Laurel’s Comments (group member since Aug 06, 2013)

Laurel’s comments from the I Read Therefore I Am group.

Artful sounds very interesting! Will have to keep an eye out for it.

I tried to read more of Mason & Dixon last night and as much as I liked the idea of it when we first started, I've now lost interest in it so I think I'm probably just going to take it back to the library. So I'm reading Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson cos it's fun and then moving onto Austerlitz and Obabakoak

Jenny wrote: "How did you end up liking The Childrens Book Laurel? After failing to warm to 'Possession', I've been wondering whether I should try AS Byatt again, or just surrender to the fact that her writing s..."

I did enjoy it although this was my second try at reading it - some bits more than others as at times it did drag a bit but I really liked the bits about stories and storytelling and also the puppets. It's a very interesting book in terms of the themes - like how all the children are affected by the things their parents do, and the impact of the arts and crafts movement etc - apparently it grew out of her research into the children of artistic families and how they are often dysfunctional - but her writing style isn't easy and it feels like information overload sometimes.

5. Rosamond Lehrmann – Dusty Answer
6. AS Byatt – The Childrens Book
7. Michael McBride – Snowblind
8. Thomas Peacock – Nightmare Abbey

At the top of the comments box, it says 'add book/author' - click on that then type in the name of the book and press search, it should give you a list so you can choose the one you want and then when you post your comment it will have the underlined link for the book title - hope that made sense ;)

Yeah it's not going to be nice but...at least we know going in how it ends!

Oooo I like this one better than George (funny as the egg jokes are, I'm not really sure why anyone would have bothered to publish it?), I'd like to find out a bit more about Scott and the ill-fated expedition.

lol, you made me hungry too - had to make myself a bacon and egg sarnie with brown sauce - very nice;)

Must be quite warm in Germnay then Jenny, if you're sitting on the balcony? Absolutely freezing here, we had a lovely thick frost this morning

@Hilary - that's great news about your friend, I hope she is feeling a lot better soon and back to her normal self asap!
@ Tracey, Lee and Jenny - enjoy your boozing girls, sounds like everyone is having a nice Saturday! We found a box of Kronenburg 1664 beer in the shed leftover off Christmas - had forgotten all about it - sacrilege! So I'm going to have some of that tonight I think :)

Yes it's the first in the Maddaddam trilogy, the other two are The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam

Lol I'm trying not to buy it but it does look very good.

I've finished Dusty Answer which was a bit of a surprise to be honest. If I look at it objectively, it's ridiculously sentimental but.... it was so beautifully written I absolutely loved it.

That's quite cool Lee - love a bit of enigmatic graffiti! I'd love to visit Cambridge sometime, it looks lovely.

Lee wrote: "I'm up for that too."

yay!

I'm not sure really, I'd never heard of her till Lee's magic randomiser chose her as a monthly author - I'm nearly halfway through Dusty Answer and would definitely recommend it, it's a lovely novel and I can see myself reading more of Lehrmann's work in the future!

OK, shall we get the hangover months of jan and feb out of the way then and revisit Marcus in the spring sometime?

OK well I'm going to read:
Obabakoak for the group read
Persuasion for the readalong
Austerlitz for the readalong last month that I'm well behind on
Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Peacock
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones for my around the world in 80 books challenge thingy
and I'm going to finish Byatt's The Children's Book, Lehrmann's Dusty Answer and Pynchon's Mason & Dixon all of which I'm reading now.
After those, I'm winging it!

Yeah just cos you don't like one Atwood doesn't necessarily mean you won't like any of them. I enjoyed Cat's eye as well and also the 1st Madaddam book Oryx and Crake but I'd like to read the other two as well.

Crossing to safety does sound good - I thought it might have been on the Boxall's list but have just checked and it isn't

Wow, not even 100 years! It's crazy when you think about it. And lets face it, they didn't give women the vote because of their contribution to the war effort - they did it to stay in power as a lot of the menfolks hadn't got back to blighty yet and they needed the women to vote them back in!

I thought it was lovely too Hilary - are you still up for a Marcus Aurelius readalong sometime? This excerpt has just made me want to move him up the to read list - is it from the Meditations?

I quite liked that too - I wonder if Dickens had personal experience with angry mobs?

Lee wrote: "I think that he rebelled against both on religious grounds - Charles II was too Catholic and Cromwell was the wrong kind of Protestant."

There's no pleasing some folk....