was written in 1924 and is very up to date in how it handles gender roles in marriage. I wonder how it was received when it first came out because it must have been quite shocking to some.

Next will attempt my 2nd novel by Jill Paton Walsh, an author I've just discovered. I fear most of her work is now out of print....

Vee, it's my understanding that "Little Black Sambo" has been banned for many years in the US because of its "non PC" terminolgy. Likewise, some older films have been banned for many years, for the same reasons, such as "Song of the South." I would hazard a guess that the banning began in the 1960's, just after the Civil Rights Act was passed. You might find "Sambo" in an historical library, but I doubt you would find it in a public library which checks out its books to adults and children.

junek, I had not known "The Stone Angel" had been banned. There seems no end to those books certain "Christian" groups want to see vanished from libraries, even classics, such as "Huckleberry Finn." And the Harry Potter series is another, as well, sadly, because of the said "sourcery" in them. These folk hate Halloween, too, for similar reasons. So pathetic....

I've also started How To Be A Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood by William J. Mann. I'm not sure if I'll really read this or just skim. I picked it up on a whim last time I was at the library.

My reading time of late has been very limited, but I have a long-ish flight coming up in December and I've saved Byatt's The Children's Book for that nice chunk of uninterrupted reading time ;)

Then read "Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife" by San Savage, which is the life story of a rat who lives in (and above) a bookshop and the "relationships" he develops with the people he comes in contact with. It's funny in places, and sad in others and I really enjoyed it. It was the author's first novel and is written from the rat's perspective - poignantly funny.

Now reading "Tom's Midnight Garden" by Phillipa Pearce, a book I have read mentioned around here. It's fun so far and seeing as it's a YA or even kids' book, it's easy reading. Looking forward to picking it up again soon.

(Not tonight -going to see Michael Jackson's documentary (!). I'll let you know. :-)

Woodnymph, the only other Walsh books I have read are three mysteries featuring the character of Imogen Quy who is a nurse at Cambridge University. I have enjoyed them, but they are certainly different from this book.

Next is The Dark Labirynth by Lawrence Durrell It is set just after the war, on Crete and more precisley in Corfù , is about an odd assortment of English travellers who come ashore from a cruise ship to explore the island and in particular to examine a dangerous local labyrinth

grelobe

As for Understood Betsy, we were just fascinated by the story of falling into the wolf pit. There was a path worn up the side of a steep bank by our road that we called 'the wolf pit' when we were kids, and we used to act out the story of falling down the pit. Stories we read inspired many of our games.

Rosefolly

Next on the TBR pile: "Iceland."

I have started on Wolf Hall at long last!

As I said earlier, I had only read Walsh's Imogen Quy mysteries, but I will look for the rest of her books now.

Now I'm moving on to read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest that I so impatiently ordered from amazon.co.uk.

Still, it was a first class shortlist this year (apart from one...) and I for one have no complaints about the winner.

Finished Wicked. I thought it was an interesting idea, but I found it all a bit unconvincing. (I enjoyed the show, mind!)

Re: chalk and cheese - it hadn't crossed my mind that it was not common parlance across the pond. Personally, I tend to use it to indicate that two things are very different when you might have expected more similarity. So if two brothers were very unlike each other, you might well say that they were as different as chalk and cheese.

After the recommendations above, I will now find my copy of Knowledge of Angels. It's been on my shelves for several years and I've never quite got round to it.

So, I'm now reading House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.

Now on to "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns - quite a culture shock going from Victorian times in England to the American South in 1906 (or whatever it is). Once the switch had been made though, I have been sucked into the book and am loving the story. I haven't been sucked into a story for a while and had missed it. Has anyone read the sequel to this?

Also, finishing up my lessons on becoming a "Model Wife: Nineteenth Century Style" - wow. You had to have a hard heart and be fairly superficial about lots of other things. I'm not sure I could have done it quite right back then...

I may finish it, one day.

But I'll have to look for something else. I think a re-read of something I really loved is in order - I'll have a check through the bookshelves tonight to see if anything springs out at me; and I'll read Jerome K Jerome on the train home tonight. (Now THAT's a good thing about e-books - I've always got something, even if I suddenly go off the book I'm reading.)

Also starting a fiction book called "The Tortoise and the Hare" by Elizabeth Jenkins, the story of an unraveling marriage during the 1950's. Interesting and might be an interesting contrast to "The Homemaker" that I read the other day.

I've been reading about Dorothy Whipple. Has anyone here heard of her or read any of her books? Are they good?

My other favourite JKJ is The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. "It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty to do."

Now I am reading "Unleaving", the companion to "Goldengrove" by Jill Paton Walsh. It is labeled for YA, but I don't think so. Much too deep and philosophical. Contains marvelous descriptions of Cornish landscapes and folklore, as well. Why have I lived most of my life without discovering this marvelous author until now???

I remember the wolf pit! That depression in the bank is still there, but it doesn't look quite so hollowed out as it used to... Is it because we're grown up now or has it just filled in a bit I wonder.

I have't posted for a while because I've been listening to The Count of Monte Cristo (36 hours!) on my mp3 player. It takes a long time to listen to something like that! LOL

I have taken several books out of the library for when my ears are too sore from the headphones, but nothing has really grabbed my attention enough to finish, so I re-read an old favorite yesterday, The Curse of the Pharoahs by Elizabeth Peters. The main character, Amelia Peabody, makes me laugh even when I'm a bit down in the dumps.

grelobe

I love Pym's Excellent Women, my favorite of hers.

Still plodding away at Wolf Hall. I'm finding the last 100 pages to be very tedious. Maybe because I already know what is going to happen? I have enjoyed it, but I wish it was shorter - a lot shorter. And I swear this is the last book about the sixteenth century that I will EVER read.

Also reading books about homesteading, goats, cheesemaking. Spent last weekend at a workshop and was happy to discover I am not the only person out there who enjoys these things. Of course I knew that, because no one would be publishing books if there wasn't a market. But it was nice to hang out with my 'tribe' for awhile.

grelobe

I had this book in my bookshelf when I was a child in England, but didn't ever get around to reading it. I am not sure I would have "got" it all, so am happy that I have now only just read it. Truly, it was really funny.

Now about to start "Huckleberry Finn" and finish up "The Tortoise and the Hare" novel I've been reading but is not that rivetting. I also went to the library and went a bit wild in the Victorian section. Hoping to get lots of reading done during the Thanksgiving holiday, but DH has had to send his PS2 to be fixed so that means it's difficult to get time to read (i.e. quiet time) without hurting someone's feelings.

But fingers crossed. I got this interesting book of pics and original text of Victorian street sellers so want to immerse myself in that.

Also watched the PBS/Channel 4 series called "The 1900 House" about a modern family who volunteers to go and live in a house converted in every way to how it was during Victorian times. Interesting. Needless to say there was crying involved.

As ever, this month's postings have increased my TBR pile too!

Very thought-provoking esp as all the ads on tv and in the mail are about "get, get, get" or "give, give, give". I am certainly going to heed their counsel on not buying so much rubbish. :-)

Then read a series of stories and essays by David Sedaris (including the memorable SantaLand/elf story) - funny stuff.

Now onto "Hucklebery Finn" and another visit to the Victorian times: "Victorian London Street Life in Historic Photographs" by John Thomson printed in 1897 and reported to be the first photographic evidence of how the people who worked on the streets lived their lives (i.e. flower sellers, shoe shine boys, chinmey sweeps, etc). Very interesting...