Book a Week 2022 - BW12: Spring Fling or Autumn Optimism

[Robin M]

Happy Sunday, my darlings. Today we celebrate the March equinox, welcoming Spring or Autumn, depending on where you are in the world.  Both seasons have something in common - nature's showcase of beautiful colors, bright and bold as well as rich and warm.  So let's dive into the season with our Spring / Autumn Reading Fling. 

• Read a book with flowers or leaves on the cover.
• Read a book with the colors of spring or autumn on the cover. 
• Read a book with Spring or Autumn in the title.
• Read a book about a Spring or Autumn Fling. (oh la la)
• Read a book about life beginning.
• Read a book about rebirth.
• Read a book about life changing. 
• Read a book about wine or with wine on the cover. 
• Read a book with any of the words from the poem below on the cover. 

 

Spring And Autumn.

By

Thomas Moore

 

Every season hath its pleasures;

Spring may boast her flowery prime,

Yet the vineyard's ruby treasures

Brighten Autumn's soberer time.

So Life's year begins and closes;

Days tho' shortening still can shine;

What tho' youth gave love and roses,

Age still leaves us friends and wine.

 

Phillis, when she might have caught me,

All the Spring looked coy and shy,

Yet herself in Autumn sought me,

When the flowers were all gone by.

Ah, too late;--she found her lover

Calm and free beneath his vine,

Drinking to the Spring-time over,

In his best autumnal wine.

 

Thus may we, as years are flying,

To their flight our pleasures suit,

Nor regret the blossoms dying,

While we still may taste the fruit,

Oh, while days like this are ours,

Where's the lip that dares repine?

Spring may take our loves and flowers,

So Autumn leaves us friends and wine.

 

A to Z and Back again - Our letter and word of the week are L and Life

 

Link to book week 11

Visit  52 Books in 52 Weeks where you can find all the information on the annual, mini and perpetual challenges.  

Edited March 20, 2022 by Robin M

[Robin M]

Haven't decided yet which book I'm going to read for Spring Reading thing so currently reading James Rollins The Starless Crown.  Rollin's newest fantasy fiction series. 

"A gifted student foretells an apocalypse. Her reward is a sentence of death.

Fleeing into the unknown she is drawn into a team of outcasts:

A broken soldier, who once again takes up the weapons he’s forbidden to wield and carves a trail back home.

A drunken prince, who steps out from his beloved brother's shadow and claims a purpose of his own.

An imprisoned thief, who escapes the crushing dark and discovers a gleaming artifact - one that will ignite a power struggle across the globe.

On the run, hunted by enemies old and new, they must learn to trust each other in order to survive in a world evolved in strange, beautiful, and deadly ways, and uncover ancient secrets that hold the key to their salvation.

But with each passing moment, doom draws closer.

WHO WILL CLAIM THE STARLESS CROWN?"

 

Watched The Dark Knight with Christian Bale as Batman and Heath Ledger as the Joker. Ledge did a great job and made for a very intense creepy Joker. 

[Negin]

Thank you for the thread, Robin!

Happy Spring to everyone! This is one of my favorite times of the year. 

I read Elizabeth & Margaret: The Intimate World of the Windsor Sisters - 4 Stars

 

[mumto2]

My Golden Age author of the week (I seem to be trying a new one each week which wasn’t really planned ) was a bit of a disappointment which I already reviewed……John Dickson Carr.  I seem to have moved on to America’s Golden Age author’s because of the Josephine Tey spelling challenge and the need for an O and a Y.  I found a Rex Stout with an O (Champagne for One) and a Charlotte Armstrong with a Y (The Better to Eat You).  Rex Stout will be listened to next week but Charlotte Armstrong was literally a one sitting book.

