Has anyone read any Elizabeth Cadell? So far I'd put her in the DE Stevenson category but much less known. Looking through Goodreads I don't see that anyone here has read any of her books. I thought @mumto2 or @tuesdayschild might have. (Where is tuesday???) Also I have a complaint. My library only lets us have 30 reserved books at once. Everyone in my family reads. Kevin will read huge chunksters that take forever so he's happy with a book out at a time. The rest of us though love our cookbooks or YA suspense or Magic Tree House read alouds (*sob*) or Amelia Bedelia easy readers and 30 books is not enough. Particularly not now when I don't want to go to the library three times a week. It's the only building I go into. Kevin and John have been reading a bunch of Poppleton to each other. I'd never heard of the books before but Sandy sent it to John as a "congratulations on being able to read" surprise. Highly highly recommend for little readers. And it's hilarious because Kevin and John quote the book to each other randomly in a high pitched squeaky voice. "Yoo hoo POPPLETON!"

Whoa. Worst read aloud recommendation ever!

I'm slowly wading through a few books that have only moderately caught my attention. A book on WWI poems because once a year I think that I need to be the type of person who reads and loves WWI poetry. A Georgette Heyer that I'm kind of hating. Not kidding. I think I'm actively disliking it. It's an audiobook so I'm going to listen at 1.7 speed and see if it gets better. I'll confess the title here when I finish it. And a few other books on my kindle that are so unexciting to me I can't even recall the titles right now.

I tried LHotP years and years ago with DD and she had no interest. Then I tried with DS recently and he didn't like it. I even tried skipping ahead to Farmer Boy and still they didn't like it. I was so bummed because I adored those books as a kid. I bet I read Farmer Boy a dozen times. *sigh* Parenting is tough. Queen of the Lists! The list on modern books reading like AC is great. Hello and welcome! So glad you are here. I remember when you posted this a few years ago and we had the most civil disagreement ever on it! I can never seem to find old threads but I think your argument was that the poem illustrated how the British Empire repressed society and I agreed but said that's what made them lovable in the same way that Snape was so interesting. And we went back and forth in the most respectful way possible between friends. Do you remember? Please jump in and correct me if I'm a fool and remember it all wrong!

Ok ladies ... here's my Covid garden. I'm not really an outside person but I have loved planting things this year. Also we're home all the time so I don't have to worry about plants dying because I'm not here to water them. These two window are to my living room and the far left is my "chair". In theory I can sit at read and look at my roses but mostly I end up reading at night in my bedroom. Also notice the canvas box full of toys in the window. My living room has hardwood floors which are perfect for little boys to turn into the grandest railroad network of all times. This is the other side of my house and the view out our breakfast room. Ignore the trellis stacked there. It's supposed to be behind the patio but John tried to climb that section and it broke so it sits there until my husband fixes it. My lantanas are attracting butterflies! (And Tonka trucks.)

I do love a bizarre old book cover! And that one qualifies! Especially since I know the plot of the book and that doesn't go ...

Okay gals! Here's the deal with BaW ... whatever you're reading, you're welcome to hang out at BaW. Everyone's already said it but I'll jump in and add another welcoming voice. One year I only read British mysteries and nobody asked me to leave. Wait. Basically that's every year, I love my British mysteries. But before you join ... make sure your library account is up to date. Because you'll end up with so many books you want to read. I've discovered some of my favorite authors though BaW recommendations. And @Robin M has fun weekly and monthly challenges. They're optional but you'll want to join in one or two anyway because they're just cool!

I remember that too! I suspect he might enjoy the battle scenes more than his mum did. Pick up an old favorite. Something easy to read. Sometimes I even raid my kids shelves if I need to reboot my reading attention span and get something I know I'll love. Two of my favorites are Secret Garden and Harry Potter.

Glasses fogging up is the real complaint, isn't it? It's my main complaint anyway! And I love the topic of gardens this week. I've taken up gardening just a bit this year ... I guess it's my new Covid hobby. I've always attempted roses in the past but most of them died. This year they're doing good. It's storming out right now but when it clears up and I'll take some pictures and give you gals "a tour". They got all the electricians at the job site tested for Covid and they were negative so we're off quarantine. Yay. It means ... nothing really. We still don't go anywhere.

I just requested this from my library. I can't think of any book you've loved that I didn't like too.

Another FINISHED today: The Religious Body by Catherine Aird - I listened to this as an audiobook and enjoyed it but it was nothing particularly unique. I'll read another one or two in the series before making a final judgement call. I'm a bit at loose ends on what to read next...

FINISHED: The North's Meet Murder by Frances and Richard Lockridge - This was a cozy NY mystery written in 1940 and I'm not certain how it even came to my attention but you know me and my 1940's murders ... has anyone else read anything of this series? It didn't look like it on Goodreads. The author had great insight into human behavior which made it surprising that all the characters in the book had so little depth. And there was some strange writing techniques going on like stopping in the middle of dialogue to do a quick summary. The mystery all hinged on how long it took to cook lobster so they went over that for a long time and I was so over it. It was unrelatable and silly. Also no romantic subplot. Maybe I'll pick up another book in the series but maybe not. I remind myself that I hated the first Miss Silver book in the series and loved all the rest so perhaps I will read on. The Kings Equal by Katherine Paterson - I don't know where or when I stumbled across this delightful fairy tale either but the copy I have is a little thin paperback with a few sketches in it. Chews and I read it last night and LOVED it. The entire time I was so confused why this book wasn't produced as a picture book with beautiful full color illustrations. Well. Turns out it is and somehow I managed to end up with it as a cheap paperback. It's out of print and a bit pricey on amazon but I'm going to splurge because I can see this fairy tale being one I read to grandchildren.

