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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
Jan 20 2023, 5:06pm
Post #1 of 10
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It's the occasional reading thread!
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Like Bilbo, my husband and I are ready for another adventure! We're moving to a new home in a new city next week. The house we've lived in for twenty years is Bag End, so the one we're moving into is Grey Havens.
I finished the (e)book of The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan, first in a series. While I very much enjoyed the Indian setting, the story was very uneven, with cute scenes cheek-by-jowl with grim scenes. Inspector Chopra himself, while depicted as a good, decent policeman, set my teeth on edge when it came to his treatment of his long-suffering wife.
I then listened to the audiobook of Downton Shabby: One American's Ultimate DIY Adventure Restoring His Family's English Castle, by Hopwood DePree. While researching his family name of Hopwood, the Hollywood-producer author discovers there's a Hopwood House near Manchester. He's so upset at how it's falling into ruin he eventually moves to England to oversee its restoration. I enjoyed reading his adventures, although I think he overplayed his "fish out of water" credentials a bit.
Then I listened to a short story, Ill Met in Lankhmar, by Fritz Leiber. Leiber's Lankhmar books have been classics for many, many years. I loved them back in the 70s, when there was almost no fantasy available on the shelves of bookstores, and can remember more than one great scene. I feel sure Terry Pratchett was influenced by Lankhmar and its shady inhabitants when he invented his Ankh Morpork. However, this story, about how the main characters first met, now seems so very, well, ordinary, especially when compared to Pratchett. Time is not always kind..
I'm now listening to a comfort read, Dead Man's Ransom, a Brother Cadfael novel by Ellis Peters. Shropshire sheriff Gilbert Prescott, Huge Beringar's superior, has been captured by the Welsh. Beringar wants to trade a Welsh youth captured in a raid for him. Of course, major complications ensue. I love this series because of the peacefulness of the abbey background, the intelligence of Beringar and Cadfael, the beautiful writing, and more. I don't even mind that all the plots are similar, so much so I don't know whether I've read this one in print or not.
On paper I read Great Mysteries of History, by Kenneth Platnick. These are short essays on, well, great mysteries of history, such as who was the man in the iron mask, did Louis XVI's son the Dauphin survive the French revolution, and did Czar Nicholas's daughter Anastasia survive the murder of her entire family during the Russian revolution. Published in 1971, the book lacks recent scientific scrutiny into the same questions, not least the discovery of the bones of the Czar and his family.
I'm now reading on paper The Emperor of the United States of America and Other Magnificent British Eccentrics, by Catherine Caufield. This is another book of even shorter essays. People can be weird, and highly entertaining!
So what have you been reading?
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow....
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cats16
Half-elven
Jan 20 2023, 6:15pm
Post #2 of 10
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That sounds exciting - good luck on the move! I hope you'll have great weather and friendly neighbors, wherever you're headed. 
Not nearly as productive in my reading compared to you! I'm still drifting through Man & Wife by Wilkie Collins. Truth be told, I also am starting to feel the call of Tolkien again. I more or less took a break in 2022 after a long extended read through, so I'm not surprised that itch is starting to feel the need to be scratched. I may wait until the fall though, which is when I tend to actually start re-reading the books. Time will tell!
I also am eyeing up the three volume set of the Orson Welles biography that my dad got me last year. It's the definitive biography by Simon Callow, whom a lot of people don't realize is a very well-respected writer in addition to his acting work. I've always been fascinated by Welles and his larger than life persona, so this biography has been high on my list for sometime.
Join us every weekend in the Hobbit movie forum for this week's CHOW (Chapter of the Week) discussion!
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Annael
Elvenhome
Jan 20 2023, 6:18pm
Post #3 of 10
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finished "Gods of Jade and Shadow" by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
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thoroughly enjoyed it. Based on Mayan mythology and set in the Jazz Age in Mexico. A spunky Cinderella-esque heroine accompanies the deposed God of the Dead on his quest to regain his throne, against her will at first, pitting her wits against a variety of human and inhuman opponents. An inventive and enjoyable book. I actually re-read it as soon as I was done.
I found myself in a used bookstore in the next town west last week and ended up with three novels by Rhys Bowen, two in her "Royal Spyness" series and one more serious work set in WWII, "In Farleigh Field," with a heroine who works at Bletchley Park. Bowen is not the best author - she seems to be bent on educating us all on things like "the gentry have luncheon at midday, not dinner" and "she's not a miss, she's my lady" and makes those points too often - but her books are fun and quick reads. Lady Georgiana is a cousin of King George V and gets "employed" by the Queen as a kind of an agent for this and that. She's also clumsy and suffers amusing mishaps; I was a little reminded of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series; like Evanovich, Bowen has a knack for getting her heroine into silly scrapes while she solves the mystery.
