Pamelad reads at least 100

January

1. Ace of Hearts by Barbara Metzger
2. Lord Sidley's Last Season by Sherry Lynn Ferguson
3. Rendezvous in Black by Cornell Woolrich
4. The Lady's Companion by Carla Kelly
5. The Lost Letter by Mimi Matthews
6. The Dancing Bear by Frances Faviell
7. Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff
8. The Golden Child by Wendy James
9. Daisy's Aunt by E. F. Benson
10. The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretzer
11. Submission by Michel Houellebecq
12. A Very Dutiful Daughter by Elizabeth Mansfield
13. Parson's House by Elizabeth Cadell
14. Quota by Jock Serong
15. Picadilly Jim by P.G. Wodehouse
16. Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andric
17. The Amber Fury by Natalie Haynes
18. The Islamic Republic of Australia by Sami Shah
19. The Life and Death of Harriet Frean by May Sinclair
20. Something Fresh by P. G. Wodehouse
21. We All Killed Grandma by Fredric Brown

February

22. The Screaming Mimi by Fredric Brown
23. The Unbearable Bassington by Saki
24. Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
25. Summer Lightning by P. G. Wodehouse
26. The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich
27. Heavy Weather by P. G. Wodehouse
28. Rabbit Heart by Tracey McGuire
29. Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey
30. Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo
31. The Three Sisters by May Sinclair
32. The African Queen by C. S. Forester
33. The Shelton Conspiracy by Rae Foley

March

34. The Inn at the Edge of the World by Alice Thomas Ellis
35. Memories - From Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi
36. Four Lost Ladies by Stuart Palmer
37. London Rules by Mick Herron
38. Loving by Henry Green in Loving Living Party Going
39. Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
40. The Russian Countess by Edith Sollohub
41. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
42. Pursuit of a Parcel by Patricia Wentworth
43. Will o' the Wisp by Patricia Wentworth
44. Anne Belinda by Patricia Wentworth
45. The Last Kashmiri Rose by Barbara Cleverly
46. Ragtime in Simla by Barbara Cleverly

April

47. The Dishonest Murderer by Frances Lockridge
48. The Yellow Claw by Sax Rohmer
49. Prater Violet by Somerset Maugham
50. Dead or Alive by Patrica Wentworth
51. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
52. Rolling Stone by Patricia Wentworth
53. The Damascened Blade by Barbara Cleverly
54. The Summer House by Alice Thomas Ellis
55. Woe is I by Patricia T. O'Connor
56. The Comedians by Graham Greene

May

57. The Adventures of Dagobert Trostler by Balduin Groller
58. Party Going by Henry Green
59. I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O'Farrell
60. Love among the Chickens by P. G. Wodehouse
61. Keepers - the greatest films and personal favorites of a moviegoing lifetime by Richard Schickel
62. The Bloomsday Book by Harry Blamires
63. Ulysses by James Joyce
64. Murder Comes First by Frances and Richard Lockridge

June

65. Maurice by E. M. Forster
66. Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck
67. Unexplained Laughter by Alice Thomas Ellis
68. Lady Molly of Scotland Yard by Baroness Orczy
69. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
70. Speak of the Devil by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
71. The Fish Girl by Mirandi Riwoe
72. Longitude by Dava Sobel
73. Wings of a Spy by Tory Hageman
74. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

July

75. The Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln from Three Mystery Novels
76. Twilight at Mac's Place by Ross Thomas
77. The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
78. Nightmare in Pink by John D. MacDonald
79. The Ex by Alafair Burke
80. Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman
81. Caught (from Caught, Back, Concluding ) by Henry Green
82. Death Drops the Pilot by George Bellairs
83. The Ace of Clubs Murder by Ralph Trevor
84. The Backwash of War byEllen La Motte
85. Back from Caught, Back, Concluding by Henry Green
86. Between a Wolf and a Dog by Georgia Blain
87. The Native Heath by Elizabeth Fair

August

88. The Passage of Love by Alex Miller
89. Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
90. The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantu
91. Helen by Maria Edgeworth
92. What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
93. The Confession by Mary Roberts Rinehart
93. The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart

September

94. At the Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell
95. Tenth of December by George Saunders
96. Death in High Provence by George Bellairs
97. The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
98. A Tap on the Window by Linwood Barclay
99. Late and Soon by E. M. Delafield

October

100. Lethal White by Robert Galbraith
101. Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley
102. Gay Life by E. M. Delafield
103. Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous
104. The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
105. Dead Heading by Catherine Aird
106. The Mother of all questions by Rebecca Solnit
107. Love is Blind by William Boyd
108. Katherine Wentworth by D. E. Stevenson
109. Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty
110. Scarweather by Anthony Rolls

November

111. Excellent Intentions by Richard Hull
112. Crime in Kensington by Christopher St. John Sprigg
113. Weekend at Thrackley by Alan Melville
114. Red Dog by Louis de Bernieres
115. Death in Perspective by Joan Lock
116. A Pint of Murder by Charlotte MacLeod

December

117. The Dust That Falls From Dreams by Louis De Bernieres
118. Diana Tempest by Mary Cholmondeley
119. The Wife by Alafair Burke
120. The Battle of Pollock's Crossing by J. L. Carr
121. White Nights by Ann Cleeves
122. The Late show by Michael Connolly
123. Shakespeare by Bill Bryson
124. Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan
125. Natural Causes by Barbara Ehrenreich
126. The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Kenneally

Thanks for starting the group, Jennifer.

I'm continuing on my quest for a replacement for Georgette Heyer so my first completed book for 2018 is Ace of Hearts by Barbara Metger. Not bad but no Georgette Heyer.

I'm now reading Lord Sidley's Last Season by Sherry Lynn Ferguson, which is significantly better.

These are displacement books, becasue I am planning to read James Joyce's Ulysses.

Welcome back! Good luck with Ulysses!

Happy New Year, Pam.

Best wishes for a great year of reading.

>7 Eyejaybee: Thank you, James. A happy new year to you too.

>6 jfetting: Thank you, Jennifer. Planning to start Ulysses in May. I've bought The Bloomsday Book to help.

Favourite Books of 2017

5 star reads

Three volumes of In Search of Lost Time: The Guermantes Way; Sodom and Gomorrah; Finding Time Again by Marcel Proust
The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes

4.5* reads

Tom Tiddler's Ground by Ursula Orange
Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby by Donald Barthelme
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
Listen Liberal by Thomas Frank
Naomi by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki
The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood
Two more volumes of Proust: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower and The Way by Swann's

Of the many 4* reads, the following are the most memorable: the whole of Mick Herron's Slow Horses series, Mrs Oliphant's Carlingford series, An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris and An Armenian Sketchbook by Vasily Grossman.

Oh good - I have Men Explain Things to Me loaded up on my kindle.

Rendezvous in Black by Cornell Woolrich

A young man's girl is killed as she waits for him. He takes revenge. Can Cameron the policeman save any of these potential victims?

