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Ubik 4/5 Philip K Dick At the beginning a bit incomprehensible, (but maybe that's because it's been a while since I have read any SF) I soon got my bearings and this soon turned into a tight little story. The book was set in a "future" 1990 and it was fun that back when it was written Dick thought we would still be listening to tapes and vinyl records and communicating through telephone lines (although the phones are videophones). Nobody saw the internet , digitized information and wifi coming. No mention of personal computers either. So it is a curiously slow paced 60's idea of the future. Still, this hardly matters to the story, because on the other hand human society has evolved telepaths and other "talents" that can see possible futures ("precogs"), and science has advanced so that we can phone up our dead relatives who are stored in cryogenic chambers, at least for a few years afterwards while the brain waves remain strong. These are the two elements that the plot is based around. It was a very fun book. One of the things he has fun with is the clothes the characters are wearing; he dresses them in outrageous combinations such as sarongs, golf caps and carpet slippers. I really must read some more Philip K Dick soon.

Hi Julie great to see you back and Wow! You have certainly been reading some cool books

Thanks Willoyd. In light of what you have said I think I will try Mary Barton. I have seen some of the TV version of Cranford and it does indeed seem "light" to the point of being an inconsequential soap opera with no real meat in it. (For all it's faults North And South does have plenty of meat and is chewy)

Sorry yes Lancashire! I know Milton was actually Manchester but I forgot it wasn't in Yorkshire. I have no excuse for my misspelling of Gaskell though thanks for correcting me. I know that she did indeed struggle with the restraints of the nature of publication , and the kindle version I read is the later revised version with chapters inserted. Have you perchance read any other Gaskell works Willoyd? This was my first and am wondering whether to give her another chance..

North and South 2/5 Elizabeth Gaskill I have seen the TV adaptation of this book about four times and so felt it was past time I read the book. The book was a little bit of a disappointment, sad to say. Wow, Elizabeth, way to go to make a cracking story dull. The writing seemed a bit amateurish. I can now appreciate why Dickens (her editor) gave Gaskill a hard time over this and considered it below par for his publication. At the start of every chapter there is a quote or lump of poetry which I found simply irritating and pointless. The "Darkshire" (Yorkshire) accents are rendered phonetically and some local words like "clemming" (starving) I had to work out for myself. There are some powerful emotive passages in the book , mainly between Margaret and Thornton or Thornton and Higgins, and some interesting monologues giving points of view (Gaskill's?) about industrial relations. I am glad I have finally read it but could only give it an OK rating..

From the trailer this looks simply awful. The Bethsheaba character as played by Carey Mulligan looks totally wrong in her speech and manners, a modern woman just stuck in a period dress. A real 19th century woman who smirked and joked like that with the likes of male farm labourers and employees would soon lose all respect from both sexes, let alone have posh blokes chasing after her. I think it will be terrible but no doubt modern audiences will lap it up and it will make lots of dosh. Trailer #2 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-_9AFwMDmQ&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1

Hey Alexi I have had a thought! You could sign up for that program on TV (Don't Tell The Bride) where the groom has a budget and organises the whole weddiing including your dress and the bridesmaids dresses and the hen night and it's all a big surprise for you....wouldn't that be great?

I will have to have the whole of May off now.....

I thought it was supposed to be last Christmas! My daughter and I were well disappointed.

Jumbled. More or less dictated by size. At one time I tried to keep my books of Victorian interest/research on one shelf but it has outgrown that.

Yes!!

I always liked him on telly. Nice to hear the O'Brian Jack Aubrey books got him off his deathbed.. for a while longer anyway