Charlotte Armstrong was known for her psychological thrillers and The Better to Eat You With was definately that!  Gaslighting at it’s finest might be the way to describe this book.  It was obvious……she was a rather weak 50’s girl…….I still loved it!One of the Goodreads reviews mentions how different this book is from most of Armstrong’s others which means I will need to read more just to find out!  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22078216-the-better-to-eat-you

From GR: Grandfather, What Evil Eyes You Have!
“we have never known whether these things happened or whether Sarah wants them to happen…”
Disaster seemed to floow Sarah in the form of grisly and often fatal accidents. And it seemed to stop when she took refuge in her grandfather’s house –
– Until she found out that Grandfather wasn’t Grandfather, her mysterious accidents were really his malicious crimes, and the final bit of “bad luck” he had planned for Sarah was her own brutal death…

I also listened to the first book in what appears to be a new cozy series by Peggy Rothschild.  A Deadly Bone to Pick is essentially a cozy about dogs so @Pen might enjoy this one.  A former canine cop moves accross the country with her dog to forget her husband’s murder and suddenly finds herself being billed as the local canine wrangler.  One of her pupil’s  digs up a severed hand during a training session and she finds herself in the center of a case.  This book was fun and the murderer was rather unexpected.  I really liked this one! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58082240-a-deadly-bone-to-pick

[Kareni]

Happy Spring all!

I learned yesterday that a new book had been published in a favorite series. I promptly bought it, and I finished it earlier today: Murder in Immunity: A Doyle & Acton Mystery by Anne Cleeland.  I think this is the fourteenth book in the series and it is not the place to begin. I enjoyed revisiting favorite characters.

Regards,

Kareni

[Mothersweets]

Lovely poem Robin! and thank you for the thread. Over the past couple of weeks I finished three books:

The Death of Jane Lawrence  by Caitlin Starling. This had a wonderfully creepy, Gothic premise but it went off the rails about a third of the way through. 

Mala's Cat: A Memoir of Survival in WWII by Mala Kacenberg. I had to double check while reading this to see if it was aimed at younger readers - maybe middle school or upper elementary - but no, it is shelved in the adult section. The writing is very simple and skimmed the surface of the events of this Jewish woman's life in Poland during WWII. Her story takes an unusual path and I appreciated the book for that but the writing kept me at an emotional distance. I think the cat in the title was just a plot device - like maybe she had a cat with her at the beginning of the war but I can't believe that this cat just followed her onto trains and into Germany, etc. But, it doesn't matter what I think, she survived and is in her 90s now and is entitled to write whatever she wants!

An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed by Helene Tursten. This is the follow-up to An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good and I enjoyed it as much as the first one! The cover art is terrific and fits in with this week's theme - read a book with flowers or leaves on the cover. 

 

 

[Lady Florida.]

Happy Spring! It's a very short season here that is recognized only when you know what to look for. If you expect a typical northern climate spring you'll be disappointed. April brings the heady intoxicating scent of citrus flowers and gardenias. March is bird mating season and if you're lucky you hear the calls or see the complicated flights to attract mates. Last minute harvesting is done in home vegetable gardens because we don't grow much in the hot, humid summer aside from some hot peppers and maybe cherry tomatoes. We usually go from nice weather (late-Nov to March) to OMG it's so hot! very quickly. This March has been more rainy than usual but we've had a lovely few days. 

Last year we attached an orchid to the palm tree outside our back screened porch. They're symbiotic and it's a common thing to do here. It had one flower then turned into a stick with leaves. My orchid whisperer friend told me as long as the leaves looked healthy to leave it be and I'm glad I listened. We have several spikes/stalks now each with a nice number of buds. I'm looking forward to when they open - some are almost ready. 

On that same palm tree we have a pair of mourning doves nesting just above the orchid. We sit on the back porch in the mornings with our coffee and Kindles, and we watched them building the nest. Yesterday we noticed one (the female?) sitting there. Bill had a spare camera so he set it up for us to watch. There aren't any eggs yet but we're excited about watching the little family. 

Editing to say the tree is less than 5 feet from the screen door so even without the camera we get to see the activity close up.

 

On 3/15/2022 at 10:34 PM, mumto2 said:

I finished this weeks letter K by reading a book by Kate Ellis https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/894245.The_Plague_Maiden.  She is actually an author that I met many years ago at a library function in England.  At that time we couldn’t keep her books on the shelf because the whole village wanted to read them so I only managed to read the first 3 or 4  before forgetting to keep putting my hold’s on to read the rest of the series in order.  I remember her saying that her publisher was trying to get her books on kindle and now they are.  Her books are really enjoyable as they are written in a duel timeline format with a current day police case and a historical storyline that normally involves an archeological dig.  Her main character started his career as a archeological student and switched to being a police detective.  I love archeology in mysteries!

 

I'm still reading the same books as last week but added two. One is the first book in the above series, The Merchant's House. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. There are so many points of view, sometimes from minor characters, that it's distracting. It's also jarring because these POV changes sometimes happen from paragraph to paragraph. I plan to finish the book and try the next one and will decide then if I want to continue.