This is bleak, black, the epitome of forties noir. It just whips along.

Read two more historical romances and that's more than enough. There is only one Georgette Heyer.

Now reading The Dancing Bear by Frances Faviell. She was a British artist who lived with her husband and small son in Berlin immediately after WWII. This is a subjective and honest account of the occupation of Berlin, by a compassionate and honest observer.

The Dancing Bear by Frances Faviell

Frances Faviell, with her small son, accompanied her husband to Berlin in 1946. He worked with the British occupying forces. Berlin was devastated: no commercial buildings remained, people camped in bomb shelters and partially destroyed houses. Berliners could buy food only on the black market, for exhorbitant prices. The winter was bitterly cold and fuel was scarce. In the British sector, Britons were forbidden to give Germans lifts or to have German visitors. Signs on buildings said "No Germans". Even so, many Britons did whatever they could to help, including the author. Her book focuses one family, the Altmans, particularly Mrs Altman.

This is a compassionate and honest account of Berlin straight after the war: the poverty of the population; the background to the division of Berlin; the Berlin airlift; the black market; the gulf between the cynical young people and their traditional parents; German family life as it appears to an outsider; the Hitler youth.

I recommend this book highly. Faviell was there.

Now reading Fire and Fury. Being able to download this just after publication is a big advantage of the Kindle. So far, the writing is terrible but the subject is fascinating.

It's going to be 42 C (108 F) here today, so I'm going to stay inside and read.

Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff

This is a valuable contribution to the getting rid of Trump cause. The writing is terrible - verbose, full of insider political jargon and sweeping, unjustified assertions - but that doesn't matter. Wolff's premise is that Trump is ignorant, inconsistent, incompetent, infantile and possibly illiterate. Competent people make him feel insecure, so he gets rid of them. Wolff marshals his evidence to support his case. I do not trust Wolff's views and judgement - he comes across just as badly as some of the people he denigrates - but he's interviewed and quoted enough insiders to be taken seriously.

>It is 0 F here today (idk what it is in C - somewhere around -20? Alexa just told me it is -17.8 C). I would kill for 108 F.

And part of me is dying to read Fire and Fury and the other part of me already considers Trump to be ignorant, etc, and would probably just be outraged and unhappy. Again.

>17 jfetting: Do you stay in when it's that cold? Yesterday, Sydney was the hottest city on earth, 47C (117 F), and Australia played England in a Test Match! Don't these cricket players have a union?

I've been reading a book a day, so The Golden Child by Wendy James is number 8.

It was shortlisted for the 2017 Ned Kelly Award. Sophie, a lonely 12-year-old girl, is bullied at school and online. The book begins with Sophie in intensive care, with her recovery uncertain. Beth, the mother of the child who allegedly masterminded the bullying, is grateful for her child's sake that Sophie is not dead, at least not yet. Beth is a mummy blogger, adept at accentuating the highs and glossing over the lows. Initially the reader's sympathy is with Beth a devoted parent. Is her daughter evil? Can Beth be held responsible?

I've given it 3 stars. An entertaining read, but not memorable.

>18 pamelad: I mostly stay in when it is this cold, yes, unless I get stir crazy and it isn't windy. Then I bundle up and head out.

Daisy's Aunt by E. F. Benson

Benson is a favourite of mine, particularly his Lucia series, so I read this expecting high comedy. Not at all. It's a sentimental little story of Daisy's aunt Jeannie's attempt to save Daisy from an unsuitable attachment. It's quite sentimental, and a real period piece.

The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretzer

The writing draws attention to itself. The narration is sardonic and permeated with dislike of the characters. It was a hard slog to the finish.

Submission by Michel Houellebecq

When it seems that Marine Le Pen's National Front has an even chance of winning the 2022 French elections, the Socialists and a centre-right party, the UMP, form a coalition with the apparently moderate Muslim Fraternity to make sure of defeating the racist, far-right National Front. The narrator clearly describes the compromises the parties must make, the long-held policies the socialists and the UMP must sacrifice, in order to make a deal. After the coalition wins the election, the Islamic religion and culture subsume French society. Women disappear from public life, the school leaving age is lowered to twelve, social welfare payments are eliminated, only Islamic educational institutions are publicly funded, Jews emigrate en masse, and men take multiple wives, some as young as fifteen.

Francois, the narrator, is a professor of literature at the Sorbonne, specialising in Huysmans, best known for Against the Grain, published in 1884, about the decadent life of the wealthy, aristocratic Des Esseintes, who was based partly on the infamous Robert de Montesquiou, who was also a model for Proust's Baron Charlus. Huysmans is a recurring theme in Submission. Francois compares the decadence of contemporary French society to the decadence of Huysmans' time, and the imposition of Islamic religion and culture to Huysmans eventually embracing the Catholic church. In order to keep his job at the Sorbonne, Francois would have to convert to Islam.

This is a comedy, but I gasped before I laughed. Francois is depressed and alienated, and cares for no-one. He is utterly neutral, taking no ethical stand whatsoever, guided only by his own self-interest, but his only interests are eating, drinking, smoking, sex and Huysmans. His colleagues are no better. French culture disappears as every man looks after himself.

Submission is a hugely entertaining and thought-provoking book. Read it.

During my regency Romance investigation I put in an ILL request for Lords and Ladies by Elizabeth Mansfield. It is a collection of three short novels: A Very Dutiful Daughter; The Counterfeit Husband and the Bartered Bride. I read the first. It was typical of the genre, of which I have had a surfeit, and did not stand out in any way. I will not be reading further.

After finishing In Search of Lost Time I binged on light literature - regency romances, the British domestic comedies of Elizabeth Fair and Ursula Orange, cosy crime novels - most of which I downloaded from Amazon. Elizabeth Cadell kept appearing as a recommendation, so I put in inter-library loan requests for a couple of her books. I've just finished Parson's House, which I thought was utter tripe. Not only does the plot feature ghosts, always a mistake in my opinion, but for a book published in 1977 it is almost an anti-feminist manifesto. I'm happy to ignore the restricted roles of women in books of the thirties and earlier because they reflect their times, but in this book, at least, Cadell comes across to me as a woman-denigrating dinosaur.

I liked Ursula Orange's books, which went beyond domestic comedy. Elizabeth Fair's were mildly enjoyable but similar to one another, like Angela Thirkell's where you keep coming across the same characters with different names. None of the Regency romances came anywhere near Georgette Heyer's, but Lord Sidley's Last Season and The Lost Letter (Victorian, not Regency) were quite readable.

I'm about to start Ivo Andric's Bosnian Chronicle and for light relief am reading P G Wodehouse's Picadilly Jim, which is on the Guardian 1000 list.

Great start Pam, I have read Houellebecq's earlier novels and enjoyed the honesty and nerve of his writing, will locate a copy of Submission soon, thanks !

