AuntiePam

"Near miss" is another common saying that will never go away.

Mine too. I love coming-of-age stories anyway, and that one was a winner. Women of a certain age might like one I just finished -- Mimi Malloy, at Last! by Julia McDonnell. It has one of those flowery romancey covers -- I wouldn't have picked it up on my own but someone sent it to me and I was hooked from the first page. Mimi is 68, divorced, with daughters who want to put her in a home and sisters who have different memories of their childhood. There's mystery and romance and some Irish folk history.

SEO -- learn something new every day. A TV news presenter was reading a quote, and the quote was also on screen. The word "ailment" was misspelled as "aliment" on the screen, and sure enough, the presenter pronounced it as "aliment".

Who was in the driver's seat in the decoy car? Was it the guy who was already dead?

Yep. I was a secretary for many years, transcribing dictated correspondence. One of the lawyers I worked for was overly fond of "as well", sometimes using it more than once in a short letter. I always changed it to "too" or "also", or left it out. If she noticed, she didn't comment. She was also fond of "myself" instead of "I" or "me". "Myself" is an unnecessary word, if you ask me. I haven't read this whole thread (most of it though) so I apologize if these have been mentioned -- "going forward", "in harm's way", and "boots on the ground". Also the confusion over nauseate and nauseous. You're not nauseous when your tummy's upset -- you're nauseated. (The stuff you ate was nauseous.)

Season of the Jew by Maurice Shadbolt -- novel based on a Maori uprising in New Zealand in the 1860's -- loving it for the snappy dialogue but apparently it gets violent later on. A Swollen Red Sun by Matthew McBride -- meth, madness, and murder in the Appalachians -- some of McBride's metaphors are strained but others are so perfect, I want to marry them. Another novel with realistic dialogue. I can see this as a season of Justified.

David Bianculli, NPR's TV critic, says Gotham is definitely worth a look. And it has Donal Logue, my boyfriend from the late, lamented Terriers. (He's also recommending Blackish, The Flash, Jane the Virgin and Scorpions).

Finished The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning. It's set in the early stages of WWII -- a newly married English couple are in Bucharest where he has a teaching position. There's no plot -- just this couple and their friends going to cafes for tea and to restaurants for dinner, taking walks,wondering and worrying about what will happen. But it was fascinating, with a lot of tension. You really get the feeling of what it's like to be away from your home country in unsettled times. It's also the story of their marriage -- a gregarious husband who loves everyone and a wife who feels neglected, justifiably IMHO. (It's semi-autobiographical.) I'm tempted to read The Levant Trilogy, which picks up after the couple has fled to Egypt. Started To the Last Man (a WWI novel) by Jeff Shaara and dumped it after a few pages. Unrealistic, expository, clumsy dialogue. If I hadn't recently finished some excellent WWI books, I might have kept going. Reading The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer, a Kindle freebie.

In addition to those incongruities, why wouldn't Adam Arkin let Sonya talk to Eleanor? All he had to do was say "Sure, but I'll be in the room too." He had to know that Eleanor wasn't going to give anything up with regard to her dealings with the feds. Let Sonya ask about the murder of the boy and be done with it. All that did was make Sonya more suspicious of him.

Something that didn't make sense to me was Marco asking for help before going to Fausto's hideout. If he's going to insist on going in alone, why ask for help in the first place? Especially from the marines. And what's the deal with marines in Mexico? Are they like the American National Guard? Marco going to his old friend to confirm where Fausto was hiding -- all that did was give the friend a chance to alert Fausto. Was that what Marco wanted? Because he's usually smarter than that. Sonya and her mother -- she should have told mom why she should leave town, then taken her home, cleaned her up, and put her on a bus.

The DVR quit recording at the point where Marco is approaching Fausto's hideout and the kid on the bike is being harassed. So I didn't miss anything major in the last few minutes? Everyone's still alive? No big revelations?

At least part of Hank's crawl was near some piled up bags, so he probably tucked the ledger in with those bags.

For me it used to be the trinity, but now it's helicopter parents. "This house has stairs! Danger danger!"

I missed the beginning of this one so didn't get the back story. How long will they be staying in Italy? Will one of the adults be working or are they living on savings? And nine kids? My husband said they must be Catholic, but isn't birth control acceptable now? I did notice that they were touching in almost every scene -- maybe mom and dad just really like each other. I chuckled at the boy who ended up in the nook under the stairs. You just know he loved having some space to himself. I wish they would have taken the dream house.