I also started Troilus and Cressida inspired by last week's Shakespeare theme. I'm following a schedule that has you read just a scene or two per day. 

Edited March 21, 2022 by Lady Florida.

[Kareni]

How fun to watch the bird nesting, @Lady Florida.! I hope, too, that you'll share a picture of your orchids when they bloom.

Regards,

Kareni

[Kareni]

After telling my husband about the most recent Acton and Doyle book that I read, he decided to try the first book in the series. I had to reread it (naturally) so that I can talk about it with him; I enjoyed it! 

Murder In Thrall (A New Scotland Yard Mystery Book 1) by Anne Cleeland 

"An Irish redhead of humble beginnings and modest means, Kathleen Doyle is the antithesis of Chief Inspector Michael Sinclair,  known as Lord Acton, the brilliant but enigmatic lord with a knack for solving London's most high profile homicides. When a horse trainer is found dead at a racetrack, the duo’s investigation does little to deter the killer at large. Jeopardizing the case are their colleagues at CID headquarters, whose nosing into the nature of Doyle and Acton’s after-hours relationship threatens to lay bare the most classified information of all. As the murders pile up, Doyle and Acton uncover something far more sinister than they could have imagined. Now that they know too much, their partnership could be very brief indeed. . ."

Regards,

Kareni

[Pen]

On 3/20/2022 at 7:48 AM, mumto2 said:

I also listened to the first book in what appears to be a new cozy series by Peggy Rothschild.  A Deadly Bone to Pick is essentially a cozy about dogs so @Pen might enjoy this one.  A former canine cop moves accross the country with her dog to forget her husband’s murder and suddenly finds herself being billed as the local canine wrangler.  One of her pupil’s  digs up a severed hand during a training session and she finds herself in the center of a case.  This book was fun and the murderer was rather unexpected.  I really liked this one! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58082240-a-deadly-bone-to-pick

thanks!

[Lady Florida.]

One of the orchids opened this afternoon. 

 

[Kareni]

That is lovely, @Lady Florida.!

Regards,

Kareni

[mumto2]

8 hours ago, Lady Florida. said:

I'm still reading the same books as last week but added two. One is the first book in the above series, The Merchant's House. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. There are so many points of view, sometimes from minor characters, that it's distracting. It's also jarring because these POV changes sometimes happen from paragraph to paragraph. I plan to finish the book and try the next one and will decide then if I want to continue.

I hope you end up enjoying it.  I just looked at GR and I must have been reading these years ago......I enjoyed the one I just read but no idea if the enjoyment might just be stemming from happy memories.

[Kareni]

Over the past week or so I've been reading A Most Unusual Duke: A Steamy Shapeshifter Regency Romance by Susanna Allen. As you can see from the subtitle, this is a regency romance that includes shapeshifters; it was a fun read. (Some adult content)

"The Duke said he'd never get married...

The Prince Regent insists his cousin and fellow bear shifter Arthur Humphries, the Duke of Osborn, take a mate to ensure the continuation of their species. After all, Arthur is an Alpha, so he must set a good example. The duke would very much prefer to continue his comfortable bachelor lifestyle, but the Prince Regent is not a bear to be poked.

Beatrice, the widowed Marchioness of Castleton, is in possession of a powerful secret. She knows all about Shifters, her horrible late husband being one of them. At any moment, Beatrice could reveal the secrets of the Prince and those like him—unless the Prince can make sure she marries another Shifter.

A marriage between the Duke of Osborn and Beatrice is far from ideal for either one, but at least they won't fall in love...right?"

Regards,

Kareni

[bookbard]

I read an urban fantasy/scifi called Smoke Eaters by Sean Grigsby which sounded good - firefighters vs dragons - but unfortunately it was a really weird redneck version where Canada was the enemy  . . . it was very odd and sadly disappointing. The actual writing wasn't bad - I wonder which editor thought the redneck stuff would be amusing?

Reread some childhood books from the UK - Marianne Dreams and Marianne & Mark by Catherine Storr. If you've ever read the first you'll never forget it, it's a very eerie, creative book about a girl's drawings entering her dreams. Quite normal for her to be sick in bed for months with scarlet fever and for her friend to be in an iron lung with polio . . .  we are so lucky now. The second is a sequel, very different, but unusual in its own way. Cannot imagine any modern child reading the second one for pleasure, it's like a historical document. The first would stand up, I think.