>25 bryanoz: I read Atomised and Platform years ago, and after reading Submission will look out The Map and the Territory as well.

Enjoying Bosnian Chronicle, but it's a slow read.

Just received Jock Serong's Quota which I reserved at the library long enough ago to have forgotten about it.

Quota by Jock Serong won the Ned Kelly award for a first crime novel in 2015. It is set in Victoria, mainly in a small town on the southwest coast, partly in Melbourne. Unfortunately it has no real sense of place. The country town is generic, and so is the the city. None of the characters made an impression on me, so it was hard to care what happened to them. Eve thought the book is relatively short, the pace is tediously slow. I thought the ending was silly, and would have been at home in a YA novel.

The other reviews on LT are so glowing that I feel the need to counter them!

Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andric is set in the small Bosnian town of Travnik, during the Napoleonic wars. People from four religions live in Travnik - Jews who were banished from Spain 300 years ago, and still try to maintain their Spanish traditions; Orthodox Christians, mainly Serbian; Muslims, called Turks even though they are native Bosnians; Catholics. Bosnia is part of the Ottoman Empire, ruled by the Sultan in Istanbul who is represented in Travnik by the Vizier.

The Ottoman empire is in decline. It has lost its Hungarian territories to the Austrians, and Serbia is in revolt against Ottoman rule. As Napoleon endeavours to establish an alliance with the Ottomans, a French consulate is set up in Travnik. To counter French influence, the Austrians set up a consulate as well. Andric describes the lives of the consuls, Europeans stranded in the Levant among alien people and customs, carrying out diplomatic duties that change with their countries' shifting alliances.

This was a slow read because there is so much going on, so many layers, so much to think about. Absolutely worth the effort.

The Amber Fury by Natalie Haynes

Alex is devastated by grief after the death of her fiance, and moves from London to Edinburgh to escape her old life. Her old drama tutor is now the principal of an educational unit for adolescents who have been unable to fit into mainstream schools, and offers her a job teaching drama. Alex forms a bond with her senior class through the study of Greek tragedy, and becomes much too close to them, leading to disaster.

As an ex-secondary school teacher, I wanted more authenticity. Even so, I was engaged and interested.

Something Fresh by P.G. Wodehouse

This is the first book in the Blandings series. It started off slowly, but towards the end I was in hysterics. I've ordered the next two Blandings books.

The Life and Death of Harriet Frean by May Sinclair

Harriet Frean is a well-behaved girl. She always does what her parents expect of her. By doing the "right thing" she destroys three lives. This is a short book, available free for the Kindle, and well worth reading. Sinclair was a suffragist, a feminist and a modernist. May Sinclair:the readable modernist.

The Islamic Republic of Australia by Sami Shah

Shah was born a Shia in Pakistan, a country with a Sunni government and majority Sunni population. Some Sunnis believe that Shias are heretics and blasphemers, so Shias are at risk from Sunni extremists and the blasphemy laws. Blasphemy in Pakistan is a capital crime. The main reason, however, that Shah and his family emigrated to Australia was not the risk of violence, but because they have a daughter, and opportunities for girls and women are far from equal in Pakistan. Shah now lives in Melbourne where he is a radio announcer, writer and stand-up comedian.

Sahh and his wife, Ishma Alvi, a psychologist who contributed a chapter to this book, are atheists. They have abandoned Islam because they cannot live according to the Qu'ran. In his book Shah describes some contentious passages and contradictions, and interviews Muslims and ex-Muslims to find out what they think.

This is an informative book. There are many different groups of Muslims in Australia, and Shah sets out to explain who they are and where they came from: Shia and Sunni; sub-groups of Sunni including Wahhabi, Hanafi, Sufi; sub-groups of Shia; national groups. However, in Australia these divisions are not as important as the practical differences defined by the way people act. He creates four groups, ranging from Muslims who do not pray or read the Qu'ran to the downright crazy (he's a stand-up comedian, so you have to put up with the "humour"), who are a tiny minority.

The Muslim community is much more heterogeneous and complex than it is presented in the media, and by politicians like Pauline Hansen. The Islamic Republic of Australia is very helpful in providing a broader perspective.

We All Killed Grandma by Fredric Brown

Rod Britten finds his grandmother dead on the floor with a bullet hole in her forehead, so he rings the police, but by the time they arrive, Rod has forgotten who he is. He doesn't think he's the murderer, and neither does anyone else, including the police, but Rod isn't sure. Seriously hampered by amnesia, he tries to discover what happened that evening.

I liked the characters, Brown's writing, and the atmosphere, but the plot was rubbish.

>31 pamelad: I am glad you enjoyed ‘Something Fresh’. I loved the Blandings novels, and think that this might actually be the weakest of them.

The Screaming Mimi by Fredric Brown

The screeming meemies are hysterics, or extreme fear. In Brown's noir crime novel, the screaming mimi is a statuette of a desperately frightened girl, and it turns out to be a clue in a series of murders. The investigator is Sweeney, a reporter fresh from a two week bender. Brown's people can really drink!

A ripper is killing beautiful blondes. An exotic dancer, Yolanda, survives. She makes such an impression on Sweeney that he decides to find the ripper in order to protect her.

The Unbearable Bassington by Saki

Comus, named after the lord of misrule, is the son of Francesca Bassington, a woman much attached to her possessions, but chronically short of money. Comus, while charming and handsome, is selfish and extravagant. With no hope of him ever working for a living, Francesca sees that the only solution is a rich wife.

Saki is best known for his short stories, and I think that form better suits his cruel wit. A novel provides too long an acquaintance with his malicious characters, who begin to pall. There is, however, a twist at the end that suggests that not all his characters are as nasty as they seem.

If you're going to read Saki, I'd suggest Googling suggestions of his best short stories. I just read The Unrest Cure and Sredni Vashtar, in The Chronicles of Clovis. Very funny, but you hate yourself for laughing. Saki is no P. G. Wodehouse.

I just realised that The Unbearable Bassington is only 90 pages long. Seemed longer! Saki's short stories are only about 3 pages.

Some of my favorite saki stories -
The open window
The storyteller
The lumber room

>37 nrmay: Thank you. I found them in Beasts and Super-beasts and enjoyed them.

I just read Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher, mainly because The Unwomanly Face of War is so harrowing, not surprisingly.

Fisher is dealing here with the aftermath of ECT. She had thought she was an alcoholic, so went off the drugs and alcohol, only to become psychotic. She hadn't known she was bipolar. Her very short book consists mainly of some very funny stories from her life, some of which would have been tragic when they happened. Each chapter starts with a quote, and I particularly like this one: Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich

Alexievich spent years seeking out and interviewing Soviet women who fought in World War II. Her book was first published, in a heavily-censored version, in the Soviet Union in 1985. Until then, the women who fought on the front lines had been silent, and their participation forgotten. When Alexievich won the Nobel prize in 2015, only one of her books, Voices from Chernobyl had been published in English, so there was a rush to translate the others. The Unwomanly Face of War was translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volonkhonsky, whose translations you either like or don't, and I don't so had to get over it.

