FelisT2

And I gave it to my Father, Pontalba: he reads really, really, really, really, fast - he read Blair's, My Journey in 10 hours and spoke about it at his book group the very next day. Unbelievabubble - it took me two weeks to read that. He said (my dear Daddy) that he would have lunch with me on Sunday (I'll feed the ducks a little earlier) in town. He's going to come and get me and take me to lunch - wizzhoo. Yummy-yum-yum. I do love my dad. Boy, am I sunk into this book (Red Attack-White Resistance). I'm pretty sure it won't shed any light on the 'White Knight' thingy-majiggery-pokery (the '1918' in the title kinda' shoulda' bin a clue - somewhat dim at times - but it is like my Father said, 'You tend to jump before you look, my dear.') but it is awfully interesting to read about how the Bolsheviks grabbed a hold of things, back then. It's my birthday in April and my parents always buy me lots of books - they are just great - and Daddy said, 'This year you can send a list.' - Supercalafragalisticexpialadoshus - I think they are over the moon that I am exploring a subject, rather than hop, skipping, and jumping around. I'm going to bed - I'm gonna' read and read. Wizzhoo - it's great to be here. My brother and his wife (I do love them so very much) are downstairs drinking lager and watching telly. But it's okay, 'cause I can talk to you guys. Sleep tight.

Pontalba: fiddle-de-diddle-dee-dee! What's a girl spoosed to do? I can't read this again, now. I need to 'wait a while,' whilst reading other stuff: Red Attack, White Resistance is going to be in my 'lickle' mitt by tomorrow lunch time: I'm biding my time with Wuthering Heights. Loose ends; not fair. I ought tell Mr. Orvin so.

Pontalba: Asset. I did too: think the tension was excruciating. The scene setting I felt was so real, and made me believe I was there at times. The dear bolting, leaving him feeling so desperately forlorn. The continued clenching of his fists as he fights against his claustrophobia. But why it got so deep under my skin is the rescue/removal/escape of these young military conscripts: I just so want that to be true. It's out there, in the public domain, what is happening to these poor unfortunates. I just want that to be so true. I'm going to dig up everything I can read on this. I want to believe it, and lay awake thinking about how credible the rest of his story is. I know he can say what he wants on the radio, but he did say he had met people that knew of this underground organisation. I just can't think that anyone in such an outfit would blab about it. He (the author) said that the government know of them, can't locate them, and therefore deny they exist. But this is another thing, and I can't stop thinking about it: he (Mitchell - the main character) is not an MI6 Asset, I'm sure of it. Harry, the MI6 officer in London is told to fly the asset back from Kazakhstan pronto, and then we find Mitchell being handed a ticket to a berth on the Trans-Siberian Express by one of the members of the underground organisation. So who is the asset? Mitchell lies to people in Atyrau because he was on his last legs: starving and with nowhere to stay. That's my read of it, maybe I'm not seeing what you are. If he was an MI6 Asset, would he have told the people in the oil company of his parents and his actual family history? And he did admit to lying when he was talking to a manager at the oil base. I found his (the author's) website and I sent a mail asking him for some indication. His answer was: 'Ahh, that we'll have to wait a while for.' Grrrrrrrr, it's got me all worked up again. I think I'll take a glass of wine for a bath.

Dear Beneak, That's such a wonderful story, I shall tell my mother and father: a book they both love so much, a book they gave to me as present, and I too love dearly. I shall take a glass of wine for a bath: 'awwwww'.

It's where I started, Chisilbeach (it's the first in the Richard Hannay series of books). However, I tend to think you might be a little longer in the tooth than I was at that time. I still, at the ripe old age of 23, think the Hannay adventures are great fun to read (I've read them all more than twice). And, I do struggle to find contemporary work that I can even slightly believe in (once I see how a plot which we are being asked to believe has become fantasy rather than fiction I lose a great deal of interest). There is happenstance, coincidence, in life: there is a surprising amount, at times, in the exploits John Buchan penned. Who am I to question that. The brazen bluff and courage that saw many in Hannay's day win favour - walk away with the spoils - is without doubt a fact. I point you to: The Great Game. On Secret Service East of Constantinople. Shooting Leave: Spying Out Central Asia in the Great Game. And then whence those works are enjoyed, Greenmantle, another Hannay escapade. One must of course accept that bravado and bluster could win the day, at such a time: how many people in Turkey had ever met someone from Holland, from South Africa, from England, heard a person from such places speak German, heard a German from Hamburg speak German, heard a German from Munich speak German, seen a passport, seen a letter giving right of passage and stamped by the German High Command? The Great Game, by Peter Hopkirk is the most heart pounding thriller I have ever read and will ever read, I'm sure. And that, of course, is far from fiction. I may be a lone wolf, out there sniffing the dirt, scraping around, for a great adventure thriller that I can believe might just happen: I hope not. My tuppence worth.

