OtterMommy

I made a little goal for myself that for each month of 2023, I'd read a book recommended by my daughter (she's 13 and reads at a high level, but her interests are still in the middle grade area). The first book she handed to me is The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer, which is the first in the Enola Holmes series. I'm enjoying it, but I'm surprised on two counts. First, while I wouldn't say this is written in a high-brown literary style, I will say it isn't written in a way that it panders to kids. Most of what would be considered middle grade when I was a kid always seemed to be written like this, so I appreciate that that is changing. Secondly, I was surprised at how childlike Enola is in this book and it took me a while to realize that she thinks and behaves like a tween. I was used to the Millie Bobby Brown's Enola and those moves, which are very clearly Young Adult. I actually think the story works better with a more middle grade heroine, at least as far as I am in the book. Anyway, I'm looking forward to what my daughter gives me next. My only limits were that it has to be fiction and it can't be manga (nothing against Manga, I just don't think my middle-aged brain can manage to read the book from the back!)

I really liked this one, but it is different from most of the other Three Pines books. For me, LP is a little hit and miss when she leaves the town of Three Pines and I seem to be a mirror reflection of most people on the hit or miss scale. I know a lot of people where lukewarm on this one, but I loved it. On the other hand, almost everyone I know loved All the Devils are Here (set in Paris), but it was probably my least favorite of the series.

I loved both The Appeal and The Twyford Codeb! I ordered Jancie Hallet's 3rd book from Blackwells and it should be here soon! I also really enjoyed that Christie Biography. I had heard and seen Lucy Worley a lot of places, but that was the first time I read anything by her.

I finished two books this week that surprised me, in good ways. The first was Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley. It was published in 1917 and is about a woman who has spent her adult life either as a governess or keeping house and farm for her brother, a writer who frequently goes off on little journeys. She gets fed up and, when a traveling book salesman stops by to sell not books, but rather his business, she ends up buying his book cart on a whim and goes off on her own adventure. I just had a huge grin on my face for this entire book. I realized that I really love books about middle aged women just getting fed up to the point that they make some drastic change. The second was The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. I was a little apprehensive about this because science fiction is a hard genre for me. However, this actually reads more like (slightly alternative) historical fiction, which is one of my preferred genres. I really enjoyed this one and I was completely sucked in by the first chapter. Kowal does get a little "mathy" now and then, but not nearly to the point of, say, Andy Weir. You can easily skim those parts and not miss anything with the plot. My only issue with this one were a couple of sex scenes. I have nothing against on page sex scenes and these weren't even terribly explicit, but they did nothing to push the plot along and ended up just being annoying to read. But, other than that, excellent. I realize the rest of the books in the series are going to be more squarely in the SF world, but I'm now invested enough in the characters to continue on.

Just an FYI --posts regarding Alec Baldwin and the Rust shooting have been moved to the Celebrities Behaving Badly thread.

Do you mean the 5/6 episodes at the hotel? That was Peter's family in the book.

The New York Times published a story about Susan Meachan today which is interesting (I'll link below, but I'm not sure if it is behind a paywall). It sounds like she actually did try to commit suicide. Her daughter found her in time to save her and Meachan's husband at that time told their daughter to post that Susan Meachan had died. Faking a death* is just ridiculous and she should not have done it. However, it's not as clear as someone or someones doing a really stupid thing. Ms Meachan suffers from Bipolar disorder and her writing career was incredibly detrimental to her mental health. There is definitely a toxicity present in the Romance writing community. It may not be everywhere, but it does exist. While Meachan was a victim of it, she was also an active participant in it, which is now being blamed on her mental illness. After reading this, my feelings are wavering. On the one hand, I'm sympathetic towards Meachan because she clearly needed more help with her mental illness than she was getting. She also did receive some "brutal" treatment from fans and other writers, which is just another inexcusable example of bad online behavior. On the other hand, she did play into the toxicity--and, yes, her mental illness may have made it harder for her to recognize the toxicity for what it was, but still. Also, SHE DECIDED TO COME BACK TO ROMANCE WRITING! Look, Bipolar Disorder just doesn't "go away." It can be treated and managed, but not cured. And the online culture hasn't changed, so why would she think it isn't going to have the same effect now? Plus, she is now facing even more hostility (probably more correct than toxic) over the whole fake death thing. All I can say is...what a mess! A Fake Death in Romancelandia * By faking a death, I do not mean the suicide attempt. I mean the decision afterwards to publicly say she was dead when she was not.