It took me quite a while to finish this book because it was so sad and so harrowing that I could only read a small amount at a time. Soviet deaths in WWII are estimated to be over 26 million people, 15% of the population.This chart shows WWII deaths as a percentage of population. This is not what we learned at school. The Soviet Union was barely mentioned and we thought the British won the war with the aid of the British Commonwealth and America, and to a smaller extent, the Free French and the resistance fighters in occupied countries. In reality, it was the Soviet Union that played the greatest role in defeating Hitler's Germany. Many millions of non-combatants died as the Nazis implemented lebensraum, their plan to expand into Eastern Europe and wipe out the Slavic inhabitants. Huge swathes of the Soviet Union were destroyed, and their populations wiped out.

Alexievich organises snippets of interviews thematically, so the impact builds. The women's perspective is personal: the dead are people, not statistics. While they fighting at the front, their children and parents are being killed, and when victory finally comes, many of the women return home to find nothing. No buildings, no people.

Everyone should read this book.

Mistake in the previous post. Zinky Boys was translated into English and published in 1995.

Richard Pevear is a terrible writer. I had to keep re-reading sentences because his meaning wasn't clear. The translation was a distraction. I had no such problem with Voices from Chernobyl, which was translated by Keith Gessen.

I'll be thinking about The Unwomanly Face of War for a very long time.

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

Maud's dementia is getting worse. She can't find the words for everyday objects, she gets lost, and sometimes she doesn't remember who her daughter is. But she does remember her friend Elizabeth, and she wants to find her. In Maud's confused mind, the past and the present are mixed up together, and the missing Elizabeth reminds her of Sukey, the sister who went missing 70 years before.

I admired the author's compassion and imagination, but did not much enjoy this book.

>42 pamelad: I liked this book, but I'm probably older than yourself! There wasn't anything thrilling about the book, but I thought it was a tale of aging...to which I now can relate!

I liked Elizabeth is missing too.
My mom is 96 with dementia - loss of memory and confusion. I could relate to Maud.

>43 Tess_W:, >44 nrmay: I think it's the conceit of putting oneself inside someone else's mind that I didn't like. We can really only watch from the outside. I know that wipes out a lot of fiction!

Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo

This eerie novella, the precursor of Magical Realism, first published in Spanish in 1955, was a huge influence on Latin American writers like Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Juan Preciado's mother's dying wish is that he travel to the town of Conala to find his father, Pedro Paramo. Conalo seems to be ghost town, the streets deserted. The first person Preciado meets, a burro driver who also claims Pedro Paramo as a father, directs him to the house of his mother's old friend, Eduviges.

It took me a while to realise that everyone Preciado met was dead. The time switches from the past to the present and back again without warning and people appear with no introduction, but everything is connected by Pedro Paramo, who is evil.

I wish I knew more about Mexico, because I'm sure there are many layers to this book that I have missed.

The translation was OK, but a few conversations were translated into 1994 American English, which jarred. Colloquial language must be difficult to translate, but I think translators should avoid anachronisms, like.

The Three Sisters by May Sinclair

Three women live in an isolated vicarage with their horrible father who goes out of his way to make them miserable. Marriage would be their only escape, but they never meet anyone.

Like The Life and Death of Harriet Frean, this is a bleak view of the lives of women at the turn of last century.

>46 pamelad: Oh, that sounds good. Adding it to the list...

The African Queen by C. S. Forester

Written in 1935, Forester's book is set in a German colony in Africa during WWI. Rose Sayer has lived there for ten years, looking after her joyless missionary brother, Samuel. When war is declared, the Germans commandeer the mission's goods and all the native converts. Samuel succumbs to disease and despair, and dies. 200 miles upriver, the Belgian mining company has also been commandeered. Its cockney engineer, Allnut, arrives by boat at the mission, to Rose's relief. Together Rose and Allnut set off in the battered boat, the African Queen, to do their bit for the British.

What I liked: this was a gripping adventure story, very entertaining; it was great to see Rose escape the restrictions of her upbringing and religion and show herself to be courageous, optimistic and capable.

What I didn't like: the class consciousness, demonstrated by the patronising treatment of Rose and Allnut; the love story; the ending; the racism; the cockney dialect.

Still, an enjoyable read. I cannot imagine the patrician Katherine Hepburn playing the shopkeeper's daughter, Rose, nor Humphrey Bogart playing the easily-led Allnut. The film must have changed their characters. I've ordered it on ebay, so will see.

Rae Foley kept popping up on LT's automatic recommendations, so I put in an ILL request for The Shelton Conspiracy.

Hall Masson has returned to the small town where he grew up to find out how his brother, Robin, and Robin's wife Lillian, died. Robin was a war hero, and the town had erected an obelisk to honour him. (Is this normal in small-town America? It seems peculiar to me.) No-one in the town wants the truth about the deaths to be revealed, but Hall solves the mystery. The characters in this book behaved very oddly, for the sake of the plot.

>49 pamelad: I love that movie!

The Inn at the Edge of the World by Alice Thomas Ellis

Eric the ex-engineer sank his savings into an isolated inn on a Scottish island, imagining that happy holiday-makers would flock there. Unfortunately, the well-heeled travellers don't come, the regulars who do come disgust him, and his unhappy wife is no help at all. To dredge up some paying customers, Eric advertises for people who want a non-Christmas holiday, and gets five takers: a well-known actress, a young actor who just might be murderously insane, an elderly widower, a psychiatrist whose wife has left him, and a woman who heads a department in a large store.There are ghosts, which normally would put me right off, but they are not intrusive, and seem a natural part of the island population.

The writing was clean, sharp and witty. The characters were well-drawn. Even the ghosts belonged. I enjoyed this book.

Memories: from Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi

Teffi was a famous and much-loved a writer in pre-revolutionary Russia. Lenin was a fan, though she was no fan of his, and so was the Czar. She wrote short, humorous pieces for left-wing magazines. Teffi had supported the first revolution, but not the subsequent Bolshevic revolution that overthrew the provisional government. This memoir describes her flight from Russia, ahead of the Bolshevic army. Initially she left for what she thought was a temporary sojourn in Odessa, where there was plenty of food, unlike Moscow and St Petersburg, comfortable accommodation, and the opportunity to perform readings of her work. She believed that the Bolsheviks would not endure, and had no idea that she was leaving Russia for ever.

Teffi writes lightly of tragedy. She observes dishonesty and betrayal with sardonic humour, and of barbarity with humanity, even compassion. Her lightness of touch is a counterpoint to the disasters she describes: people she last saw in a drawing room in St Petersburg executed for treason; gay and frivolous young men on their way fight and die for a doomed cause; the barbarity of the White colonel whose wife and children were tortured in front of him. Interspersed with the tragic episodes are the frivolous stories of actors and plays, new journals popping up overnight, women fitting in a last hair appointment before they flee.