I'm confused on the timeline too but there was only one massacre. Eleanor was bloody from killing the guy in the red car -- the one who came across the border with her. Then she walked to the car wash, met the kid and killed him. The Red Ridge massacre happened later.

I wondered about that too. Can Jaime read? I was surprised he could drive. Clever, though.

I didn't recognize the doctor as David Wallace from The Office -- so scruffy! I didn't need to see the flashback with Eleanor. The impact is lessened when we know what's going to happen. I suppose it cleared up any doubts about whether Eleanor killed him because of her code, since we hadn't seen him being inappropriate. But even if he hadn't groped her, I think she would have killed him for looking at the ledger. So, two for $5 and one for $3.25? Once Eleanor's made up her mind, there's no changing it.

Jellybeans, Ctrl B will bold a title. Or just click the B above. I'm sticking with Downton Abbey mostly to see what they do with Edith's lover in Germany. Is it Edith? There are too many E names on that show. Anyway, Mary's sister, the one with the rotten luck and the baby.

IrishMaple, those books are on my wish list -- I love Vandermeer. Yesterday I read The True Story of Ida Johnson by Sharon Riis. Ida is a waitress in a cafe in a small town in Alberta, Canada. A drifter comes into the cafe and asks her to tell him the story of her life. I liked the book. At first I thought it was too short -- more like a novella -- but I guess Riis said all she wanted to say. It's almost more of a reverie than a story and it raises questions about how we choose to live, whether we let life happen to us or actively participate.

Speaking of gore, I've been on a WWI kick and wanted to know more about the Balkans, Someone recommended The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric, a mostly fictional history covering 500 years in a small town in Serbia, or maybe it was Bosnia -- or maybe both, since those borders have changed so often. Anyway, the story begins with a graphic depiction of an impalement. Seriously, if you were offered the position of Torturer, you could learn how to do an impalement by reading this book. Thankfully that was the extent of the gore. Currently reading The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy by Olivia Manning. It's six novels in one volume. I thought I was buying just the first book, and now I'm wishing I'd bought the Kindle version because even though it's paperback, it's killing my wrists. But it's excellent. It's basically the story of a marriage against the backdrop of WWII. Manning is one of those writers who makes keen observations about people -- there are some "types" but they're not stereotypes. I'm loving it.

Nope. The McKenna books could take place anywhere. I'll check Amazon and see if I can lend them to you.

I didn't watch the previews. Hank is still alive? Did he leave that trail of blood out the door? Did Eleanor cut up all the other bodies? I'm not surprised McKenzie and crew got it. Stupid not to leave someone outside when they went in.

I was almost sucked in to the hype for Time Traveller's Wife. My tried-and-true method for deciding whether to invest in a book is to check out the one-star reviews at Amazon. The folks who hate a book are often more specific about their reasons than the folks who love a book. This was true with this book, so yay for critics!

galax-arena, I didn't realize that was becoming a thing. The last dystopian novel I read was The Scourge by A.G. Henley. It was a Kindle freebie, and not too bad. But it did have that plot. Society was composed of people who lived on the ground and an upper class who lived above ground, in trees. Sounds silly but it was interesting and reasonably well-written. And sure enough, just like you said, a tree-dweller and a ground-dweller fall in love. There's a sequel but I haven't bothered with it.

I haven't finished the series (and probably won't). I don't even remember where I left off, House of Chains maybe, or the one after. But the thing about Erickson and Malazan is that maybe you don't know what happened to Rake. Erickson keeps bringing characters back, doesn't he? In different forms? So maybe he's not finished with Anomander. ?? It's just a thought. Since you like the series, I wanted to say something helpful and encouraging. :) I've been reading about WWI, since 2014 is the centennial of its beginning. I've been struggling with The First World War by John Keegan, but his long sentences put me to sleep. I made it almost all the way through The War That Ended Peace by Margaret McMillan and will probably finish, eventually. Finished Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves' autobiography. He's best known as the author of I, Claudius. The Graves bio made me want to re-read Regeneration by Pat Barker, a novel based on the relationship between Graves and Seigfried Sassoon and Sassoon's time in a sanitarium in England -- which I read years ago but didn't fully appreciate. Then I found Kitchener's Mob by James Norman Hall. Breezed through that in a couple hours. Hall is an American who lied about his nationality and fought in France in 1916. Hall's book is almost propaganda. He doesn't quite gloss over the horrors of trench warfare, but IMO he's a bit too quick to assign bravery and cowardice -- he's a bit judgmental. I suppose you have the right to judge if you've been through it yourself, but it struck me as wrong. The book was published in 1916 and is probably responsible for quite a few young men deciding to get some of that glory for themselves.