Thyrza 3/5 George Gissing Yep sorry yet another Gissing review from me. This one was not as satisfying as some of the others I have read, but one thing I enjoyed was to be back on the streets of London again (this time Lambeth). The streets Gissing mentions are still there which gives the reader a real sense of being cemented into the place and time much better than when an author makes his locations up. I enjoy reading a Gissing book with my London AZ open at my elbow following his characters about. There is a cast of about twelve main characters, spit equally between male and female, and split again between well-to-do middle class and working class. These working class are not completely hopeless and destitute; they are doing OK (with a couple of exceptions) and one gets the feeling of a tight little community that helps each other out, and also a sense of independence of thought among the working women that is at odds with the constrained expectations of the middle class women. This is examplified by the character of Totty Nancarrow, a teenage orphan who lives alone and supports herself. She is kind, outspoken and happy and although treated with suspicion for not giving a fig about other's opinions, is thoroughly decent with good morals. The heroine Thyrza is a strange creation for a Gissing story and is much more akin to some romantic Victorian ideal. She never seems quite real to me. She is ethereal, dreamy, weak in body, emotional and seems to suffer from the mysterious Victorian malady of being in "low spirits" and faints quite often. She is also very beautiful in a fragile way and has a fantastic singing voice that always brings tears to listeners eyes. (You see what I mean? she seems to float through the story like a ethereal butterfly). Her sister Lydia is just the opposite, tough, practical and has never had a day's illness. The two sisters, who love each other very much, are orphans who live together in one room but support themselves working in the same hat factory as Totty. In the same house lives Gilbert Grail with his aged mother. Gilbert is a quiet man who works in a candle factory but who's only enjoyment is in reading books. He has gradually accrued a respectable library of second-hand books. Two other working class men are Will Ackroyd , who is interested in things of science, politics and progress (and also fond of Thyrza), and Bunce, who as an extreme Atheist is trying to bring up his children as free thinkers without religion. I think Gissing was trying to show with these three male characters a range of prevalent working class attitudes of the time. Into the midst of these people bounces Walter Egremont. With not much to do in his life, he has set himself a philanthropic mission. He is of the middle class and wants to re-establish religion among the working class. He thinks they will be much happier and less troublesome if they read the bible instead of newspapers, and didn't get their own ideas about politics. But he believes he must first disguise his intentions as something else to gain converts, and rents a hall to give a series of lectures. The outcome of this nobody foresaw....

This is more than a trifle interesting Claire! I will probably be buying this. Would Queen Victoria be amused?

The author's name does not even come up with any results, which is unusual for a published author.

Ah! Never trust an author till you get to the end of the book....

Thanks Tiger lots of recommendations there I have put The Sea Inside and The book of Barely Imagined Beings on my wishlist

I don't see why anybody would want to be with Andie MacDowell's character in Four Weddings! She is a terrible person!

Burned out with fantasy? I got two words for you ...Finish Lyonesse You know I'm right.

Nice review of Middlemarch, which I have not yet read, but I am half -way through a TV adaptation, which bears (bares?) out the themes you pick up on. The train crash marriage is particularly painful to watch.

The Emancipated 2/5 George Gissing This is another Gissing book that concerns marriage. I was tempted to give up on it because the long descriptions of locations in Italy bored me senseless; I like George best when he is talking about the gritty streets of London. True to form though he did supply a set of complex characters who gradually got me engrossed in their goings-on. The theme in this story is whether a woman who is educated in the "modern" way to be equal to her husband is able to make a better marriage. Gissing's opinion in this case seems to be that she is not; the husband incredibly, in one remarkable passage, also puts all the blame on the woman for things that he has done! But the woman at least is able to make her own life at the end of the book. Several characters do die by the end of the book too, and there are several unexpected reversals of fortunes.

Wet day yesterday and the kids didn't want to play any games they just wanted to watch films: Bend It Like Beckham Solaris The Nightwatch

Murder On The Verandah Love and Betrayal in British Malaya 3/5 Eric Lawlor Picked this one up from a charity shop. It was very similar in layout to the Road Hill House murder book I read earlier this month. A married woman, Ethel Proudlock, one day in 1911 shot her lover in the chest twice when he ended their affair to be instead -horror of horrors- with a Chinese woman. After he staggered out onto the verandah Mrs Proudlock was witnessed standing over him with the revolver before putting another 3 bullets into his head at point blank range. She pleaded self defence. Like the other book, it examines and tells all that is known in retrospect of all the main characters both before and years after the murder, and shines a light around the society of the time. It was interesting and an easy read.

Salmon Fishing In The Yemen. Boring slow superficial simplistic garbage. All the characters were ciphers with no depth. Not in any way funny at all. The two romantic leads completely mismatched with no chemistry. Did I mention it was boring?

Seven Psychopaths. Weird, twisted and funny! Not a big fan of Colin Farrell but Sam Rockwell and Christopher Walken just steal the show anyway.