The translation, by a string of people that includes Robert Chandler flows well without jarring, and, as far as I can judge, does a good job of imparting Teffi's humour.

Recommended.

Four Lost Ladies by Stuart Palmer

This is a Hildegarde Withers story. Withers is a retired schoolmistress who investigates crimes and delivers the solutions to her trusted friend Inspector Oscar Piper. Palmer's idea of humour and mine have nothing in common. He wrote, "It would have been well had she given the same warning to Inspector Oscar Piper, for the explosion when it came a few days later found him as unprepared as the hapless inhabitants of Hiroshima."

That's disgusting.

>53 pamelad: I am ashamed to say that I had never heard of Teffi until I heard a short programme on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday morning which talked about her travels, and in particular described her scrubbing the deck of a boat while wearing her finery. I was interested to see your endorsement, and shall definitely be looking out for her work now.

>55 Eyejaybee: I had never heard of her until recently, when I read an article about the translator, Robert Chandler. Teffi's books are just being translated into English now.

I've also bought The Russian Countess by Edith Sollohub, which is recommended in the further reading section of Memories.

>56 pamelad: That sounds interesting too. Sigh ... another book to add to Mount TBR.

Just finished London Rules by Mick Herron. I liked it, but the Slough House books are starting to seem formulaic and I've had enough of Lamb. One politically incorrect clown is too many these days, and he doesn't make me laugh.

Reading Loving by Henry Green.

Loving by Henry Green, from Loving Living Party Going, a collection of three of Green's novels.

I tried reading this in my twenties and gave up, but this time I appreciated it, and plan to read Living and Party Going as well.

During WWII the British Tennant family, the widowed Mrs Tennant, her son's wife Violet, and Violet's two young daughters, is living on its Irish estate. Mrs Tennant's son is in Britain, in the armed forces, waiting to be sent overseas. Ireland is neutral, so the Tennant's are avoiding the wartime shortages, the bombing and the blackouts, but are in fear of the IRA. The Tennants provide the background: the main characters are their servants.

The book begins with the death of the old butler, Eldon. Rauch, the footman, is next in line for Eldon's position. As we know from Downton Abbey, there is a strict hierarchy amongst house servants, with the butler at the top. Any other comparisons to Downton Abbey are, however, erroneous, because you cannot compare book so witty, perspicacious and subtle with a soap opera. Green's characters have depth and complexity. His imagery is striking. He always uses the right word, never a cliche.

Well worth reading.

39. Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

Benjamin Law recommended this on The Book Club (a book program on the Australian government TV station), so I put it in the wishlist last year. It's about institutionalised racism in Britain, but is relevant to Australia too. The Histories and The System chapters, in particular, were real eye-openers.

40. The Russian Countess by Edith Sollohub

This featured in the recommended reading section of Robert Chandler's translation of Memories. It's about Edith Sollohub's escape from revolutionary Russia in 1920, when the borders were closed. Not nearly as well written as Memories, but it's an eye-witness account of people's lives in revolutionary Russia, so is worth reading. Sollohub goes into enormous detail about too many shooting expeditions, the last few of which I skipped. She is enormously patronising but I suppose that if you were a Russian countess you would be.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Having read In Persuasion Nation, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil and Pastoralia, I'm a George Saunders fan. He stretches the mundane until it becomes ridiculous, never losing sight of his characters' humanity. He reminds me of a kinder Magnus Mills, with a touch of Donald Barthelme. Lincoln doesn't lend himself to Saunders' dead pan humour, so I didn't enjoy this book as much as I did his others, which are more obviously related to contemporary life and politics. Americans might think differently.

I read this on the Kindle, which had many formatting problems. Saunders quotes from many works, some of them authentic writings of the time, and some fictional. Unfortunately, the writers names appeared vertically, so I couldn't be bothered reading them, so the book became more confusing than it actually is, which is quite confusing enough. The names of the inhabitants of the Bardo also appeared vertically, so I had to work out who was speaking form the context.

Despite my critical comments, I enjoyed Lincoln in the Bardo.

I hope the US hasn't taken over the Booker.

I've only read Lincoln in the Bardo of his works, and I didn't realize his other books have humor. I really enjoyed it, so I'm going to read more of his work.

I too hope that the US hasn't taken over the Booker - I don't think we should be eligible at all. I think we have more than enough of literary prizes and we need to let other people have things that we don't just take over.

Pursuit of a Parcel by Patricia Wentworth

Cornelius Rossiter is a double agent for Britain and Germany. His life depends on a Very Important Parcel. As a child, Cornelius was unofficially adopted by the childless Rossiters, who many years later produced a son, Anthony. Cornelius sends the parcel to this fine, upstanding, British brother. Eventually the parcel ends up with Anthony's potential fiancee, Delia. Everyone wants this parcel, and they will Stop At Nothing to get it. Delia is in Great Danger.

This was an entertaining time filler.

>62 jfetting: I quite agree about the Booker. Pastoralia is my favourite George Saunders so far.

>We're not alone!

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/28/top-authors-make-mass-call-on-man-...

>64 jfetting: Thank you for the article. I hope these authors are listened to, and the publishers as well. It appears that opening the Booker to US writers has markedly reduced the geographical diversity of authors on the long and short-lists. There are so many US writers, and they have their own prizes.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/02/publishers-call-on-man-booker-priz...

In preparation for the May read of Ulysses, I'm reading froth.

Two more Patricia Wentworth ebooks, which were free on Amazon: Will o' the Wisp and Anne Belinda. Both of them were written in the twenties. Both have brave, gay (original meaning) young heroines who have no family to support them. Not much crime. No murders. Romance dominates. I quite liked them both because they were such period pieces.

The Last Kashmiri Rose by Barbara Cleverly is a crime novel set in the India of the twenties. Sandilands, a police commander on secondment from Scotland Yard, is called in to investigate the apparent suicide of a young woman, the wife of a cavalry officer. She is the fifth wife to have died in March, so Sandilands suspects a chain of murders.

An undemanding and entertaining read. I enjoyed it, and have started the next in the series, Ragtime in Simla.

The Internet and the landline went down for a week. 'Unplanned Outage,' Telstra said. I was already behind with posting reviews, so am way in arrears now.

What I've read:

Prater Violet by Christopher Isherwood. This is a novella, written in 1945, set in 1933 when Isherwood was working with a famous Austrian director, a warm, tragic, outrageous character who, as a Jew, could no longer work in Austria, so was working in England to make money to get his family out of Austria. The director is based on a real person, and the Isherwood character is named Isherwood, but the book is fiction. The director is a wonderful character, and Isherwood is kinder than usual. I enjoyed this.

