poppyshake

I agree totally .. not one of Gaskell's best. I remember it just depressed me .. making Phillis into an axe murderer, or at the very least menacer, would have improved it no end. She never made that leap from page to imagination .. she stayed .. very drearily .. on the page for me.

The old slippery slope Julie I will most likely buy some books this month as it is birthday month and birthdays wouldn't be birthdays without books. If I can keep a lid on it though it would be good. I was good at Christmas compared to other years so there's every reason to be hopeful. Ransom will definitely be on my list After that it gets difficult because technically .. there's no reason to buy books again for myself until Christmas (me wanting them doesn't count as a bonafide reason apparently ) Obviously I'm not deluded .. I know I'll be tempted long before then but perhaps going without will prove habit forming The sad fact is that even if I have another reading year like last year .. which was pretty good and don't buy any further books ... I won't even have got halfway to demolishing my TBR Very discouraging .. it's an impossible task .. I may as well give up and go buy a book tomorrow

I did eat cheese yesterday but at lunchtime .. still, it was quite strong I've seen murmurings on here that Hollow City is good so my resolve is already weakened (it wasn't particularly robust if I'm honest ) plus it would look so nice sitting next to Miss Peregrine

The BBC drama is well worth seeing too. Fantastic cast .. Donald Pleasance as the Warden, Nigel Hawthorne as the Archdeacon, Alan Rickman as Mr Slope and Geraldine McEwan as Mrs Proudie. Filmed back in the 80's so a little bit dated but brilliant all the same. I'll try and listen back to the Radio 4 dramatisations

I had a weird dream last night that I kept posting warnings on here telling people not to read certain books because they were full of difficult words .. one book had a Welsh place name in it and that was enough 'Beware ... don't read this book ... it's set in Dwygyfylchi' How very odd! Even in my dream I knew it was wrong and kept trying to delete the threads but couldn't. So glad and relieved this morning to find that .. apparently .. I've only ever posted sensible things Mentally patting myself on the back too for enduring five Sunday's without finding myself at Waterstone's cash desk with an armful of impulse buys. It's been tough .. the weather alone makes you want to try and seek some sort of compensation but I'm focused on getting the TBR down. Having said that .. the new Ransom Riggs is very tempting .. that's going to start calling out to me very loudly from shop window displays I have no doubt.

Yep .. and it usually turns out well so I'm not changing my book selection process anytime soon

Have you see You've Got Mail Gaia? Lovely booky theme and the same two leads as in Sleepless in Seattle I watched Made in Dagenham and West is West and enjoyed both.

John le Carre's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold .. which obviously has an excellent reputation, it's just .. it's not my normal reading genre but then (as I'm not a non-reader to be converted) that's all the more reason to try it .. to break free of my stuck-in-the-mud reading choice ways. I will definitely give it a go at some point. I must get around to reading more by Jane Harris too .. enjoyed her storytelling in Gillespie and I

She's so readable .. just when I think she's surprised me enough she throws in some more. You've still got shocks ahead of you and I haven't finished yet so I expect I have too Her stories are always edge-of-your-seat tense and you just can't second guess her. I absolutely love Andy and Hobie .. and Pippa .. though was hoping for a lot more Pippa in the story than I've got so far. Started High Rising by Angela Thirkell and enjoying it

A lot of Enid's books which would be virtually intolerable now if it wasn't for the nostalgia ... I was so jealous of those Malory Towers girls frying up sausages at midnight .. I'd never eaten a sausage past 6 o'clock Also Mary Norton's Borrowers books which I just ate up as a child and adored .. and C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which is just delicious. I'll never forget reading about those fur coats in the wardrobe (hope they were fake ) sardines with Mr Tumnus and Turkish Delight with the White Witch (I'm sure my book nostalgia isn't all food based though )

I couldn't watch it .. I know it would make me want to blow a gasket and I don't want to give the programme makers the satisfaction of seeing my gasket blow Just the trailers make me seethe

Are you grossed out yet?

I haven't taken part. I got given a book though outside the supermarket one year. I felt guilty and refused at first as the books are meant to encourage non-readers but the person looked cold and desperate and it was getting late so I accepted it (and still haven't read it .. tut tut ) Interesting selection this year .. glad to see Ben Aaronovitch included

10 is 10 indeed! Well done Chrissy .. off to a flying start

You have to succumb to bookshop temptation every once in a while ... there would be no bookshops otherwise Glad you're getting on okay with Nicholas Nickleby. I need to pick it up again one day. I gave it up because Kate was one of those soppy and sentimental Dicken's heroines that make me want to scream .. perhaps I didn't give her a fair chance (though I saw an adaptation and she plunged even lower in my esteem )

Happy BCF Anniversary Deborah! .. here's to many more This is a brilliant place to be sure .. how lucky we are

I love that film too Watched Billy Elliot .. always enjoy it and it's nice now to watch it and know that Jamie Bell did manage to make the leap from child actor to adult actor (so you don't just sit there thinking .. awwww .. I wonder what happened to him/her?) Love the music in particular.

