France

I learned to read with Black Beauty - my mother was reading it to me and answered the phone and I got so frustrated at the wait that I picked it up and discovered I could make out all the words. I must have read it about 20 times between the ages of 6 -10. I spent yesterday visiting my first grandchild, aged 5 days. I'm every bit as besotted as your stereotypical grandmother.

I've already expressed my opinions about Blue Monday by Nicci French elsewhere so won't repeat them, suffice to say I won't be continuing with the series. Death in the East by Akbir Mukherjee is the fourth in his series about Sam Wyndham and constable Banerjee and imo is the weakest though most reviewers don't appear to agree with me. It's a dual time line story with a murder in the East End in 1905 that was one of Wyndham's first cases and Assam in 1922 where Wyndham is trying to dry out from his opium addiction. I found it all a bit slow until the two themes converged and then it absolutely ripped along. A decent read and I'll be reading the next one. Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor has been lauded to the skies as brilliant Australian Noir etc etc. Parts of it are very good but it meanders about, there's too much back story in some places and a good 40 unnecessary pages at the end after the murder has been solved. Jane Harper may have called it "a stellar debut" but she's far, far better than this.

My mother in law nearly died due to low sodium levels caused by her asthma meds. She was in hospital for a week. Here in France they automatically test everyone over about 60 if they're admitted to hospital because salt deficiency is surprisingly common, especially among those who drink a lot of tea.

The Day of the Jackal was an excellent adaptation, I last saw it on TV about 25 years ago so I don't know how well it holds up.

I'm thinking about those books which you are racing through and get to the end, then think immediately, or maybe a little later, 'that wouldn't have happened' or 'Why did he/she do that?' OK I know that most fiction does not accurately reflect real life and that there really are individuals who are probably too stupid to live but reading about supposedly intelligent individuals (usually women) who ignore all the pointers screaming 'Danger!', walk into a darkened room where a maniac is hiding and then are surprised to find themselves trussed up and the next in line for a chopper drives me wild. Especially when they then overcome the maniac with the aid of a hairpin. And lets not go into some psychological thrillers where the plot revolves around people simply not noticing something vital and glaringly obvious such as there's a big family party and no-one realises that the daughter isn't there, in fact they all presume she is because they see someone with similar hair milling around who is in fact her best friend. I did not make up that little gem, it comes from a bestseller. What's got me going is finishing Blue Monday by Nicci French which I was thoroughly enjoying until I got to the end, closed it and immediately thought, 'EH? Why?' As in why was one of the crimes committed? I can accept (most of the time) obscure reasons like a phobia caused by Auntie sneezing all over the criminal which was triggered again by... but not the 'it kicked off the story and I haven't worked out why he did it so live with not knowing' type of plotting. I don't mind loose ends, I like a bit of uncertainty, but to me this smacks of laziness and I've gone from wanting to search out the rest of the series to thinking I really can't be bothered.

He had a stroke last week, fortunately my daughter had popped in to see him and discovered him in time for him to get to hospital and them to start the treatment that dissolves the clots - it has to be done within six hours or it's useless. He's recovering but is still very weak.

A quick, very quick update on read books as I have to leave soon to visit my husband in hospital. Smoke and Ashes by Akbir Mukajee is the third in his series about an opium addicted English policeman and his Indian sidekick in 1920's Calcutta. I really enjoy this series, it's well written, makes you think, highlights the downsides of colonialism without being didactic and has good plot lines. If you haven't come across these before start with the first book, A Rising Man. Murder Before Evensong by Rev Richard Coles Goodness this is total rubbish. I bought it as a Kindle cheapie because I'd heard him reading an extract and he does read very well. A waste of 99p and fours hours or so. The Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd A book group choice that I wouldn't have read otherwise. Set at the beginning of the troubles and the hunger strikes on the border between northern and southern Ireland it's a dual time story, in the present Fergus is studying for A levels hoping to become a doctor, his brother is on hunger strike and he discovered the body of a child while digging for peat. The second part is the story of the child, a neolithic girl. For me that part was less interesting but allin all a good read but probably not an author I'll search out again. The Lady of Adderley by Robert Barnard , Death Wore White by Jim Kelley , The Dead Will Tell by Linda Castillo and My Word is My Bond by Roger Moore were all picked up at a charity secondhand book sale. Roger Moore was amusng, particularly if you like fart jokes (my husband found it hilarious, Linda Castillo, set among the Amish community was good but you do wonder just how many murders can take place amongst such a small group of people, the other two were OK. 71. Blue Monday - Nicci French

I was just the same with the books but didn't see the tv series.

I love listening to audiobooks in the car and if I'm driving back after doing an evening shift it definitely helps keep me alert. I also listen to them when I'm doing complicated knitting (with straightforward knitting I can read and knit at the same time.) I would agree though that listening and reading are two different experiences, and I can read /listen to a book that I've already listened to/read and find that it almost feels like it's a new story. Just in the way that a film of a book that follows the plot quite closely is similar but very much not the same.