I did read a book with a character called Autumn, one of the Shadow Unit books. We are just starting to see the leaves turning yellow (of our non-natives deciduous trees of course; gums and wattles don't do that). 

 

[ladydusk]

I finished My Man, Jeeves and began The Inimitable Jeeves. Both included on Audible and read by Jonathan Cecil.  

[Lady Florida.]

15 hours ago, mumto2 said:

I hope you end up enjoying it.  I just looked at GR and I must have been reading these years ago......I enjoyed the one I just read but no idea if the enjoyment might just be stemming from happy memories.

One reason I want to give it to at least the second one is that it was her first novel. I'm usually forgiving of an author's first novel if it looks like they have promise. The story and mystery keep me reading, it's only the frequent POV changes that I find a bit frustrating. GR reviews are generally good especially when it comes to her later books both in this series her other ones. 

[Vintage81]

13 hours ago, Kareni said:

Over the past week or so I've been reading A Most Unusual Duke: A Steamy Shapeshifter Regency Romance by Susanna Allen. As you can see from the subtitle, this is a regency romance that includes shapeshifters; it was a fun read. (Some adult content)

"The Duke said he'd never get married...

The Prince Regent insists his cousin and fellow bear shifter Arthur Humphries, the Duke of Osborn, take a mate to ensure the continuation of their species. After all, Arthur is an Alpha, so he must set a good example. The duke would very much prefer to continue his comfortable bachelor lifestyle, but the Prince Regent is not a bear to be poked.

Beatrice, the widowed Marchioness of Castleton, is in possession of a powerful secret. She knows all about Shifters, her horrible late husband being one of them. At any moment, Beatrice could reveal the secrets of the Prince and those like him—unless the Prince can make sure she marries another Shifter.

A marriage between the Duke of Osborn and Beatrice is far from ideal for either one, but at least they won't fall in love...right?"

Regards,

Kareni

That sounds wild…I don’t think I’ve ever heard of regency romance with shapeshifters! 🤣

[Mothersweets]

@Lady Florida. your orchid is beautiful!

[Kareni]

11 hours ago, bookbard said:

I read an urban fantasy/scifi called Smoke Eaters by Sean Grigsby which sounded good - firefighters vs dragons - but unfortunately it was a really weird redneck version where Canada was the enemy  . . . it was very odd and sadly disappointing. The actual writing wasn't bad - I wonder which editor thought the redneck stuff would be amusing?

I read about a third of the book before abandoning it; it did have promise. Sorry to learn that it ultimately disappointed you. 

Regards,

Kareni

[Kareni]

And I reread another Acton and Doyle book with pleasure, Murder in Retribution (A New Scotland Yard Mystery Book 2) by Anne Cleeland. 

Regards,

Kareni

[Lady Florida.]

Forgot to mention: I keep meaning to downgrade my Audible account but until I do I keep collecting credits. One of the books I bought with recent credits is Queen Victoria: Twenty Four Days That Changed Her Life by Lucy Worsley. I started it Saturday and have about an hour left in it. I adore Worsley and when I first saw that she doesn't narrate it herself I was disappointed but I listened to the sample and liked it. It didn't take long for me to warm up to the narrator, who does a wonderful job. I still would have preferred the author but the choice of narrator was a good one. 

[Robin M]

Guess I was in the mood for something meaty. The bookshop at water's end by Patti Callahan Henry was a deep dive into the relationships between two friends and the people surrounding them. The characters are broken emotionally and are returning for the summer to the summer home where Lainey's mother abandoned their family years ago.  Lainey doesn't want to go to Watersend but her friend needs her.  Bonny's marriage is over, she made a mistake in the emergency room and a man died. Bonny's daughter Piper has failed out of school, her boyfriend left her for another student, and she's flailing.  They agree to meet at the summer house to fix it up to sell and life's complications and emotions catch up with all of them.  Bookshop at Water's End is an emotional journey of finding their way, individually and together. 

The bookshop is owned by Mimi who was lived in Waterends all her life and is there at the beginning and there at the end and in between provides a stabilizing influence to all the angst the characters are experiencing.    

