Madeleine

Hi Peter and welcome to the forum, do you have any favourite authors and/or genres?

Can you feel the force - The Real Thing

It's been bizarre weather, sunshine one side and torrential rain the other, Wednesday was particularly bad and it looks like tomorrow will be too, my walking group has a stand at the local community festival (outside of course!) and I'm hoping we don't get blown away as the forecast is even worse than it's been the last few days.

I read The Secret History nearly 20 years ago, also for a book group read, and I was also curious after hearing so much about it. I did enjoy it, if that's the right road, but like you I also found it too long, maybe over-written at times, and agree that none of the characters were very likeable. I remember at the time it felt a bit like a book of two halves, and I think I thought the 2nd half was better.

I wanna hold your hand - The Beatles

Bed of Roses - Bon Jovi

Where the wild roses grow - Nick Cave and Kylie

Call of the Wild - Midge Ure

Call Me - Blondie

Broken Wings - Mr Mister

Good luck, have fun with your knitting!

And here it is, for the eyes I used a couple of beads from a bracelet that had snapped, they're probably a bit too far apart but overall I'm happy with it.

Yes now the nights are drawing in it feels like time to start knitting and crocheting doesn't it! I've crocheted a couple of worry worms, I just need to sew the eyes on. I found a Youtube video by a nice lady and took a pic of the pattern which is very simple, and I'm finding it a good way of getting back into crocheting, and also using up odd bits of wool.

Young Girl - Gary Puckett and the Union Gap

Young Americans - David Bowie

That looks like a fantastic place.

Pour some sugar on me - Def Leppard

We did Animal Farm and 198bore, sorry 1984 as well, scarily prescient now but bored me stiff at the time, I skipped a whole section!

A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George - this is the first in the long-running crime series featuring Inspector Tommy Lynley, who though based in London seems to be asked to cover cases all over the UK,and how he came to work with his sidekick, Sergeant Barbara Havers. Lynley comes from an aristocratic family and has the world at his feet, and also has a reputation as a womaniser,and none of these features endear him to Havers, who has already spent time being demoted to uniform because she can't get on with any of her superiors. So when she is paired with Lynley to investiage a gruesome murder in Yorkshire, she is deeply suspicious and resentful, believing that she's only been paired with the handsome detective as she's probably the only woman he won't fancy. And the author spares no detail in her description of Havers,it's positively brutal and Havers' huge chip on her shoulder about her own troubled background does her no favours either,though deep down she desperately wants to get on,but always seems to jeopardise any opportunites thrown her way. The main suspect in the murder is the victim's adult daughter, and the case looks cut and dried; the suspect, Roberta, has been detained in a mental health facility and the author again spares no grim detail in her descriptions of the unfortunate woman. Gradually Lynley and Havers unravel the facts which led to the murder, and both face their own demons- Havers is her background, Lynley is still struggling to come to terms with the fact that the love of his life has married his friend (not really a spoiler as this happens very early on in the book). I did find this dragged for a while, and the author's descriptions are so scathing that I really wondered if they would have been allowed now - the book was written in 1989. But gradually events developed and it finally became quite engrossing, though I still found it hard to like Havers, despite her sad family circumstances. The TV series was very popular a while ago, and apparently a reboot is on it's way, though I don't know if this book has been filmed. 6.5/10

I hate to say it bur Jane Austen's Persuasion and Emma, for A Level, also helped to put me off reading for years, and I was a real bookworm.

Sugar Walls - Sheena Easton (I think this song got banned)

In a similar sort of vein to Anna's post, I was also at a girls' school and we did Lord of the Flies, which is also all boys. We did do Jane Eyre and Far from the Madding Crowd as well,also To Kill a Mockingbird which all have main female characters, which I suppose balanced it out a bit.

Walls come tumbling down - Style Council

Whisky in the Jar - Thin Lizzy/Metallica

Wild Women Do - Natalie Cole