October 2010: What Are You Reading?

[LoobyG]

What an amazing story Amanda! How cool that you know so much about your history, beyond my great grandparents I know nothing. I studied 'The Woman in Black' by Susan Hill at school and it's one of my favourite ghost stories of all, I remember going to see the play too and getting quite freaked out when the woman appeared in a seat at the end of my row! They're making a film of it with Daniel Radcliffe as Kipps, I think

[EC2]

[quote=""chuck""]Just finished Susan Hill's "The Women in Black"....One of the better Ghost stories I've read.......[/quote]

Susan Hill has written some excellent ghost stories in that sort of Victorian-style way. I just love them. The Woman in Black is perhaps the best of them.

[SonjaMarie]

I've finished "Breaking the Codes: Female Criminality in Fin-de-Siecle Paris" by Ann-Louise Shapiro (220pgs, 1996)*. An interesting book, but not really for the general public, and might bore many people, but I liked it.

SM

[cw gortner]

[quote=""Amanda""]Strangely marketed wasn't it? I enjoyed the story, but was puzzled about what happened with the title and the blurb....

Don't judge a book by its cover!......or title.......or the blurb on the back![/quote]

I know. The tagline on the cover reads: "A love denied - for which a country must suffer" and the back goes on and on about Mary. She's definitely a presence but what makes this book unique is that it presents the perspective of a Spaniard trying to get home, as Mary's marriage to Philip comes apart and people start to die for their faith.

It's quite moving at moments, and I'm really liking Dunn's writing, but this novel is nothing like what the cover suggests.

[cw gortner]

[quote=""EC2""]I read the one about Katherine Howard and enjoyed it quite a lot. It was a bit odd in that it was told a bit like a girl's pyjama party, but I liked the writing and would read another. Hope your cold is soon better CW! Edited to add that I was a bit 'meh' about The House at Riverton. Readable but that was about it.[/quote]

Cold is better, EC, thanks, but brutal congestion. This was one of those truly evil bugs that came on so fast, before I knew it I was flat on my back - and not in a good way

I was wondering about the Kat Howard one; it's being published here next year, I think. I went and bought Dunn's Sixth Wife, mainly because I like her writing so much.

There's a line in this book I just loved: "And an orange itself: how he'd love to nestle the tip of his thumb into an orange, to lever and split it and breathe in its scented gasp."

[Misfit]

[quote=""cw gortner""]Cold is better, EC, thanks, but brutal congestion. This was one of those truly evil bugs that came on so fast, before I knew it I was flat on my back - and not in a good way

[/quote]

Try this, Trader Joes is selling it. I had the same cold and was dreading the always always always settles into my chest almost turning into bronchitus (sp?). This time it didn't. Lots of good herby things, doesn't taste all that great though.

[SonjaMarie]

I've finished "The Mental Floss History of the World" by Erik Sass & Steve Wiegand, et al (397pgs, 2008)*. While over a good and interesting look at world history, with mistakes like saying Maryland was named after Mary, Queen of Scots (it was named after Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I of England) and that Howard Carter, the man who found King Tut, was American (he was British), makes me wonder how many other mistakes there were that I didn't catch!

SM

[Kasthu]

[quote=""Amanda""]I picked up Remember Me from Borders a long time ago, as it is based on a true story, of a women on the First Fleet to Australia who later makes a daring escape. I have a loose connection to this story.

I am a descedant of a First Fleeter, though he was a sailor on the Sirius (flag ship), he was shipwrecked on Norfolk Island with the Sirius, married a second Fleeter convict (who had born a child to another sailor on the way over from England), he travelled with Matthew Flinders on his exploration around Tasmania, returned to Sydney were they settled along the Hawkesbury River (the setting of Kate Greville's THe Secret River) doing provisioning runs to Norfolk Island, got shipwrecked again, and flooded off their land enough times that they lived in a cave.

Perhaps I should write his story one day.......[/quote]

Wow, that's quite a story--and a book I'd read...

Meantime, i've gotten started on Lords of the White Castle.

[MLE (Emily Cotton)]

[quote=""cw gortner""]I know. The tagline on the cover reads: "A love denied - for which a country must suffer" and the back goes on and on about Mary. She's definitely a presence but what makes this book unique is that it presents the perspective of a Spaniard trying to get home, as Mary's marriage to Philip comes apart and people start to die for their faith.

It's quite moving at moments, and I'm really liking Dunn's writing, but this novel is nothing like what the cover suggests.[/quote]

I read this rather recently too. I liked the detail, the realism, and the pathos of her character. But all he did was wait.
My biggest problem with the book was an enormous plot hole -- one that might have been passed over or patched with a little literary sleight-of-hand, but good grief, the woman embroidered a border all around the hole so you couldn't miss it! The whole premise of the book is about getting and not getting women pregnant -- Mary's pregnancy, his wife's, his sister-in-law, his mother's maid. And then in the last part, that whole issue seems to have been forgotten. Not an issue. Guess they discovered the pill.
It didn't hold water.

[JoshuaKaitlyn]

Finished 'Death of the Fifth Sun' - Robert Somerlott..... Could have expired a little sooner! Starting 'Edward I A Great and Terrible King' - Marc Morris (NF)