Visiting Sydney. It‘s a perfect day for a harbour cruise so I took a trip on the Manly ferry and treated myself to an ice cream on the Corso. Bliss!

#PersephoneClub

I didn‘t love this one, a low pick for me. I didn‘t feel much sympathy for anyone besides Ruth, Carrie and, to a lesser extent, Mrs Knight. I guess it was a good illustration of the dangers, both practical and moral, of getting into debt. I was impressed, once again, by the apparent ease with which a young woman could write and publish a novel 😆

Here are my suggestions for #CampLitsy24

I just got home from this show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. It was so much fun, all of the (small) audience were total book geeks too. We laughed ourselves silly. @LeeRHarry @thegirlwiththelibrarybag It‘s on until the end of the week. I highly recommend it.

I enjoyed this one a lot. A twisty murder mystery with an interesting cast of characters who all turned out to be not quite what they seemed. I didn‘t expect anything about the resolution, and I must have missed something because there was one aspect of it I still don‘t understand🤔 🤷🏻‍♀️ I realised part way through that I had read the author‘s debut, Greenlight, and didn‘t like it much. He‘s obviously improved 😆 #ozfiction

#ReadYourKindle

I finished 3 of the selected books and started on the 4th so I have replaced all 4. Can‘t wait to see what‘s up next. Thanks Cydney😘

#BookReport for March. One Another was the best book I read, but Something Wild and Wonderful was the one I enjoyed most.

My Heyer loving friend brought this one and The Nonesuch to our last book group meeting for me to borrow. This is an early one, and I think it shows, but I had a thoroughly good time with it any way. I found French polished Philip very amusing indeed.

This is a very serious book, which would usually put me off, but I read it in one sitting & I‘m going to be thinking about it for a while. The narrative switches between the experiences of Helen, an Australian at Cambridge in 1992 doing PhD on Joseph Conrad, & episodes from Conrad‘s life & work. I think it is, in part, a meditation on dislocation & associated undercurrents of violence. I think it will be on a few prize lists. #ozfiction

Sweet m/m hockey romance.

#ReadYourKindle

The latest in the Lindenshaw mystery series. Enjoyable as always and I liked the way she worked the day-to-day realities of the pandemic into the story.

This book, a memoir of life on the graveyard shift in an outer suburban service (gas) station, has had some glowing reviews. I wonder how much the publishers paid for them? While I guess it‘s worthwhile to cast light on the difficulties of this sort of poorly paid work, 300+ pages of over-written anecdotes of drug fuelled crazinesss (both customers & author) gets pretty tedious & I was uncomfortable with the depiction of the underprivileged.

A good mystery with its roots in the Nazi occupation of Denmark during WWII, but I think the author was trying too hard with her private investigator hero, giving him a few too many quirks.

This works for quite a few #TPRC prompts, but I‘m going for #6 #DamnFineCoffee

#ReadYourKindle

What a truly lovely book this is! I loved its characters (particularly the nuanced depiction of neurodiversity), it‘s setting on the Pacific Northwest Trail and it‘s attitude to faith and family. I can see why it made you cry @Reggie - it touched my heart too ❤️

The story of a love affair between a 20something looking for direction in life & an older married man. The writing is sharp, & kind of funny (although not always my sense of humour) & if I‘d read it as a teenager or even in my twenties I think it might have broken my heart. At my advanced age, though, I found the narrator a bit too self sabotaging, the man in question unattractive in every way & the love impossible to believe in. #ozfiction

#ReadYourKindle

Freddy Pilkington-Soames gets more than a story for his newspaper when a famous actress is murdered during a film industry party. Although these stories are modern, they do a surprisingly good job of capturing that Golden Age feel. A fun read.

Book 4 in the Hockey Ever after series delivers a lovely romance and lots hockey & hockey adjacent activity. I particularly enjoyed Dante‘s new position as the elder statesman of the team.

#FurrowedMiddlebrowClub

I‘m going to retitle this one Jane and Her Family, since Jane is the narrator & the star of the show. I admired her ability to toss off a first novel and makes revisions in the space of a few days (with apparently no further revisions required by her publisher) & also the way she found daily life at home in Scotland more worthy of detailed report than a year long trip around the world. The romances were… interesting? ⬇️

#WondrousWednesday

I‘m reading Anna and Her Daughters for #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub. The story began in London but quickly moved to an imaginary town in Scotland named Ryddelton, not far from Edinburgh.

I‘ve been to a lot of settings for books I‘ve read. My favourite example is the park bench by the roundabout in the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen which plays a part in The Copenhagen Connection by Elizabeth Peters.

Thanks for the tag @Andrew65

I don‘t think I‘ll read them all, but they all look interesting.

#ReadYourKindle

I might get through all 4 this month 🤞

#ReadYourKindle list. Thanks Cydney.

#BookReport for February

All good reads, Still Missing was the standout.

I finished this a couple of weeks ago, almost forgot to post a review. Rachel Reid is the queen of the m/m hockey romance world. This one is very enjoyable, but not in the same league as her Game Changers series.

This has been my handbag book for the past few weeks. Elderly Anne is succumbing to dementia (in a gentle way, so not too confronting) & the truth of her life is on the way to being lost with her memories. Meanwhile her beloved grandson, Luke, is fighting in Afghanistan and losing the last of his illusions about honour & loyalty. The military scenes are far from heroic, but all the more effective for it. Very moving.

What a weird and wonderful little book! My rational mind thinks I should be disturbed by it, but Spark‘s black humour somehow made the story palatable. I picked it up today meaning just to have a look at it, but I read the first page and didn‘t put it down until I finished. Only 100 pages, but still…

#ReadYourKindle

This one surprised me. It‘s much grittier than your average cozy mystery and not really a mystery because you pretty much know what has happened all along. The writing is good and I enjoyed the characters. I can see myself downloading more in the series.