I've got the Terry Pratchett/Stephen Baxter one .. that is I've got The Long Earth 1 .. have you already got/read that one Gaia? Great book haul

Thanks Gaia .. it is indeed. And it's good it turned out that way as I'm pretty sure .. now I think about it .. that I bought it because of the cover

Mrs Bridge by Evan S. Connell Amazon's Synopsis: Mrs Bridge, an unremarkable and conservative housewife in Kansas City, has three children and a kindly lawyer husband. She spends her time shopping, going to bridge parties and bringing up her children to be pleasant, clean and have nice manners. And yet she finds modern life increasingly baffling, her children aren't growing up into the people she expected, and sometimes she has the vague disquieting sensation that all is not well in her life. In a series of comic, telling vignettes, Evan S. Connell illuminates the narrow morality, confusion, futility and even terror at the heart of a life of plenty. Review: I wasn't sure for a while whether I liked this story or not. Nothing particularly exciting happens and it's all related in an ironic, matter of fact way. The synopsis says it's comic and some of the time it is but it's also quite sad and a bit depressing. For me it blossomed every now and then but had lulls as well .. I kept chopping and changing my mind about Mrs Bridge who has a set belief in how life should pan out .. and of course life isn't panning out that way at all. She doesn't really inspire warmth or sympathy .. she's a little bit too insipid for that but somehow you do start sympathising as she struggles to find meaning in her life. She hasn't really achieved anything, even the novels she's picked up she hasn't finished. It would be some consolation to know she'd been a good wife and mother but she's not altogether sure she has. A lot of the time she's a woman just going through the motions. Even making small talk with people is an effort for her .. she does belong to a number of social groups but has no social skills to speak of soon running out of things to say if put on the spot and feeling particularly muddled if asked anything but the most mundane and commonplace questions. The behaviour of other people baffles her and causes her to question all her previously firmly held beliefs. Her children's behaviour .. especially her eldest daughter Ruth .. is so alien to her that she wonders whether she actually can be their mother. Told (third person) in 117 extremely short chapters (some only consisting of a paragraph or two) the story spans the entirety of Mrs Bridge's marriage. It has a definite rhythm and once you're attuned to it then it it becomes more enjoyable. You actually end up quite moved by it all and saddened .. or that is to say .. I did There's a sequel apparently called Mr Bridge and told from his perspective. Not sure if I want to have it all served up to me again but then I am intrigued so possibly one for the future and a definite if I happen to come across it ... cheap I've given it a 4 though it ranged between 3 and 4 for me but veered towards 4 for the last third (I don't think it improved .. I think it was good from the start .. it was just that I began to understand it more.) 4/5

I've finished it now ... great read. It got funnier the more I read .. it took a little while to tune into her humour .. but not long. Hope you enjoy it Marie I'm really enjoying The Goldfinch but getting annoyed with it .. not with the writing which is excellent but with Theo ... he's making all the wrong decisions

About three quarters of the way through Love Nina by Nina Stibbe and absolutely loving it.

You'd think so wouldn't you Diane .. but Vintage will insist on giving everything a red spine Thanks Kate Yes .. I came to the conclusion that he only saw the beauty in people .. he was a great lover of nature (and a bit of a frustrated poet) but all the girls/ladies couldn't have been as gorgeous as he said .. it must be that he only saw what was gorgeous in them Also he was completely enchanted by anyone .. man or woman .. who smiled Don't you dare stop visiting I haven't got a current pile going for you yet have I? (or have I forgotten again? ) Except I need to read some books for returning ... but let me know Claire if you fancy borrowing anything .. most of them are tree copies.

Oh Julie .. I take my hat off to you for being able to read such accounts even though they make you uncomfortable .. I couldn't deal with it. Like you say it's a whole lot worse when the victims are children and somehow worse when the perpetrator is their mother .. the one person of all who you think would look after them. Only yesterday I was listening to a documentary about Holocaust survivors who were saying that .. on entering the death camps .. the people were always split into two groups .. one for (temporarily) saving and one for killing .. the babies were almost always shot and the mother's wouldn't be parted from them so were shot too Obviously if someone is mentally ill though, they're not responsible for their actions and it's for others to make sure that a) they get the treatment they need and b) that nobody is left in their charge and put at risk. Back then they had no idea how to treat mental illness .. in fact it beggars belief that they could have ever thought the treatments advantageous or remediate In Kilvert's Diary there were a lot of people in the community that were off their rocker .. mostly women .. and you can't help wondering if it was some sort of chemical imbalance that would be easily remedied these days. Possibly some of them were just menopausal. They didn't have any medication back then .. or hardly anything .. it was sink or swim. I am not visiting Murderpedia I'm rubbish with horror in general actually .. even fictional horror and can't watch horror films unless they're vintage and fairly hammy and unbelievable. I don't want to be frightened in the name of entertainment

I stand by your right to criticise any writer Marie! I like Wyndham .. he is right up my street sci-fi wise (and hardly anybody else is ) but he's not going to be for everyone and I can actually see why people might find his stories old fashioned and a little bit patronising (in retrospect.) However he is nowhere near as patronising as Enid and I still find myself loving her stories (most of her working class characters were a bit 'Dick Van Dyke' too ) Oh dear the overwhelming snobbishness of her books (especially Malory Towers/St Clares) sailed right over my head as a child. I used to dream about boarding with those girls when in effect .. I'd have been relegated to the kitchen .. pocketing the scraps to take home to my poor old mum who'd been lamed by her gin soaked husband. Enid never considered the working classes would read her books .. she didn't think we could read still .. I forgive her as she definitely kick started my love of reading (I imagine she would've kicked me actually ... common little beast ) Yes .. but ... where was I? .. oh yes .. *STATING THE OBVIOUS ALERT* we all like what we like and vice versa and books that enchant one can disgust others (I had a terrible Mervyn Peake experience recently .. that is I had a nice time with him but hardly anyone else did ) We're not wishy washy with our opinions .. we love our books and authors too much and, as you say, it breeds interesting discussions