I hope it's not too late (Has this thread been put to bed?) to say something here. I was given this by my parents for my fourteenth birthday: it's great stuff. Heart throbbing, derring-do adventure, and one of the books that I will always remember as unputdownable, and one of the books that I believe gave me the thirst. I'm now an avid reader: mostly historical fiction, European History, WWI literature. When a book creates a desire in you to read more, it has to be applauded. Greenmantle and Mr. Standfast came along shortly after, followed by Kim & The Man Who Would Be King. Then came everything Peter Hopkirk has written: books that take my breath away. Later reads of Richard Hannay's exploits did allow me to see how at points the storyline can become quite fantastic, but with a young mind I was absolutely captured. So thank you Mum and thank you Dad (great readers themselves) and thank you John Buchan.

Good-day, Devi, My brother spent five years in Aus, and he waxes lyrical over your little island. I've not been anywhere - yet, but you're bang on about the farm: it's quiet, it's peaceful, and when it's dark-it's dark. We have lots of clouds here, maybe more than you, but on the nights when we don't there are lots of bright and shiny stars. In the summer, and it has to be the summer, I do sit out (with a book) and gaze up now and then. You know, this is great being here - I'll start talking about books at some point - saying hello to people from all over (from down under even). I'm going to bed - thank you for saying hello - it's late (I've been reading) - goodnight Devi, sleep tight, with a book under your pillow.

Hello Bree and hello Bobblybear, thank you both for your welcome. I've been to work, I've done my shopping, and I'm now back at the farm. Yippee. Hey there, Pontalba. Thank you for saying hello to me. I enjoyed Asset immensely and only bought it because the author lives local to me. Support your local bookstore is my motto - we need to keep hold of them - therefore support your local author, I say. Although I must admit, the article in the local paper was really interesting and the interview he gave on the radio (on a Sunday - lucky me) did pin my ears back. (support your local radio) The White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov is good. Pretty real: action packed and bloody and emotional: the Cossacks and the struggle against the Red Army at the close of WWI. The Cossacks (the Don Cossacks in particular) swore an allegiance to the Tsar and as part of that swore to protect the people, the poor, the infirm, the abused. I'll not say anymore until you've finished it. It's still early where you are, and so I hope you have a great day. Sleep tight, with a book under your pillow. Felis.

Hi Peahen, I'm so glad you said hello. When you do, please let me know. I haven't stopped thinking about the military conscript line that this book takes in. I'm not that worldly wise: I read but I'm not too sure that counts for too much. I'll say goodnight, I need to go to work tomorrow. Sleep tight, with a book under your pillow. Felis.

My parents worked as teachers. My brother, with great A Levels, ups and says, 'I'm off to Australia.' Mum and Dad shriek. We get a letter now and then and an email once in a while. He turns up five years later, all weather tanned and muscular, 'I've been sheep shearing,' says he, with a ponytail. A ponytail! He left home with a crew cut. I'd grown up somewhat, I thought he was a real hunk. I don't anymore, he's just my big brother now. Anyway, he declares, 'I'm going to farm.' Next thing you know he's swapping spit with this rather hot blonde: her dad owns a farm. He gets a job at the farm. They get married. They get a farm, a farm, for a wedding present. Her family ain't short of a shilling. She's great, I love her to bits. And my big brother. As I said, it's a cool place to live, and I do my bit: I feed the ducks on Sunday.

Hello Frankie, thank you. I tried so hard to find work in a library once I was out of pigtails, but alas it was all part-time volunteer work in my neck of the woods. And as luck would have it, I needed to earn a crust. Fiddle-de-dee, said I. Again I would have to move to one of those places with lots of buildings and streets and cars and shops and madness: a city.

No, I tend to miss out on a great many films. Especially those that are based on good books. With my parents, I go as far as the local theatre, now and then; it's mostly jolly japes - so more for a giggle. A change is as good as a rest. Hello Chesilbeach, thank you for your welcome.

I don't muck out. I occupy the spare room in my brother's farm house. The farm came with the wife (they are such a nice couple) they love all that getting dirty, wearing overalls, welly-gogs, bouncing around the fields in their Landy-Rover, and sleeping in the kitchen when the lambing is on. I feed the ducks on Sunday. I work in a bank, and have to wear boots and high leg socks when I walk down their muddy drive and along the narrow lane to the bus stop: I change into clean and polished court shoes on the bus. I did have a flat in a small town, but even that got to the point where the looneys were running up and down the street until two or three in the morning, shouting and fighting and being sick in the gutter. Yuck. I read History (the breathtaking stuff - everything Peter Hopkirk has written). Political Fiction. Historical Fiction. My top reads: The Great Game. Kim. Anna Karenina. For Whom the Bell Tolls. Operation Mincemeat. Spies. Hole. To Kill a Mockingbird. The 39 Steps. Greenmantle. Great Expectations. The Grapes of Wrath. The Catcher in the Rye. A Passage to India. Felis.

Thank you very much for your welcome. I do like your blog.

Dear Pontalba, I've just posted a note on Introductions, it refers to your post about Asset by Jonathan Orvin. I'm so sorry, I quoted you as 'Nobkovian.' A bit dim of me, 'Sorry.'