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Good interview! I am interested in reading this book now.

Hold the bus! Sightlines rings a bell....is that where she is in that remote Scottish Island watching whales and also in Bergen, Norway? In that case I have read it...your memory is better than my own it seems

No not read anything. Should I start with Kathleen Jamie then?

Interesting! I haven't read anything of this genre. Can you point me in the direction of any you would recommend to start me off Claire? I am talking of ones you have read yourself so far.

That's good the book in the canteen was called Angelique In Love its part of a series, I found.

Ah thanks Claire! I will try to catch it tonight.

The Whirlpool 3/5 George Gissing This one took me a bit longer than is usual for me with a Gissing book, maybe because it had quite a convoluted plot. There are many characters major and minor, but almost every one of them does something in the story. I had my usual fun of pinpointing the London streets he mentions on the map. Although there is a resolution of sorts at the end, it is not a happy ending for everybody. More than anything else, the story is about two couples and their marriages. It gives a lot of insight into the view of how men and women were supposed to behave at that time (1892). Perhaps because his own two marriages were not happy, Gissing seems to take a pessimistic view of the institution; sometimes he has his main male character saying and thinking things that were maybe his own thoughts. Not the best Gissing book I have read, but still absorbing.

Mrs P's Journey 4/5 Sarah Hartley This is a biography of a remarkable small lady called Phyllis Pearsall, who on her own in the 1930s decided to create an up to date map of London. She walked every one of the city's 23,000 streets , getting up at dawn every day for a year and not going home for 16 hours. The result was the A-Z London Map, and she created the Geographer's Map company, which is still going today. The true story is told in a very dramatic style . It was a real surprise page turner.

Wow a paperback with a similar plot was lying about on the swop table in the canteen at work for months. It sounds like the same book. She was definitely a privateer or pirate. The front cover had a red haired girl on the front. It was one of those Mills and Boon type racy romances. I will look to see if it is still there.

The greatest year for books ever will be when I publish mine.

Great review Alexi. Congratulations on your engagement !

The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher or The Murder At Road Hill House 4/5 Kate Summerscale This was a true account of a grisly murder which gripped Victorian England in 1860. It was investigated by the most famous detective of the day, who was one of the original 8 plain clothes detectives made up in 1841. (before this all policemen were uniformed) Elements of the real crime were incorporated into Wikie Collins The Moonstone and other novels of the day. It was quite gripping, I enjoyed it.

Elysium. Not bad although some slightly dodgy science going on in my opinion.

I watched all 7 hours of Generation Kill over a couple of weeks.

I suspect as you say it will have the opposite effect on me. Especially as you say I might have to read another two doorstops to find out about what's going on in the far North beyond The Wall. The only thing that interested me about the characters were what might happen to Arya now she is on the run, and Dany's dragons. The rest was just so much padding.

Hi Athena , I have read Lurulu only recently and have never been able to find Ports of Call at all, but Lurulu works Ok as a stand alone novel anyway.

Hi Kay I followed up something that was attributed to you somewhere, a Marrying Mr Darcy card game....it was a ridiculous price but instead I found on Amazon a Jane Austen Action Figure http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_25?url=search-alias%3Dtoys&field-keywords=jane%20austen%20action%20figure&sprefix=jane+austen+action+figure%2Caps%2C219 which I have bought as the perfect gift for Thoughtful Daughter.

I am burning with curiosity know to know which Jack Vance books you might have!

Imagine Marvin The Paranoid Android as a writer. Then you have Vonnegut.

Will Warburton 3/5 George Gissing This is a gentle story of good hearted Mr Warburton, a comfortably-off gentleman who loses his money due to the actions of another and who is forced to enter "trade" under a pseudonym in order to keep his sister and beloved mother from poverty. The deception is made necessary because of the drop in social class, (all important in Victorian times) , the knowledge of which he believes would make his delicate mother ill. However, you become what you do. The strain of living his secret life starts to tell on him and he suffers further complications when he realises he is mixing with young women of his previous social class under false pretences. Of course, they eventually find out in a catastrophic way and right up until the last chapter I had no idea if it was going to turn out for good or bad in the end. The thing I like about George Gissing is the way he makes plain (and in an entertaining way) the dillemas of the highly stratified and inflexible class system of the time, which is irrelevant today but was so important back then. I have learnt more of real Victorian life from these novels than from twice the number of non-fiction reference books.

Sounds interesting Nollaig! I will put that one on my wishlist and may even buy it today...

Please please please read Lyonesse you won't regret it.

Alexi, Janet, Claire, Nollaig, thanks for all your comments! I am sorry I don't get so much time to look at all your blogs as much as I used to

Sad to say, I have a "pick and mix" attitude to fantasy Athena. I dislike all the standard fantasy races of elves, dwarves and goblins but I like fairies, witches and sorcerers, and creatures that are summoned from other dimensions or are created and animated by magic. Dragons I can take or leave. As it is a fantasy there should be some romance and humour. AGOT had an undercurrent of trying to be as grim and nasty as possible, which didn't appeal to me. I admit I have been totally spoilt by the fantasy trilogy Lyonesse.

Game Of Thrones 2/5 George RR Martin Although I found a couple of the characters interesting, I am sorry to say that I found this doorstop dull overall. It's biggest crime to me was that the writing was very unexciting, stolid and pedestrian, compared to authors I have been enjoying lately. The dialogue was very laborious and cliched and tiny things irritated me (for instance changing the title of a knight from "Sir" to "Ser". Also, yes I get it Jon Snow is a 'person of dubious parentage' and Tyrion is a dwarf. Do we really have to be reminded every time they appear, usually by way of someone's insult? It got tiresome quickly. Some things at the beginning were interesting, like the seasons lasting for years (was it perhaps another planet?) the ancient evil beyond the wall, and the mysterious Others . But I was waiting in vain for these to come back into the story again but they didn't. Started to get a bit interested again when two dead men got back up and walked. All in all , for a fantasy book there was not enough fantasy in it for me.