The Damascened Blade by Barbara Cleverly. Entertaining mystery set in 1920's India. This is the third I've read and they're becoming samey. A lot of racial stereotyping, too. Cleverly has a thing for Pathans. Reminds me of Molesworth's take on the cavaliers vs the roundheads. Wrong but Romantic vs Right but Repulsive.

Woe is I by Patricia T. O'Connor. A book about grammar. Not very interesting because most of the mistakes she talks about are elementary. I was interested though, to see that she dislikes 'different than', 'a couple things' instead of 'a couple of', 'like' instead of 'as', and the unqualified 'likely' used as an adverb. I had thought these usages were unquestioned, so am relieved. However, O'Connor thinks that 'gotten' is a useful word that the British should bring back, and that slow is an adverb, as in 'go slow'. No!

The Summerhouse by Alice Thomas Ellis. This is a Rashomon-like view of a potential wedding. In three linked novellas, the potential bride, the potential mother-in-law, and a friend of the bride's mother relate the story, each from her own perspective. It's witty, funny, scathing, and uncomfortable. Highly recommended.

I also read Pride and Prejudice for the nth time, for our next book club, and enjoyed it as much as I did the first time.

The Comedians by Graham Greene is set in Haiti during the time of Papa Doc and the Ton Ton Macoute. The title is using 'comedians' as the French do (French is the main language in Haiti), to mean actors, or fakes. The actors are Brown, who owns a hotel in Port o' Prince; Jones, who is persona non grata with the British Embassy and might be a mercenary; and Brown's deceased mother, a woman who always played a part and may or may not have been a fighter in the resistance, and called herself Countess. The violence and squalor of Haiti are the background for Brown's spiritual crisis. Typical Greene. There's a lot going on, and some memorable characters. I enjoyed the book.

>67 pamelad: I have put The Comedians on my wish list!

>67 pamelad: Me too. I read it thirty-plus years ago, and also remember enjoying the film with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and think it is due for a reread now.

The Adventures of Dagobert Trostler, Vienna's Sherlock Holmes by Balduin Groller

Dagobert Trostler is a wealthy man about town, a talented amateur detective who uses his skills to save the cream of Vienna's society from social embarrassment. In turn of the century Vienna , where social disgrace leads to suicide, Dagobert's skills save lives. Rather than turn perpetrators over to the authorities, causing scandal, Dagobert arranges for them to leave Vienna quietly, never to return.

Dagobert Trostler and Sherlock Holmes have little in common. Where Holmes is neurotic, Trostler is suave. Holmes is a loner, while Tostler has many devoted friends. Holmes solves crimes because right must prevail, while Tostler is happy to shield a criminal in order to avoid a fuss. We see little of the detective process in the Dagobert stories: a friend calls Dagobert in and explains the problem; Dagobert trots off and solves the crime with minimum fuss, off-stage; Dagobert returns to his friend and receives undying gratitude.

I enjoyed these period pieces and would have rated them even more highly, but for the translation. It really needs tidying up. An example: "An important matter from this side! Dagobert felt flattered in self-love, but even so there was something that annoyed him. He is not the man who is simply fetched." This is not quite English!

This book was published by Kazabo publishing. The company is publishing books that were best sellers in their original languages, but have never been translated into English. I received it through Early Reviewers.

I've started Ulysses. For anyone interested in joining me, I've set up a thread in the 2018 Category Challenge group.: https://www.librarything.com/topic/290767

Party Going by Henry Green

A party of rich, young men and women waits in a London station hotel for the fog to lift. They were leaving for France, but the boat train has been cancelled. Upstairs in the hotel they wait for news. Downstairs in the station thirty thousand people wait, trapped inside by the fog, to catch their trains home from work.

Max Adey has organised the continental trip. He is enormously rich and is paying for everyone. He has tried to escape his lover, Amabel, in order to pursue Julia, and has invited Angela as a backup. Evelyn, Alex, Claire and Claire's husband Robert, have been invited as a smokescreen. At least, that's my interpretation, because the reasons are as many as the characters. Miss Fellowes, Claire's aunt, is ill and being looked after by two retired nannies who came to see off their ex-charges. Claire wants to go to France and tries to persuade herself that she has no responsibility for her aunt. Amabel turns up, to Julia's disgust. Everyone is talking about Embassy Richard, who has made an enormous social faux pas. It's all strange, opaque, almost certainly allegorical, and very funny.

Henry Green is a fortunate rediscovery.

Now to return to Ulysses.

>72 pamelad: Definitely a BB for me!

Love among the Chickens by P. G. Wodehouse

This is an early Wodehouse, originally published in 1906, but rewritten in 1921. While I've never read a bad Wodehouse, I'd describe this one as a lesser work. Even so, as a break from Ulysses, it served its purpose well.

I am 9 chapters into Ulysses and seem to be reading a philosophical discussion of Hamlet. Aristotle and Plato have made an appearance. Must find another Wodehouse!

>74 pamelad: I thought I knew all the Wodehouse canon bit I have never heard of that one. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Hi Pamelad, I've enjoyed reading your thread, and have wishlisted your books of Teffi's memoir (I have a lifelong interest in Russian history) and The Inn at the Edge of the World.

Hi John. Have you come across William Gerhardie? He was a British comic writer, born in St Petersburg in 1905. Some of his books have a Russian background e.g. Futility and Doom. His best known novel is The Polyglots.

>75 Eyejaybee: I found that information on this site: http://wodehouse.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_books_by_P._G._Wodehouse My next Wodehouse is going to be The Girl on the Boat, 1922.

>77 pamelad: Thanks for that link. I don’t know The Girl on the Boat either, and shall look out for it, too.

#77 - Pamelad, no I haven't, I will check him out. Thanks for the recommendation.

Keepers - the greatest films and personal favorites of a moviegoing lifetime by Richard Schickel

I'd never heard of Richard Schickel but I like books about films so, when I saw this at the remainder shop, I bought it. It mixes short film reviews and reminiscences. Schickel knew quite a few directors, and those he knew are some of his favorites, which is fortunate. He's a big fan of popular American movies, so I didn't find a lot of films to put on my wishlist. David Thomson's Have You Seen is better for that. Shickel fondly remembers many films of the thirties and forties, particularly those from Warner Bros.

I quite liked the book, but it wasn't very informative.

Just fixed the David Thomson link, which was leading to Have you seen my duckling?

Ulysses by James Joyce

I am very pleased to have finished it. After In Search of Lost Time I was fancying myself as a bit of an intellectual, but Ulysses brought me back to earth. Reading it was an ordeal, and great slabs of it would have been unintelligible without Bloomsday as a guide.

Bloomsday by Harry Blamires

Couldn't have read Ulysses without it, not that I trust all of Harry's interpretations. His perspective seemed overly religious to me, not that I'd know.

Congrats on reading Ulysses! That's something that as of this minute have no desire to do. However, as to Harry Blamires, he might have a slight religious bias, as he was a priest as well as an academic.