“Inside the very worst things you can find the power for change. Nothing needs to be the end of it all; anything and everything can have new meaning.” She grimaced with a smile. “I know it sounds like I’m just trying to make it all better with a little Band-Aid of words, but I’ve lived it. I’m telling you the truth. It is awful. It is painful, and your mom will suffer because it hurts. That’s true also.”

"But what no one ever tells you is that there is this horrible, gooey, mud-sucking, scary-as-hell middle place that you have to slog through before the begin-again gets to start.”

“Art and stories,” I said, “offer meaning to our lives in a way nothing else can. Science can’t. Logic won’t. The soul needs story and meaning to help us endure this life. This is what Lainey’s art does for us—it offers us meaning. You know I believe stories do the same. Books can be medicine for the heart just as Lainey’s art is medicine for the soul. There is magic here.”

[Robin M]

On 3/21/2022 at 2:39 PM, Lady Florida. said:

One of the orchids opened this afternoon. 

 

Gorgeous!

[Negin]

9 hours ago, Lady Florida. said:

Forgot to mention: I keep meaning to downgrade my Audible account but until I do I keep collecting credits. One of the books I bought with recent credits is Queen Victoria: Twenty Four Days That Changed Her Life by Lucy Worsley.

This one has been on my wish list. 

[Kareni]

And I reread yet another Acton and Doyle mystery and enjoyed it once again, Murder in Hindsight (A New Scotland Yard Mystery Book 3)

by Anne Cleeland.

Regards,

Kareni

[Storygirl]

Q -- Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death by MC Beaton. This was a quick audio read at only six hours (faster with an increased listening speed). When PR executive Agatha takes an early retirement to the country, she enters a quiche contest in an effort to meet people in the community. When the judge dies after eating it, she is determined to deduce who done it. Agatha is a curmudgeon who alienates people that she means to befriend, due to her crusty manner, and while this is a source of humor in the story, it failed to win me over.

R -- Rebel Homemaker by Drew Barrymore. Although this is a cookbook, it is also a book of essays about Barrymore's attempts to establish a new home for herself and her children after her divorce and a reluctant move from California to New York. Soon after her move, the pandemic forces more changes in her life, and she becomes a gardener and spends a lot of time cooking with her private-chef friend, who is listed as co-author. Many of her recipes have options for keeping things vegan or vegetarian. Although her food style does not match mine, making this a cookbook that I won't actually cook from, I did enjoy reading the essays and perusing the candid photos of food, flowers, and Barrymore being herself at home.

[Storygirl]

Also newly finished:

The Unwilling by John Hart (audio). I have mixed feelings about this one. Not because it is dark, which it is. I can handle that, usually. I think what bothered me is that this read as a real Man's Book. The women in the story are unbelievable --  victims of horrible crimes; an extremely flawed in an unflattering way minor character mother; and a brilliant virginal girlfriend who invites the teen character to have sex on their second or third date when she only had her first kiss days before. The teen character also is seduced by an older woman who becomes one of the victims. This is all fantasy land territory, in my opinion, and does not represent real women at all. The writing style is good. The story line is brutal, involving a serial killer prisoner and several murders that are pinned on the teen character's older convict-yet-secretly-a-war-hero brother. The teen feels he must investigate to clear his brother's name, when he thinks his detective father is not doing enough. I was hoping to find another good mystery author, but I doubt I'll give Hart another chance.

The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell. This is the first book by Jewell that I've read, and now I plan to read more. Set in a dual time frame, the story unravels what happened to teen mom Tallulah, who doesn't come home one night after going out with her live-in boyfriend, who also has disappeared. Her mother takes over care of the baby while hoping for a break in the case. Over a year later, a mystery author moves to town and begins to look into what happened. The story alternates between the search for Tallulah and the story of what happened to Tallulah in a way that keeps the reader turning pages. Set in a small town, with a boarding school near the woods, a nearby community college, and a mansion as backdrops, the story has characters as interesting as the setting.

[Kareni]

Yes, I'm on a roll. I reread with pleasure Murder in Containment: A Doyle and Acton Mystery by Anne Cleeland.

Regards,

Kareni

[Pen]

I am reading non fiction related to gardening and or home repairs. 

[bookbard]

Read 'Souless' by Gail Carriger which wasn't quite what I expected, a lot heavier on the romance that I had thought. Vampires and werewolves in Regency England. It was ok. 