The latest instalment in the Hirsch series, set in the borderland where rural becomes outback, involves a missing backpacker, a body in a suitcase, a family of petty crooks & the online world of bullying, scamming & racist, ableist propaganda. It takes place during the Covid-19 pandemic & I really liked the way that fact of life is used. This is such a good series. TW in spoiler comment. #ozfiction

Gifts from my husband ❤️

Thank you so much, Leah 😘 I definitely need more Georgette Heyer in my life right now. And I love the card and bookmarks, especially the Frank Lloyd Wright ones. Thanks for being such a thoughtful friend🙏💕

PS I don‘t mind the cover at all. I have a 1960s edition of False Colours that has a truly horrific cover. I will have to post a picture of it sometime😆

#WhartonBuddyRead

Edith Wharton revels in the tension between the mores of Old New York‘s high society and the emotional lives of the people within it. In many ways this novel is a series of moral dilemmas for its main character, testing the limits of her love for her child and her ability to maintain her own self respect. Looking forward to hearing how the other buddy readers saw it.

#PersephoneClub

I read this with the sick feeling in my stomach that I have had on the (thankfully few) occasions when my kids were out significantly later than I expected. How much worse it would be to have a child actually go missing is beyond my imagination. I can‘t say I enjoyed this read, but I thought the exploration of the impact on the family, friends and neighbours, and also on the police, was masterful. More in spoiler comment below.

Well, Leah, I‘m intrigued, but I‘m not going to open it until the day😀 Thank you for thinking of me💕

I don‘t know why this book was lurking on my kindle for years, but I‘m glad that #ReadYourKindle got me to read it. Fiona tells the story of her life, from a middle class English postwar childhood, through modeling & acting in swinging London of the 60s & 70s followed by 20 years in LA as a writer & wife to a movie producer, interspersed with the story of her battles with contractors while renovating a dilapidated chateau in the south of France.

There was less about Aix-en-Provence in this instalment than is usual for this series, but I enjoyed it anyway. An interesting mystery and some developments in the lives of the characters.

I can‘t let these detectives go unmentioned

Jackson Brodie
Inspector Montalbano
Dalziel and Pascoe

#tlt #ThreeListThursday

Here are my #readyourkindle February 4. I‘ve already stated on the tagged book. Thanks @CBee

Too true, I fear ☹️

Just look at this pretty! Paula! Thank you! You are too thoughtful and too, too generous. I am in love with this book - I especially want to read the piece about proof reading in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (seriously). I am truly blessed to have you as a friend💕💕

#BookReport for January. Girl in a Pink Dress and The Photograph were my favourites for the month.

I made a collage of covers for my #readyourkindle list. Looking forward to getting some of these read. Thanks Cydney

I‘m all set for #PersephoneClub 2024

Romance blooms at the Australian Open between a French tennis star & a local bartender. I usually have no trouble suspending disbelief in reading romance & I was fine with believing in the romance here, but a lot of the Melbourne setting was a bit off. Apparently the author lived here for a bit a few years ago - I think she relied on memory rather than doing research.👇

Enjoyable m/m romance between a gardener and a model/influencer set against a background of morning television shenanigans. I don‘t know if the writers of this series have any actual experience in TV production, but they certainly have a jaundiced view of many of the people involved in it.

Look what I found in my post box this morning! Thank you so much Barbara for these lovely books and you kind wishes. I am very much looking forward to another year of book chat with you - hopefully there will be more for me to chat about this year! Since you haven‘t read these yet, I think there might be a buddy read or two in our future😀

I‘m all for recognising the contributions made by people (usually women) around “geniuses” & I‘m happy to acknowledge that many “geniuses” are flawed human beings, but I can‘t get on with this book. I‘m irritated by the author stating her interpretations as fact, by her acceptance of some sources at face value while criticising other biographers for it & also by the way she imposes herself into the narrative. I‘m just irritated by it generally.

#WomensDozen Again, embarrassed by how few I‘ve read. There are only 10 that I really loved.
The Vintner‘s Luck Elizabeth Knox
Bel Canto Ann Patchett
Gilgamesh Joan London
Small Island Andrea Levy
Disobedience Naomi Alderman
Digging to America Anne Tyler
A God in Ruins Kate Atkinson
Actress Anne Enright
Detransition, Baby Torrey Peters
The Vanishing Half Britt Brooke
Thanks for the idea @TheKidUpstairs

Here‘s my #BookerDozen.
The Black Prince Iris Murdoch
Small World David Lodge
What‘s Bred in the Bone Robertson Davies
Moon Tiger Penelope Lively
The Van Roddy Doyle
Dirt Music Tim Winton
The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst
Wolf Hall Hilary Mantell
The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes
Hot Milk Deborah Levy
Autumn Ali Smith
Milkman Anna Burns
I was a bit embarrassed by how few I‘ve read when I went through the lists ☹️ Thanks for the idea Scott

The Birthday Fairies are looking forward to celebrating the birthdays of all these lovely Littens in February!

If you would like to be added to the list to receive some #birthdaylove on your special day email your Litsy handle and the date of your birthday to LitsyBirthdays@gmail.com and the Birthday Fairies will do the rest! Remember, you can only add your own birthday to the list.

A sumptuous New Year's Eve party in the mid 20th century is seen through the eyes of a mature cynical woman and a young girl at her first ball. It took me a bit to get into the style of this one, but once I did I loved its wit and bite. Thanks Leah😘