>81 pamelad:. Congratulations on completing Ulysses. I have tried a couple of times but ran aground. I will probably give it another go soon.

Ulysses is something I have never even attempted to try; the descriptions I've read of the writing style put me completely off this being even remotely on my reading radar.

>81 pamelad: I wouldn't have made it through Ulysses without Bloomsday either. Congratulations! Ulysses is a huge accomplishment.

>82 Tess_W: That makes sense. I didn't think that Joyce would be alluding to the holy trinity quite so often.

>83 Eyejaybee: This was my third try. I'd never made it past page 60 before. Bloomsday was a big help.

>84 john257hopper: It was an experience, and the book was even more impenetrable than I'd imagined. But because it is celebrated reputation as THE great modernist classic, and I have the time, I made it a project. Not something to read at the end of a hard day at work!

>85 jfetting: A lot of the time I had to rely on Bloomsday to tell me who was talking, or thinking. The book is a labyrinth. Are you tempted to have another try? I feel that I've just skimmed it, and would be interested in looking into parts of it more closely. I'd like to find out what other readers make of it.

I had enrolled in a class, Beginning to Read Ulysses, but unfortunately it was cancelled. If it's offered again, I'll do it.

64. Murder Comes First by Frances and Richard Lockridge

Pamela and Jerry North are a sophisticated New York crime-solving couple, but they're no Nick and Nora Charles. Too twee, with a lot of carry-on about their pet cats. First published in 1951.

Maurice by E. M. Forster

Forster wrote this early in his career, but left instructions that it was not to be published before he was dead. The main character, Maurice, is homosexual in the days when homosexual activity was illegal, an abomination. It wasn't until he was at Cambridge that Maurice realised that there were other men like him, and put a name to the "sickness" that he'd tried to cure. Maurice is a flawed character - his treatment of his mother and sisters, in particular, is thoughtless, even cruel - but he's warm, alive and genuine. I was fascinated by the rigidity of the class system. Forster has produced some monstrously snobbish characters who make callous and idiotic statements about the lower classes.

Recommended.

Thanks mabith!

Before Maurice I tried to read Elizabeth Bowen's To the North, but I didn't get far. Perhaps its the vapidity of her characters, or their snobbery. Or it might be that Bowen seems to dislike them, and to judge them harshly. I had thought I'd finished one of her books, Angel, but it was actually written by Elizabeth Taylor so I'm still at zero.

Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck

Richard, a retired classics professor, becomes involved in the lives of some African refugees. A labyrinth of regulations prevents the men from living and working in Germany. They can seek residence only in the country where they first landed, Italy, which has no work for them. In Germany there are jobs, but the refugees are not allowed to work.

Unexplained Laughter by Alice Thomas Ellis

In March I read The Inn at the Edge of the World and decided to read more of Alice Thomas Ellis. I chose this one because it was the only one with a Kindle edition, and it was a bit of a disappointment. Well-written and witty, but I wasn't interested in the characters. Lydia, the main one, is a self-absorbed snob. Nothing much happens.

69. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

A vulnerable young British man of Pakistani heritage is recruited by ISIS. His twin sister desperately tries to bring him home. The book takes a compassionate and nuanced perspective on the varied lives of British Muslims. It is based on Antigone, which is a problem because it distorts the plot.

70. Speak of the Devil by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

This crime novel was first published in 1941. Miss Peterson, who is on her way by ship to a new job in Havana, is persuaded by a fellow passenger to take a job as hostess of his hotel on a small Caribbean island. Lots of atmosphere. I enjoyed it despite the gaping holes in the plot.

71. The Fish Girl by Mirandi Riwoe

This novella was on the shortlist for the 2018 Stella Prize http://thestellaprize.com.au/prize/2018-prize/the-fish-girl/

It was inspired by a Somerset Maugham short story in which a Dutchman's obsession with a "Malay trollope" leads to tragedy. The Maugham story is told from the Dutchman's point of view. Riwoe, who has Indonesian heritage, reimagines it from the Malay girl's perspective.

72. Longitude by Dava Sobel

Before sailors were able to measure longitude, ships regularly ran aground and thousands of men died. The British government offered a prize for an accurate method of measurement. The British Longitude Committee was dominated by astronomers who discounted any method that did not involve in navigating by the stars and refused, despite all evidence, to believe in the efficacy of the chronometer. Sobel's book traces trials and tribulations of the man who made the first chronometer, and his efforts to win the prize. Astronomers corrupt and unfair!

73. Wings of a Spy by Tory Hageman

This silly but enjoyable book is set during WWI, before the Americans have entered the war. America is rife with fifth columnists, with every second character turning out to be a German spy. They're desperate to get hold of a remarkable discovery that could change the course of the war. Kathleen's dad discovered it in his study, with a pen and paper! Kathleen is in love with a man who seems to be a spy.

Tory Hageman is actually Natalie Sumner Lincoln. The book is also published under the title I Spy. Life is too short to try and find this touchstone.

74. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

LT told me I wouldn't like this, but I loved it! It's not great literature, but the story moves along, the characters are sympathetic, and the writing is grammatical and clear.

July

75. The Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln

After Wings of a Spy I decided to try another of Natalie Sumner Lincoln's books. This is a crime novel, but in the week since I read it I've forgotten everything about it except the racism and snobbery.

76. Twilight at Mac's Place by Ross Thomas

Corruption, violence, political intrigue. Thomas is always entertaining, but I'm not in the mood for violence, corruption and cynicism right now. Too much of it about.

#72 - I really enjoyed Longitude also - the history of scientific discovery can be as gripping as any novel.

78. I did not like John D. MacDonald's Nightmare in Pink. Women throw themselves at Travis McGee, but he only says yes to the young, sad ones. Turns their lives around!

McGee analyses every female character from the perspective of, "Would I like to sleep with her?" His deliberations take up too much space that would be better used for character development and plot. This book is sexist, overwrought and sentimental. The plot is laughable.

Cast your vote for the Nobel literature alternative prize:

https://dennyaakademien.wishpondpages.com/nobel-literature-2018/

#97 - link doesn't seem to work.

I wonder what happened. I voted using that link.

Anyway, here's another. It's working at the moment! https://www.dennyaakademien.com/

79. The Ex by Alafair Burke
80. Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman
81. Caught by Henry Green (from Caught, Back, Concluding)
82. Death drops the Pilot by George Bellairs
83. The Ace of Clubs Murder by Ralph Trevor

The Ex and Wilde Lake are both by US writers, both featuring successful woman lawyers dealing with cases that have their roots in the past. The pace of The Ex was faster. Wilde Lake dragged. Both were OK reads. Nothing special, but nothing objectionable.

Henry Green really is special. During WWII he worked as an auxiliary fireman in London, up to and including the Blitz, which occurs towards the end of Caught. Green's characters are so well-drawn that you feel you know them. You sympathise with them all, as does Green himself. I'm following Caught with the next book in the collection, Back, also a soldier who has been invalided out. Cannot recommend Henry Green highly enough.

