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I just finished Capital by Maureen Duffy. Will write review later.

Solaris, the George Clooney version. I really liked it. Superior SF.

Good for you Alexi! Who wrote that one?

Hi Kidsmum I know I am going to sound like an advertisement for Amazon here but when I realised the number of free classic books that were available the bargain of the initial outlay of buying a kindle becomes staggering...although mine was a present, if I had bought it for myself it would already have paid for itself 50 times over..

Hi Ibrahim welcome what sort of books you like?

Thirteen Ghosts. Fairly mediocre, some good make up and camera special effects but then ruined by some really bad CGI.

Hi BookThane I did a Genre Challenge in 2012 it really opened me up to lots of new books. I took my original list of genres from somebody else's on here and then added a few more to make 24 genres and read 2 a month, as I am a fast reader. I am sure if you do a search for Genre Challenge on here you will find the original list. Good luck!

Seen it many times. Yes very good film. Both my mum and dad were in that war although not in Normandy. We don't understand nowadays the huge upheaval on people war has. I used to work with this old Ukrainian man who fought for the Germans and was captured in Italy. He was a POW and married an English woman. That was the only thing that saved him from being sent back and shot by the Russians (as per the agreement Churchill made with Stalin)

Saving Private Ryan

Hayley I didn't realise you are a fan of the 19th century too!

Yes I am from the middle of England. Thanks for explaining the white sheep thing. Your written English is most excellent. Yes we do have some funny customs.

Sounds good Poppyshake! And yes it was traditional and proper for men to swim naked. In the sea anyway. I don't know about in swimming baths. In my research I have found there were quite a lot of Victorian indoor swimming pools built and some of these did have separate swimming times for women and men. I have been trying to discover if and how schoolchildren were taught to swim....

Notes From A Small Island 3/5 Bill Bryson I enjoyed this, there was a lot of truth in his observations about British people. I chuckled to myself many times. But disappointingly he did not go anywhere near the Midlands. When I was drawing near the end of the book and I realised he wasn't going to go there at all I lost a little bit of interest.

I feel a bit ill so no writing this week but maybe catch up tomorrow.

Hi Sadia, great to hear about your love of reading but sorry to read about your struggles to find books to read. Although you are not keen on e-readers at the moment, having a kindle would really change your life I can tell you. It would probably answer many of your problems and you would be able to get so many books for free. It makes the expense of buying one worth it in a very short time. Please tell me what exactly does the expression "white sheep only" mean? I have never came across that expression before... Lots of people in England do call each other "love" but paradoxically it is used most often to people we certainly don't love as a general greeting to strangers in shops and pubs ! Very strange I know. In Yorkshire even men will call each other "love" but not down here in the south.

James That sounds very good . Did you read it for research or pleasure or both ? Sounds like an interesting "group" of ladies . Hi Julie, I started off reading it for research without realising how good it would be. The men are also interesting though. Widdowson just can't change and makes himself miserable because of it. Barfoot wants Rhoda and is prepared for unconventionality in his life but in the end she is too much hard work. Bevis is selfish and weak.

Do you have a kindle Kidsmum? All the Victorian books are free on kindle. I am always turning up new (old) authors which is quite exciting.

Here is something interesting I just turned up: not letters but telegrams. Would this be of interest? It is free on kindle so I have already downloaded it. In The Cage Henry James http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Cage here is another one written by an American telegraph operator: Wired Love Ella Cheever Thayer 1879 This is in paperback on Amazon but free for kindle on Project Gutenberg http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wired-Love-Romance-Dots-Dashes/dp/B003YMMJ1O/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1390506561&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=wired+Love

I like the sound of this one Steve although I didn't like the first King Arthur book, which is set a bit earlier of course. Danes and Vikings are cool though..

The Odd Women 5/5 George Gissing I enjoyed the hell out of this novel. For one thing it is set in my favourite part of the Victorian era, the 1880s, when modernity was really changing things. Secondly it is not about the very poor underclass nor the very rich, but the people who inhabited the middle class. Thirdly it is set in London so my happiness is complete. Being a contemporary novel, the dialogue is just how it was spoken and reading between the lines it is possible to really soak up the feeling of the times; it is an authentically observed slice of life in a way that Tom All Alone's, as good as it was, could only seek to emulate. The title refers to the fact that at this time there was a surplus of 1 million women in the UK over that of men. That meant 1 million women who would never find a husband, when being married was the only acceptable way to financial security and a respectable social standing. The novel weaves a story around a good varied cross section of these "odd women" who were left over. I think the different positions and options of the women were well thought out.

What I said was just the tip of the iceberg! The 1880s in particular were very turbulent. Just as now, London was a hideout for political refugees from Europe, some of them avowed anarchists and communists who wanted to stir up the British working class proletariat to overthrow the capitalists. The French also had many agents here looking for Frenchmen trying to avoid military service. London was considered as part of the 1st Arrondissement of Paris. The main terrorists were the Fenians who wanted Irish home rule. They bombed tube stations and public parks. There was a plan to bomb and kill Queen Victoria on 20 July 1887 on her Jubilee . But, in actual fact, it is now known to have been a fake plot instituted by a known double agent to draw out Fenians. Two were arrested in possession of the dynamite and the double agent was allowed to escape to America. All true and exciting stuff. Gun crime also got so bad in the early 1880s that in 1883 the Metropolitan police were allowed to be armed with revolvers. London was also the biggest shopping city in the world. Many upper middle class women were completely addicted to shopping and got themselves into crazy levels of debt. Often they didn't even have to go out shopping. Representatives from large department stores (a 19th century invention) would come to visit women at home when their husbands were at work or at their club and bring samples to get orders.

No not heard of this one! I will look it up thanks.

As Signor Finzione already said, It was a good answer. I am completely hooked on the 19th century. It was century of great change and London became the greatest city in the world. Not just saying that because I am British, it really was! The fascinating thing is, the more I read the more I realise that all the problems we have that we think are so modern were exactly the same then. They had terrorist bomb attacks, people living on credit, people trafficking, mail order catalogues and corrupt police and politicians and serial killers...

I find her Oscar speeches better than her films so far

I won't watch the film, because it looks to be Hollywoodised meaningless dross , but the original short story by James Thurber sounds in this description really funny and interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Walter_Mitty The 2013 film changes it beyond all recognition.