At the time I regretted reading The Painted Bird (at my brother's suggestion), I was about 13 and it was horribly violent and gave me nightmares. I can't think of any that I've looked back on later and though 'I wish I hadn't read that'.

Nora goes off script - Annabel Monaghan. A lesson not to be drawn into buying a Kobo cheaper by excessive praise. This was simply dire, a romantic comedy it was not. The main characters had no chemistry, they were both profoundly uninteresting, the setting did not feel authentic and "event" keeping them apart turned out to be ridiculous. Avoid! The Final Reunion of Opal and Nev - Dawnie Walton This I feel is unashamedly following the format of Daisy Jones and the Six (which I read a couple of years ago and enjoyed though it wasn't brilliant),it's the story of a pop duo, feisty Opal who can sing quite well but holds the stage even better and nerdy New, songwriter and musician told through interviews with them and those who know them. It is so much better than Daisy Jones though and a lot more powerful. It is a little slow to start but when it gets going it's really good. The Stone Chamber - Kate Ellis I'm not sure why I don't like Kate Ellis better, this is a perfectly well written detective novel featuring Wesley Peterson but I found it just a bit unexciting. (I'm afraid I feel the same about Elly Griffiths and I know loads of people love her books). Wake - Shelley Burr Australian noir. OK but doesn't come close to Chris Hammer or Jane Harper.

Ahem! I've read 46 on the list that I'm sure off including several of the books in A Dance to the Music of Time and a lot of Lee Childs so I think there's a good chance you would find book critics happily indulging in trash even though they won't admit it. I had a very interesting discussion with an editor at Mills and Boon once about the demographics of their readers and there was an astonishingly high proportion of graduates who read more than one M & B a week even though the general perception if that it's the barely educated who read those books. I would respectfully disagree about counting some of those series as one title, The Lord of the Rings is obviously one work split up into three volumes, none of them are complete entities in their own right, however His Dark Materials is three entirely separate books which are linked but still stand alone. You might well ask why Trollope is listed for Barchester Towers and not for the whole of the Barchester chronicles. Old Filth is the beginning of a trilogy that's linked just as closely as the three parts of Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy. Etc, etc.

Ahem! I've read both Lee Child and a lot of the books on that list too! I would respectfully disagree about counting those series as one book - the Chronicles of Narni

I must admit I've never had a flu jab but I have had 3 Covid jabs and unless I have to for work I'm not having a 4th, I had a strange reaction to the last one with pins and needles in my hands and feet for about 2 months afterwards so I'm a bit chary about more.

I can't remember to be honest.

I used to love HH, though I don't think I've even seen anything by him for about 30 years. On reflection that might be because I've been living in France for nearly that long.

I've read quite a lot of those, however whoever compiled the list doesn't appear to be able to count! The Chronicles of Narnia comprises seven books, the Forsythe Saga three and A Dance to the Music of Time is a 12 book series! Sorry to be pedantic! And the list was compiled by book critics, probably by the same sort of person who says they will be reading Proust on holiday when in fact they have the latest Lee Child (on the Kindle of course so they can't be caught out).

No it wasn't! It was Palimpsest, now defunct for some time. Mr HG and JfP on BGO were both refugees from there.

I was on BGO which was my go-to book forum though I've been a member on here for years and used to visit to get a different perspective on books. I also belonged to another online book which was run by a group who seem to positively enjoy looking down on the other members' lowly reading taste. Anyone who disagreed with them was liable to be chucked out. I stopped commenting, then stopped visiting as did a lot of others.

And a loooong wait here, Jasper fforde has finally written a sequel to Shades of Grey, it's out on June 1 next year.

I thought I'd I'd kick off a thread about shortly to be published books which we're really looking forward to. This article in the Guardian is a good starting point - I immediately added Maggie O Farrell, William Boyd, Robert Harris and Kate Atkinson to my wish list and discovered as I was doing it that there is a new Elizabeth Strout and a Robert Galbraith out shortly too, so the wish list grew a bit more. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/21/seven-big-books-autumn-2022-maggie-ofarrell-cormac-mccarthy

Whoops, didn't mean to copy my list again. The Vanishing Half - Britt Bennet, this book about twins who take very different paths, one choses to pass herself off as white, the other although "light" embraces her blackness, was a chance pick up and absolutely blew me away. The storyline is good, so is the writing and it really makes you think. (I read an article earlier this week slamming books like this for pandering to middle class white readers and making them feel better for being slightly more aware of the myriad of obstacles non-whites face. My jury is still out on that, but I will unashamedly say that I loved this book.) After The Party by Clare Macintosh - a failing singer is found dead in a lake on New Year's day and there are a lot of people who had reason to want him dead. I got this as a Kobo cheapie because I needed something to read while I knit even though I had a feeling that I'd read Clare Macintosh once and wasn't impressed. How right I was. This is really slow and parts of the storyline are just plain silly, I got so bored that after half way through I started really skimming just to be able to get to the end of the blessed thing. I won't try her again.

I'd never heard of this and it sounds like the sort of biography I thoroughly enjoy.