Hayley

I have! Don’t say new year is just around the corner though… that’s scary 🙈. There is another ‘event’ I would like to propose before the end of the year - more details in another thread, but I wondered whether people might like to take part in a Christmas reading group. Unlike the Victober group, this one wouldn’t be limited by a time period, but by a theme, and I think that might be a good experiment for the future book club? If we kept it seasonal, that’s 4 ‘book club’ books per year, or one every 3 months. Does that sound good to others? We’re not all in the same hemisphere, so I don’t necessarily think the themes should always be related to the season, but it gives us a clear schedule. Towards the end of each season, participating members could suggest a theme (preferably, I’m thinking, with at least one suggestion for a book that fits with the theme) and then we can vote via a poll.

Fahrenheit Press has 15% off everything (they have cool bookish T-shirts as well as books). I’m a bit late with this - it ends tonight! https://fahrenheit.substack.com/p/shelter-from-the-storm?utm_medium=reader2

Hi Olla what have your favourite books been recently?

For Back to the Future Day, Orbit are having a half price sale on all paperback books (UK only): https://store.orbit-books.co.uk/collections/back-to-the-future-promotion?page=1

What did you think of The Doll Factory!? I’m very tempted by it.

This is an interesting point - maybe one for the debating thread!? 😄 I couldn’t justify it with the money I have, but if I had a lot of money I’d definitely buy beautiful books with it!

This sounds excellent. I wonder whether your last paragraph should be in spoiler quotes though? Or does knowing that not really matter in terms of the rest of the plot?

I’ve never actually been! Was it awkward to get to? !!!

@MissMohawk I love your teapot!! Tea, biscuits and a book for later is an excellent start to a Sunday 😄

I was very sad to hear it - he was a brilliant actor! Aldo very sad to hear of Angela Lansbury’s death . I have good memories of watching Murder, She Wrote after college to relax and I can’t imagine how many times I watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks as a child!

I haven’t heard of Parkway Drive for years! Going to have to look them up again. Alexandra palace must have been a pretty impressive venue to see them too.

I haven’t read it but it is one I thought was particularly beautiful in the Christmas set

Just spotted this blog post for anyone who might want to find another gothic read! They’re not all Victorian but quite a few are: https://romancingthegothic.com/2022/10/12/101-gothic-reads-you-might-enjoy/

Thank you! Carroll’s Hiawatha is fun, I can imagine people who sat for formal photos in Victorian times being like that 😄

Which one!? There have been some lovely ones announced recently. I would get The Neverending Story and The Farthest Shore from this set if I could. Really love the new Frankenstein too but it is £300 😬

Have you seen Lewis Carroll's poem 'Hiawatha'? It hasn't actually got anything to do with the original, it's a funny poem about a photographer (who is named Hiawatha), but it's in the same rhythm as the 'Song of Hiawatha'... https://classic-literature.co.uk/lewis-carroll-hiawathas-photographing-poem/ (It says it was written or published in 2017 at the top of the page for some reason - I guess that's when someone created the page! It was actually published in 1857, I think, in a magazine.) I made my final decision by the way and decided to go for In a Glass Darkly as well

I may have done this too… 😁. I didn’t realise you could do it through their website though, thanks for pointing that out!

That’s really weird. I just checked Blackwells and it’s still coming up ‘free UK delivery’ for me! I agree with Brian that it sounds like an IP issue, especially if it’s happening on multiple sites. Did you get any new web security recently?

I was in the chess club at my primary school 😄. I never really found anybody to play with after that though so haven’t tried it in years!

My sister loves books about queens and princesses throughout history, so I asked her if she’d read any good dark ones recently and she’s just got one called None Such as She by Melissa Addey. It’s the true story of a Moroccan queen who was accused of witchcraft, had a very jealous personality and was feared by her people. She also recommends Madame Serpent by Jean Plaidy, which is about Catherine de Medici. Apparently also someone everybody was scared of! The first ‘dark’ book that came to mind for me was The Corset by Laura Purcell. It has some very dark themes and elements of psychological mystery. I couldn’t put it down. I hope you find something you like! And welcome to the forum

it helps if you don't look at the video - that animated mouth is just... wrong.

For those of you on Twitter - Folio society are running a competition to win 75(!) folio books of your choice to celebrate their 75th anniversary! How amazing would it be!? (If you can’t see it have a look at the forum Twitter, I’ve quote tweeted it there )

Oooooh this one sounds like a good choice, I might join you with it. As everyone is reading Tennyson, have you seen that there's a wax cylinder recording of him reading The Charge of the Light Brigade!? (I wish they hadn't animated his mouth on this youtube video - it's so creepy looking): I want to read both The Doll Factory AND The Way of All Flesh! Still not fully decided which Gothic book I'm going for yet though, so I think I'll just start with the ghost stories. I am also promising myself that I'll read the end of The Old Curiosity Shop as part of Victober. I've been avoiding it for quite a while (I know you understand why @lunababymoonchild !) but it's time to finish it at last.

This does sound very useful. I have, on more than one occasion, forgotten which book I've gotten to in a series! And accidentally reading the blurb of one that's further ahead than you are - revealing a spoiler from the end of the previous book - is the worst.

Yay! Another fan! I agree, it does have similarities to Frey and McGray - I think the biggest difference is that [potential spoiler for the first Frey and McGray book] I also love the portrayal of various spirits of the land - that gets even more interesting later