One of my favorite fairy tale retellings is Beauty by Robin McKinley. It's wonderful.

What does your husband write?

Up late last night finishing Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers. Well. I enjoyed it. Obviously if I was willing to give up precious sleep. I feel as though Sayers "ideal reader" must be a smarter person than I am. Whew. Lots of literary references in there that I missed out on. I also have no idea at all about the workings of Oxford so I found all the descriptions of people to be a bit hard to follow ... dean vs bursar vs warden vs scouts. I had it about figured out by page 499. I am so happy with the ending! :001_wub: :001_wub: :001_wub: I loved how both Harriet and Peter had to grow before they could deserve each other. Although admittedly I wanted to violently shake Harriet and tell her to stop being such a dope and say YES!

Funny you should mention that. I finished Gaudy Night last night. I'll put my review in the next post. Friday's Child! I loved that one also. DH read this last year and he liked it. He also said that a minimum of 25% of the book is in French. He doesn't speak French. :) I just adore that name. Congrats on your new little addition.

More information. My look is usually a casual dress or skirt with a sweater or scarf. Comfortable is my preference and I tend to wear a lot of cotton knit because I'm about 20 lbs overweight and things just feel better if they have a bit of stretch. I like jewel tones, black, and red. I hardly ever buy clothes so I don't mind spending a bit on the high end for shirts particularly if they'll last for awhile. I tend to wear a lot of Lands End dresses and skirts. I love Talbots but haven't purchased anything from there in awhile. I have a few J Crew dresses and skirts I loves also. I would like them to be daily wear. Really I'm picturing them as something I can wear under open sweaters or with a scarf to go with skirts.

Thank you for the reminder! My family is registered. On the reading front ... um ... nothing. I have three in progress books sitting on my nightstand and no motivation to pick them up. :mellow:

I know that someone here will be able to help me out. I would love to find some good quality layering type clothes. Sleeveless or short sleeve shirts to wear under cardigans. Long sleeve shirts. Leggings. Solid colors. I'm having no luck in my searches. Ugh. Help!

Yes. Oh I totally have a table to recommend. We got ours as a board game table but it's wonderful for puzzles too. I love love love it! The owner is super helpful and they can do customization. https://www.boardgametables.com/

What were the books called?

That's an impressive history!

Another Agatha book that DD (11 yo) and I loved is Death on the Nile. The Cat Who series is a fun one ... The Cat Who Could Read Backwards.

DH and I went with our then 9 yo DD a few years ago. It was the most miserable experience of our lives. (And we travel a ton!) We both left feeling like Mickey Mouse picked our pocket. It was hot. The lines were really long. The rides were pretty mediocre. It was so expensive. The food was insane. Souvenirs were ridiculous. If you don't have your meals pre-booked you might not be able to find a place to eat. That was horrible. We were hungry and couldn't find a restaurant because they all required reservations and were completely booked up. We still look back on it and shudder. I could turn to DH right now and say "Remember when we almost starved to death at Disney" and he would know exactly what I meant. We even went at a time when it wasn't too busy. *sigh* We went as budget as we could and still spent as much as would have to fly our family of four out to London for the same amount of time. If it were me and I had to do it again because I had a Princess loving kid then I would do Downtown Disney for free and book a meal at a restaurant to meet the princesses.

Heh. Mom Jeans!

All - I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the mandolin discussion last week. I wondered if I didn't know what the darn thing was called and had to google it to make sure I hadn't been confused. Thanks for laughs. I start the week here Just discussions among friends Ladies that love to read And with that I'm retiring from haiku's. What are we doing next? Dirty limericks?

Kathy - Many hugs. I'm sorry for your loss. I think that totally sums up how I feel about Bill Bryson. He could be one of my favorite authors but I always get annoyed at parts of his books. I remember listening to A Walk in the Woods a few years ago and loving it. It was going along great. He had his crazy friend with him. They were hiking. They were camping. The crazy friend was doing crazy things. And then we have a long discussion on how we are ruining the world with acid rain. What? I'm sure he was right about his facts but it was such an odd thing to go off on in what had previously been a fun book. It kind of killed the rest of the book for me.