Death Drops the Pilot is a police procedural from the early sixties. I was amused by how different it was from Nightmare in Pink. These English detectives are so stuffy, which is a relief after Travis McGee, and trot home to their faithful wives. They certainly don't follow the Travis McGee route. Another OK read.

The Ace of Clubs Murder was first published in 1939. It's another police procedural, set in a village occupied mostly by retired people. Not bad.

All of these were filler, except for Caught.

The Backwash of War by Ellen La Motte

In the early months of WWI, Ellen La Motte worked as a nurse in a French field hospital in Belgium. This short book is a collection of articles written about her work there. She saw her job as helping to prolong the agony of dying men, and restoring the less seriously wounded to a condition good enough to return to the battlefields to be killed. Her book was first published in 1916, but suppressed when America entered the war because it would be damaging to morale. La Motte's realistic descriptions of death and dismemberment certainly would have been. The book was not republished until 1934.

Well worth reading.

I'm a bit behind. The Film Festival is on in Melbourne and I'm planning to see 26 films in 2 weeks. Number 13 tonight.

I've read two good ones: Back by Henry Green; Between a Wolf and a Dog by Georgia Blain.
One long, tedious fictionalised autobiography that I wouldn't have finished except that it's for our Book Group: The Passage of Love by Alex Miller.

Currently reading: Why We Sleep, which started well but has hit a dull patch; At the Existentialist Cafe which I'm not in the mood for right now; The Line Becomes a River, which is going well and looks like a winner.

Planning to review some of these very soon.

88. The Passage of Love by Alex Miller

This is the first of Miller's books I've read and, if I hadn't been reading it for our book group, I wouldn't have finished. It's 600 pages of fictionalised biography, a very iffy genre. Miller has left us with only his view of his first wife, so we see crazed dilettante with an eating disorder. I don't trust his perspective. He concentrates on superficial aspects of women's appearances, and shows no compassion or understanding. He whines that his first wife didn't understand him. I really disliked this book!

Good books I've read since then:

90. The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantu. Thanks Mabith!

94. At the Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell A brief history of the existentialists and their precursors. A little bit twee, but a good introduction.

95.Tenth of December by George Saunders Short stories. Most of them are surreal and funny, but depressing. The title story is more hopeful. I like his short stories more than I did Lincoln in the Bardo.

Currently reading 97. The Periodic Table by Primo Levi.

Also reading The Duchess of Malfi. Cariola is running a group read on English Renaissance Drama here in the 2018 Category Challenge.

98. A Tap on the Window by Linwood Barclay

This started off promisingly, but the plot turned out to be silly, with too many unbelievable twists, and too many people died. Made me feel cynical.

97. The Periodic Table by Primo Levi

The opposite of cynical. Levi survived Auschwitz and wrote If This is a Man about his experiences there. The Periodic Table is a sort of memoir, a series of reminiscences, each with the name of an element as its title. The first, Argon, remembers the people from the Jewish community that existed for generations before WWII in southern Piedmont, stories passed down in the author's family. Other pieces recall friends from Levi's childhood and from university, people who gave him work illegally when Jews could not be employed, the man who shared his bread ration in Auchwitz. All are linked by Levi's love of chemistry.

I recommend this book highly. It contains some technical details, which I found interesting because I used to teach chemistry, but you don't need to understand the chemistry to enjoy the book.

99. Late and Soon by E.M.Delafield

An upper-class housewife, widowed after a disappointing marriage, is reunited with the man she loved as a girl. This was written and published during WWII.

100. Lethal White by Robert Galbraith

The latest Cormoran Strike book. Enjoyable, but much too long. 630 pages.

Congratulations on making 100!

Well done on reaching 100. with so much of the year still left :)

Yes, that's great...I'm on 76, so on track, but behind where usually am in early October.

Catch-up post.

101. Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley
102. Gay Life by E. M. Delafield
103. Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous
104. The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
105. Dead Heading by Catherine Aird
106. The Mother of all Questions by Rebecca Solnit
107. Love is Blind by William Boyd
108. Katherine Wentworth by D. E. Stevenson
109. Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

So far, my favourite has been Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous. Short, entertaining, thought-provoking story about friendship and prejudice amongst locals and Arab refugees in a working-class area of Rome. Some memorable characters.

My least favourite was Dead Heading, a dull crime novel, or perhaps Katherine Wentworth, a dreary, anachronistically snobbish romance amongst the middle-classes. I have a free two-month membership to Kindle Unlimited, so have read a few mediocre freebies. Perhaps my love of a bargain has driven me too far.

I have now read 3 by Liane Moriarty, all of which have a similar structure. This was the weakest. Big Little Lies was the most entertaining.

I quite liked Love is Blind by didn't find the characters engaging, so didn't much care what happened to them.

110. Scarweather by Anthony Rolls

Scarweather was originally published in the 1930s. The identity of the murderer is clear from the beginning, as is the resting place of the victim, so it wasn't the plot that got me in. It was the writing: the sardonic humour, the amusing insights into the politics of archaeology, the witty descriptions of the characters, their entertaining names, the bewildered, good-natured narrator. Best Kindle Unlimited book I've read so far, by a long shot.

120. The Battle of Pollock's Crossing by J. L. Carr

In 1938, Carr spent a year on a teaching exchange in South Dakota, barely surviving on his UK salary. The Battle of Pollock's Crossing draws on his experience. A young American is interviewing a old man, George Gidner, about his year in America.

George Gidner arrived in the fictional town of Palisades, South Dakota, in 1929. He is offered cheap accommodation by the bank manager in return for participating every evening in a conversation about England. George's English salary is so low that he has to accept or starve.

The farmers who have eked out a bare living despite barren soils and a harsh climate are unable to service their loans and are losing their farms to the banks. Banks are failing, and people are losing their savings. Small towns are dying. (Jonathan Raban has written an excellent book, Bad Land, about the homesteaders who settled Montana and the Dakotas at the beginning of the twentieth century.) These are the conditions that lead to the battle.

It does not sound like a comic novel, but it definitely is. The writing is lively and entertaining. The characters take themselves seriously as they follow rules that make no sense. Ridiculous things happen. But, underlying the dry, sardonic wit is the memory of the farmers forced off their land in South Dakota.

122. The Late Show by Michael Connolly

Why bother creating a strong female character if you're going to make her the victim of a violent rapist? Connolly should stick with characters like Harry Bosch and what's his name, the Lincoln lawyer. My advice would be to avoid the Renee Ballard series and Connolly's ludicrously unsuccessful attempt to put himself inside the mind of a female character. On top of that, the author made too many long, excessively detailed digressions: police procedures; surfing; cleaning a surfboard!

A disappointing effort from a usually reliable writer.