I would love to see a Venn diagram of that!

Is the World at War the 12 hour documentary? My grandma and I watched that when I lived with her after college but before Kevin and I got married. We loved it! I'm certain I still have it somewhere and it seems probable that I'll have plenty of time to watch it with my family in the next few weeks. Have you ever watched Rio Bravo? Highly recommend. My grandfather loved it because he liked Dean Martin. His granddaughter (me) loved it because she was a fan of a twenty-year-old Ricky Nelson. *swoon*

We have no update on the Covid news here. Kevin's project is on hold while they try to get people tested. Keep in mind this is a high profile water treatment construction project for our large metropolitan area ... and it's completely on hold because we can't get people tested. I'm pretty frustrated. We still feel okay and our life is basically one of quarantine anyway so it hasn't been much of a change expect that one of my local friends has had to go on my Monday library run and abandon books at our door.

Based on Robin's link to the literature map last week I've added a dozen new books to my already bloated to-read list (so ... um ... thanks Robin?). Particularly on mystery authors I've never heard of before. One of them I actually had on my list so I grabbed an audiobook and am two chapters in. The Religious Body by Catherine Aird. It's set in a convent so I don't have much hope that there will be a quiet charming romantic B-story going on but we'll see. And Chews and I finished another Magic Tree House book. He liked it. I got through it only a moderately bad attitude. I'm not going to go through the effort of looking up the title and posting it here because it doesn't matter. If you're at the stage in life where you're getting MTH from your library then you just grab whatever one is on the shelf anyway.

I read that a few years ago and really enjoyed it. Surprisingly so. I wish he'd done more mysteries because I saw such much promise and feel like he could have been up there with the Agatha Christie and Philip Marlow's of the world. (<There's no way I've got that punctuation correct!) If only I had a time machine I could go back and give him the pep talk that he needed to really be a successful author! *Amy shakes head at her own absurdness.* I also love your THUMBS UP or DOWN system. It makes so much sense on things like mysteries where it's simply a recommendation rather than a place where we need to give a detailed analysis of the plot!

I finished my third (fifth?) reading of The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer. Such a funny book. Also finished our read aloud of Blue Bay Mystery (Boxcar Children) and wowie was it dated and bizarre. And really this review is the best review ever. I wish I'd written it. 🙂 I've had this post up on my computer for about thirty minutes because I had to take break to call the health department in the middle of all this because Kevin was exposed to a person that's likely Covid positive at the job site. Ugh. Turns out you can't get tested in Kansas unless you're basically in the hospital. We're trying to figure out how close his contact was with the person (we don't know exactly who it was ... sounds like it was an electrician) so we can decide if we need to quarantine. (And if this is supposed to be a "no Covid discussion" zone, please let me know and I'll delete that message.)

Have you read any Sherman Alexie? I highly recommend his books. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4174.Sherman_Alexie?from_search=true&from_srp=true

There's a few funny things on there. It has DE Stevenson twice ... I take that to mean if you read GH then you REALLY REALLY need to read DE Stevenson too.

This is great! Look at all my favorite authors and a few soon to be favorite authors!

I read that as an audiobook a few years ago and really enjoyed it. Great characters! I meant to revisit the series but other books got in the way. So much truth here. I don't even go to the grocery store anymore. A tank of gas lasts me like a month!

Me too, Robin! I discovered MM Kaye because of recommendations here years and years ago. Other books have bumped her from my reading priority list so I'm delighted to have an excuse to "force" myself to pick up a new book by her. Thank you for a wonderful year of Ladies of Fiction! This has been great. Since we're talking statistics (yay! statistics!) ... I'm at 32 our of 52 which is a little a head of schedule. 13 books by men and 19 by women. <- That's probably normal for me. 15 are Brit Tripping. 15 are audiobooks. <- That surprises me. I didn't have any idea I listened to that high a percentage of books. My already overloaded to-read list thanks you for posting this link. @mumto2 and @Lady Florida. - don't miss this list! ^^^ That's such a good comparison. I consider them to be first cousins ... in a literary sense. 🙂 Added this to my to-read list also. It's an interesting premise! And you know how I adore cookbooks! I hate to snip so many good thoughts but I wanted to focus on this one because Chews and I just picked it out as our next read aloud! I've read it aloud to DD and a few times (as an adult) I've read it to myself. It's wonderful! I love that this is a place where I can listen to smart educated women discuss important topics civilly!

They'll thank us, really. DD would end up with awesome in-laws and based on some of the threads I've read on WTM before having good in-laws is the key to a successful marriage. I suppose a few other things are important to but the in-law situation is not to be discounted.

Finished: These audiobooks are helping me get through a very boring work project. Hurrah! Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart - I don't know if this was intentional or not on the part of Ms. Stewart (and I don't feel like it's really a spoiler because you have to read almost the entire book to figure out who I'm talking about) but as a twist it turns out the villain is basically exactly who you think the villain is going to be. Charming story. Classic Mary Stewart suspense and description. Boy oh boy do I wish she didn't use the "I've known you for thirty minutes and you're *hot* so I'm going to declare that I'm madly in love with you* trope. If we're going to go through and censor/edit old books I'd like to start with these because nothing is more offensive to the mother of a teenage daughter then the "marry the hottest person you can find" philosophy found in some of these 1950's books. Marry the nerdiest person you can find has served me well in life.