Thank you for sharing this. I've been kind of circling this title, but the only things I've heard--which have all been positive--have been marketing. It's nice to hear from an actual human. I think I'll leave this one off my TBR.

I had been slowly reading Marple: Twelve New Mysteries since the beginning of the year and just finished it today. I actually quite enjoyed it. With any short story collection, especially one with multiple authors, some stories are better than others, but on the whole this a fun collection. There were a few authors I didn't know, a few I knew of but hadn't read, and a few I've read so it was a nice variety of voices and it introduced me to some new authors to check out. The authors: Naomi Alderman, Leigh Bardugo, Alyssa Cole, Lucy Foley, Elly Griffiths, Natalie Haynes, Jean Kwok, Val McDermid, Karen M. McManus, Dreda Say Mitchell, Kate Mosse, and Ruth Ware.

I finished There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura and my main takeaway is that I am very ignorant about Japanese (or, really, all Asian) culture. Now, I don't mean that I don't know anything about Japan. What I'm saying is that there are things about are fundamental to their culture that I am either not familiar with or am still working to understand I tend not to have success with Asian novels for that reason. And, as far as Asian novels go, I had better luck with this one than most. That being said, I didn't understand half of what was going on. It's about a 36 year old woman who, after suffering from burn out from the job she was at for over a decade, spends a year in a series of temp jobs, just looking for something that is just easy and, for lack of a better word, brainless. The actual plot was interesting. I was always surprised by what she would encounter; I'm not sure that is because of my ignorance about Japanese culture or if the weirdness of these things is universal. But, once I got to the end, I knew there was a message I should get from it, but I had no clue what it was. I finished this yesterday, and today I think I get the gist of the message: Now, I could be completely wrong with that, but there you go. The other thing that I got from this book is that I need to try more Asian literature. If anything, this book showed me how ignorant I was and I'm not willing to just accept that. Instead of avoiding Asian literature, I'm going to try to read more of it. Phew...now, after that, I needed something comforting and familiar, so I'm reading The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie. I was actually a little trepidatious about this one as it is the 2nd in the Superintendent Battle books, and I really didn't like the first one (The Secret of Chimneys). So far, though, I'm enjoying this one much, much more.

Someone posted somewhere earlier on this thread that they do do some preliminary searching to make sure there is something there to talk about. There is no way that every actor in Hollywood is descended from a passenger on the Mayflower, as well as a Civil War General.

I'm not familier with Marie Killilea, but I have sort of a love-hate relationship with memoirs. Maybe that is not the best way to say it, but I don't think you can beat a well-done memoir. Unfortunately, there is a specific downfall that is very common in memoirs that, no matter how wonderful the rest of the book is, it will reuin the story for me, and it is this: There is a trap where memoirists become, for lack of a better term, the heroes of their own stories. I mean, yeah, I guess they are the heroes, but I also think that they need to be able to recognize their own faults and take responsibility for their own actioms. Too often, memoirs are all about what others did to the subject and all their hardships, but there is no acknowledgments that maybe, once in a while, they may have made an unwise choice. Or maybe they did something they regreat. A recent example for me is In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park. I get that life in North Korea is not great and that this woman faced some bad situations. But she was always *perfect*. Everything was everyone else's fault. Heck... What there is not in this book is ever a moment of, "I wish I hadn't done that" or "I didn't understand when I..." or anything like that. I can't go too far into Spare, because I have yet to listen to it (and, honestly, it is not a priority for me right now), but a friend of mine who is reading it does say that Harry frequently falls into this trap.

UK Air date: February 19, 2023 US Air date: May 7, 2023 Season Finale Nonnatus House is abuzz with excitement as the countdown to Trixie and Matthew’s wedding begins. Whilst Sister Veronica has appointed herself in charge of organising the wedding gifts, Trixie’s brother, Geoffrey Franklin, arrives from Malta and immediately starts arranging the perfect hen do. However, the approaching nuptials cause stress levels to escalate as a catalogue of small and great disasters threaten to spoil the day. Dr Turner, Shelagh and Timothy are first on the scene of a fatal car crash. Dr Turner experiences the biggest test of his career as they race against time to save a precious life. Meanwhile, Nancy considers her future, and Sister Julienne hatches a plan to save Nonnatus House once and for all.