Read 'I Bring the Fire' by C Gockel, which was a Loki and other gods in real life book. It was pretty good for a self-published book I thought, but not good enough for me to persist with the series. The guy definitely knows his Norse mythology, enough to twist the tales a bit. 

[Negin]

Crime/mystery/thriller - book 2 in the series on sale today. 

[Kareni]

I've continued on with my reread and just finished Murder in All Honour: A Doyle and Acton Mystery by Anne Cleeland.

Regards,

Kareni

[Kareni]

I finished the contemporary romance Shenanigans by Sarina Bowen; I enjoyed it but it is not amongst my favorites by the author. (Adult content)

"What I meant to do in Vegas: Let my hair down for once and celebrate winning a medal at my first women’s hockey all-stars competition.

What I actually did: Got senior prom drunk and woke up married to Brooklyn’s star winger, the great Neil Drake. 

He’s the heir to a billion dollars, and I barely survived my childhood. Our friendship is based strictly only on hockey, takeout food and smack talk. 

And now holy matrimony. Although we both know it can’t last, especially once his evil family gets wind of our Vegas shenanigans… "

Regards,

Kareni

[mumto2]

I have apparently been busy reading L books. 😂

My chosen L book was The Last Express by Baynard Kendrick.  He is an American Golden Age author that I first tried about a year ago and have been accumulating his work via cheap kindle books every since.  I am close to owning them all so decided to start reading and The Last Express is the first in the Duncan McClain series which features a blind detective with his two trained german shepherds.  They are well done but not so fabulous that I would expect anyone other me to love them.  They hit a sweet spot between classic mystery and the dogs for me.😉  I also happened to listen to a Rex Stout (Champagne for One) this week and realized how similar the two series are.  Champagne for One was quite good btw,

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77597.Champagne_for_One

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57215045-the-last-express

In other accidental L reading I read two Christian Romatic suppence books that are part of series that I plan to continue.  The first is by Lisa Harris and was called The Escape https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51272974-the-escape. Honestly, there was quite a bit of need to suspend realistic police procedure but I liked the characters and the book was easy to page turn.  So a win for light reading.  The second was Labyrinth of Lies by Irene Hannon and I listened to this one.  It was far better than the first in the series and I enjoyed the setting at a boarding school.  I always like boarding school settings!

My current book also has an L.........more on that later.

[Storygirl]

Two more audio books finished this week:

Hostage by Clare Macintosh. In this thriller, while on a 20 hour nonstop flight between London and Sydney, flight attendant Mina finds a note that threatens the life of her young daughter, if she does not help the terrorists onboard get into the plane's cockpit. Meanwhile, her husband back in London discovers himself on the other end of the situation, trying to keep their daughter safe.

Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend. This first book in a children's fantasy series is enchanting and made even more so by the audio production. Fans of Harry Potter are likely to love this book. The author has created a plucky heroine, a fantastic new magical world, and an enticing plot that wraps up the major story line by the end, yet leaves the reader wanting to read the next book.

[bookbard]

55 minutes ago, Storygirl said:

Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend.

I really liked this book (by an Australian author) and found it totally appropriate for middle grade readers. Unfortunately the next two haven't been so good or as appropriate for that readership and I would only recommend for older kids. I always wonder if a first book gets lots of editing while the second and subsequent don't get as much . . . there were some unnecessary things in the following books. 

 

On 3/23/2022 at 1:01 PM, Robin M said:

Guess I was in the mood for something meaty.

Me too. Read A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines which is a 1960s northern Britain book about a teenage boy who loves nature and trains a wild kestrel. Fabulous writing, and a great picture of a time and a place. Also good if you're looking at how education/school fails kids. 

Before that read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig where a woman gets a chance to live heaps of different lives based on her regrets (eg what if I'd been to uni, what if I'd become a famous swimmer). It falls into a category of British books which I can't exactly put my finger on but which includes Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - ie the slightly mentally ill/neurodiverse main character who just needs to connect with others and everything will be fine. I always get a sense of the author extolling 'just try harder!' which annoys me. Maybe The Rosie Project falls into that category, but at least the author got so much kick-back from that book that he met with heaps of people with autism and wrote what I thought was a good end to the trilogy.

A famous author - Penelope Lively I believe - wrote a book where she imagined what would have happened if certain things in her life had happened differently, she called it an anti-memoir. That was a really interesting book, whereas the Haig book was pretty trite. 

 

[Robin M]

Link to week 13