Lady Florida - Looking back I realize it was insensitive to be so excited about you finishing the book when you have such stresses in your life right now. I'm sorry. ((Hugs)) Tact is my New Years resolution for 2017.

Get to reading Lady! You know I'm eagerly awaiting your thoughts on the book.

Wow. You ladies are clever to come up with that reference. I've knew Pargeter was Ellis Peters pen name and never made that connection. That makes me want to read the Mrs. Parageter mysteries even more. You two should start a detective agency. :coolgleamA: Sandy - Are you stateside yet? For my dues I'll be sending along a mandolin that I just had to have one Christmas. I don't know. Maybe I thought it was the answer to all my potato au gratin prayers. In the three years I have owned it I have not made potato au gratin even once.

Splendid idea. Who do I send my membership dues to? :hurray: I was up late last night reading A Blunt Instrument by Georgette Heyer. As much as I love her Regency era books I expected to also love her mysteries. Favorite author + Favorite Genre = A slight appointment. The highlights of this book were three witty characters. Everyone else tended to be boring at best, stupid at worst. The whole book was just dialogue too which was odd. The witty characters were really funny though! 3 stars. I know the killer Alas, two hundred pages to go Hope that stupid Helen dies

Well, I am as envious as can be. I want to join a private library! How cool.

But it would provide warmth and if there are marshmallows then we could roast them and that would provide happiness. ETA: There were no actual books burned during the writing of the previous haiku. It was a library book and I don't think the library system would be pleased with my rating system. ***** - return book to library in pristine shape so other can enjoy this piece of fine literature *** - try to keep the cracker crumbs out of the book because it's okay * - BYOM - Bring your own marshmallows! Amy's got a bonfire started.

I have to join in the hakui-ing. I can't think of one for the Martian so I'll attempt to do my review of Catch-22. I must be too dumb There was no levity found Can I burn this book

Have you abandoned the series? I know we have similar tastes in books so I'm interested if you'll continue reading any of his adventures or not.

What about a trip? Five days in London would be so memorable for a family. That is too weird and too funny. I just don't understand the thought process behind that ... This is such a splendid idea. I like the idea of doing something like this at 16 even. Here's the car keys and here's some tickets to a play. Go and have fun. :)

Finished A Lonely Death by Charles Todd as an audiobook. (It's #13 in the Inspector Ian Rutledge series.) I'm having a tough time rating this book so I'll just do a string of consciousnesses review and see how it goes. Amy 1: "I skipped ahead to #13 after reading #1 and #2 in the series because I had heard they get better and this book was far better than the previous books. Tighter plot. The author did a better job of describing the characters so I was able to tell them apart - in book #2 I was 75% done with it and would wonder who was so and so again. The setting was fantastic. At one point in listening to the book I told my DH that it was so unfair in life that I couldn't just for a day go to 1920's England and walk around because the book described it so perfectly that I felt as though I was homesick for somewhere I hadn't even been before." Amy 2: "Wow, Amy! That sounds great! So you loved it, right?" Amy 1: "I did ENJOY reading it but at one point during the book something happened and I though, 'I'm not reading anymore of these books. This is too stressful'. I'm still not sure if I'll continue with the series." Amy 2: "Is that because it was too dark and gritty for a gal that prefers her murders to only happen at grand manor houses and to be solved by old ladies who knit?" Amy 1: "Maybe. It was a little dark and a little gritty but I think what bothered me the most was that poor Ian can never catch a break." Amy 2: "Fiction is boring if it's all roses and sunshine and knitting for our heroes." Amy 1: "But the guy NEVER catches a break. Every book so far has been like this. Ian is unlucky in love. Ian's boss is out to get him. Ian is thinking about committing suicide. Ian is being framed. Ian has no friends. Wait, he has one friend but then that friend dies. C'mon! At least let the guy have a tiny tiny bit of happiness. Something. Otherwise you read the book and just feel depressed at the end. Again. Every book ends feeling depressed." Well. That little internal discussion didn't help. I still don't know what to rate it. Either 3 or 4 stars. I'll err on the side of being nice and say 4 stars. Also, this article was fascinating about detective mysteries. http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/what-makes-great-detective-fiction-according-to-t-s-eliot