UK Air Date: February 12, 2023 US Air Date: April 30, 2023 Everyone is looking forward to Trixie and Matthew's wedding and a bonny baby competition brings the community together. It's not all good news, however, as the team learn about a pregnant woman and her family living in a cramped caravan, while a worrying disease outbreak directly impacts the residents of Nonnatus House.

UK Air date: February 5, 2023 US Air date: April 23, 2023 Trixie supports an underage mother through a difficult time, Monica Joan welcomes an unusual guest to Nonnatus House, and Sister Veronica spearheads a new council initiative.

UK Air date: January 29, 2023 US Air date: April 16, 2023 A pregnant mother with a chronic heart condition falls unwell. Nancy grows suspicious of a young father's erratic behaviour, and Matthew prepares for a visit from his father.

UK Air date: January 22, 2023 US Air Date: April 9, 2023 The maternity home is thrown into chaos by an outbreak of gastroenteritis, and Nurse Crane fights to save her career. Meanwhile, Cyril encourages Reggie to seek help.

UK Air Date: January 15, 2023 US Air Date: April 2, 2023

UK Air Date: January 8, 2023 US Air Date: March 26, 2023

I don't think they should have "nobodies" or incredibly obscure celebrities, however this is a PBS show so they can step away from A-listers a bit into lesser known celebrities and non-entertainment celebrities and the majority of viewers will probably have at least heard of them. Also, I'm guessing that there are people (such as myself), who watch the show for family stories, not for the celebritites.

UK Air Date: January 1, 2023 US Air Date: March 19, 2023 Apologies to those of you in the UK. I had it in my notes that this started later in January in the UK.

Good point. There have been guests who I have never heard of. That being said, I'd like to see the ratio of entertainment celebrities to other notables even out a bit. I know that guests need to have some name recognition and entertainment celebrities are your safest bet there. However, I'd like to see more writers, retired and/or non-controversial public figures, well-known business people, etc.

I guess I see things a little bit differently. The producers (writers? whoever it is who makes decisions) of this show are really limited by what is in someone's ancestry. Their first issue is finiding people who have something notable in their ancestry in the first place. After that, they kind of have to take what they get. Things like the Civil War, and to a lesser extent, the Salem WItch Trials, are going to show up frequently because they are both part of US History and involved a large number of people (more the Civil War that the Salem Witch Trials, obviously). I think there are only two places where I think they have some sort of control over this--one of which they do well and one they do...less well. First, how they arrange their season. We may see things like the Civil War or slaveholding or whatnot show up multiple times, but they either group them together in one episode or separate them throughout the season so you don't get back to back episodes covering the same thing. Because of this, I'm not irritated by seeing the same historical events pop up again and again, as long as they aren't back to back or disproportionately appear in a season. What they do less well is the general diversity of the show. Yes, they have guests of various racial, religious, ethnic backgrounds, but the bulk of their guests are still American. One of my favorite episodes was the one with Lupita Nyong'o because her background was NOT American. I get that researching ancestors outside of the US is more difficult for their genealogists, but it isn't impossible and I think it would great enhance the show if they would start looking outside of North America for guests.

It might be because their DNA research didn't turn up anything of note and they had to fill up the time they would normally devote to that?

I agree, although I enjoyed Julia Roberts last week. I just find Ed Norton to be incredibly annoying. I also learned (shocker!) that Jeff Daniels and Jeff Bridges are not the same person! For some reason I had it in my mind that it was going to be Jeff Bridges and was completely shocked when it was not. One thing I did especially enjoy was Jeff Bridges using his experience as an actor (in Gettysburg, is that right?) as a comparison to what his ancestors experienced in the Civil War. I think that sort of experience is not one we've yet seen on this show. I think my favorite part of the episode, though, was Jeff Daniels saying, "Fine, blame ME for the Salem Witch Trials!"