Sounds like a big move! Good luck with all of that (she says, wincing at the memory of recently moving).
I am a dreamer of words, of written words.
-- Gaston Bachelard
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NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
(This post was edited by Annael on Jan 20 2023, 6:18pm)
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Jan 21 2023, 9:44pm
Post #4 of 10
(750 views)
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May the move go smoothly! Are you moving closer to "the kids"?
I'm still poking through some early "The Cat Who..." books by Lilian Jackson Braun, but I'll have to get back to Colin Duriez' "Tolkien & C.S.Lewis: the Gift of Friendship". I had to pause, it was getting too much into philosophy at one point and making my brain spin.
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"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
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Greenwood Hobbit
Valinor
Jan 22 2023, 12:40pm
Post #5 of 10
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Another Brother Cadfael fan here -
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that book has a few very funny moments along with the drama, also we meet Sister Magdalen again. She could have carried her own series, I reckon! I'm reading a book recommended to me by my cousin, whose son lives in Stockholm. It's called 'The Almost Nearly Perfect People' by Michael Booth. It's a quirky journey through the manners, laws and customs of the Scandiavian countries. I've only read Denmark so far, but it's a very interesting 'behind the scenes' insight, written with touches of dry humour.
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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
Jan 22 2023, 3:34pm
Post #6 of 10
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Our new house is five minutes away from our older son's house. We're still an hour and a half, at least, from our younger son's house, but that's half the distance it is from here.
Thanks!
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow....
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Annael
Elvenhome
Jan 22 2023, 6:21pm
Post #7 of 10
(698 views)
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Nice to be closer to family! My niece & nephew, who live in Connecticut and SoCal, respectively, were ecstatic that I now live just minutes away from their parents so that when they come to visit, we can do things like have breakfast out together without having to coordinate troop movements.
I am a dreamer of words, of written words.
-- Gaston Bachelard
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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Kimi
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Jan 22 2023, 9:59pm
Post #8 of 10
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by Hiro Arikawa (beautifully translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel).
A lovely, gentle read about a cat and his person, in a mix of the cat's viewpoint and an omniscient narrator, with frequent flashbacks to the main human character's early years. This tale crept up on me with its slowly revealed revelations and insights, and towards the end made me quite weepy, in a good way. I'm still often finding myself thinking about it, and plan to re-read it before too long. Highly recommended to fellow cat lovers.
I'm also (in between other books) slowly working my way through the entire Wodehouse oeuvre, or at least all those my local library holds (which is a good 90%, I think), including the very early school stories, where he was still feeling his way as a writer. A recent read was The Coming of Bill, which I've seen referred to as "the nearest Wodehouse ever came to a serious novel". It's an interesting work, with many of the familiar tropes, but with heavier themes than in the more familiar works, such as the death of a beloved friend of the main male character's, and serious marital problems in a couple who married much too hastily - not to mention very unpleasant references to eugenics. That, mingled with the familiar comedic elements, led to what I found an uncomfortable unevenness of tone at times. An interesting work nonetheless, but I think Wodehouse was wise to stick to comedy.
Best wishes for the move, Lily! It's great that you'll be closer to your family, but such moves are always an upheaval.
The Passing of Mistress Rose
My historical novels
Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?
- A Room With a View
(This post was edited by Kimi on Jan 23 2023, 7:35pm)
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cats16
Half-elven
Jan 23 2023, 6:40pm
Post #9 of 10
(624 views)
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This is a sweet book, I agree! A friend and I read it together a couple of summers ago.
Join us every weekend in the Hobbit movie forum for this week's CHOW (Chapter of the Week) discussion!
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NottaSackville
Valinor
Jan 23 2023, 10:26pm
Post #10 of 10
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Currently re-reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series for the ?3rd? time. First in a number of decades, though. Near the beginning of Life, the Universe, and Everything at the moment.
Still funny and engrossing!
Happiness: money matters, but less than we think and not in the way that we think. Family is important and so are friends, while envy is toxic -- and so is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude. - The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner as summarized by Lily Fairbairn. And a bit of the Hobbit reading thrown in never hurts. - NottaSackville
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