Laurel’s Comments (group member since Dec 30, 2013)

Laurel’s comments from the All About Books group.

#5 Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing - 3 stars
Not a bad book. I just wanted more from it. The library theme for January was puzzles, and genealogy is about solving puzzles.

#4 The Wild Robot Escapes - 4 stars
Another children's book, but this is why I set my goal higher for this year. Leftover from last year, the sequel to The Wild Robot. Read them together. They really don't stand alone.

#3 A Gentleman in Moscow - 5 stars
Slow to start and somewhat confusing at first, but by the end I wanted to immediately listen to it again. I won't right now - too many other books waiting - but I might listen to this again some time. Book club book for January.

#2 Millie Cooper's Ride: A True Story from History - 4 stars
A children's picture book. I saw this mentioned on a genealogy Facebook group, and bought a copy. I am descended from a Millie Cooper (the aunt of this one) and it depicts life at Fort Cooper during the War of 1812, when my ancestors settled there. Looking forward to sharing this with my mom the next time I visit.

#1 Mary Poppins - 3 stars
This was a book club book for Dec. I read these as a child, but it really was the movie that made a bigger impression. Mary Poppins is not exactly a likeable person, and there is no plot to speak of. My intention is to read more of them, and I've started the 2nd one, but it didn't grab me any more as an adult than it did way back when.

I'm so sorry I totally forgot that I signed up for this, so playing catchup now. Jan. 21st was my birthday, so I have chosen poem #121 from The Oxford Book Of Welsh Verse In English. I was amused to find a poem title The Owl, since I adore owls and consider them my "power animal." The poet is Edward Thomas (1878-1917). Wikipedia says this about him: "He is commonly considered a war poet, although few of his poems deal directly with his war experiences, and his career in poetry only came after he had already been a successful writer and literary critic. In 1915, he enlisted in the British Army to fight in the First World War and was killed in action during the Battle of Arras in 1917, soon after he arrived in France."

The Owl

Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;
Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof
Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest
Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.

Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,
Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.
All of the night was quite barred out except
An owl's cry, a most melancholy cry

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,
No merry note, nor cause of merriment,
But one telling me plain what I escaped
And others could not, that night, as in I went.

And salted was my food, and my repose,
Salted and sobered, too, by the bird's voice
Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.

Wow! Some very interesting sounding books there. I have a "thing" for bird titles myself. And I put all the Wainwright nominees on my to be read shelf every year, but since I live in the US it is difficult to get them, so I haven't read very many. I follow the Walter Scott list too....

I hope 2019 will be a better year for you!

Goal #5 - A Good Yarn, Reading the Alphabet
A year-long challenge. Will post here books read that fit the challenge...

A is for Animals
The Bear and the Nightingale
READ Slow Horses
READ Dead Lions

A is for Africa

Title beginning with A:
READ The Aviary Gate

B is for Body Parts

B is for Birds This is also my annual theme for A Good Yarn group, and my goal is at least 6 bird titles
The Bear and the Nightingale
READ Owls: Our Most Charming Bird
READ The Aviary Gate
READ The Butcher Bird
READ The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane





Title beginning with B:
READ The Butcher Bird
READ Before We Were Yours
READ Becoming
READ Bertie Plays the Blues

C is for Colors
READ White Birch, Red Hawthorn

C is for Clothing
Courting Mr. Lincoln

Title beginning with C:
Courting Mr. Lincoln
READ CatStronauts: Mission Moon
READ The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

D is for Directions

D is for Dancing

Title beginning with D:
Dark Fire
READ Desperate Hours
READ Drastic Measures
READ Dead Lions

E is for Emotions
READ Earthly Joys

E is for England
READ La's Orchestra Saves the World
READ Earthly Joys

Title beginning with E:
READ Earthly Joys
READ Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
READ Educated

F is for Family
READ Making of the Primitive Baptists
READ Women at Fort Boonesborough, 1775-1784
READ Boone's Lick
READ Millie Cooper's Ride: A True Story from History

F is for Fantasy
READ Mary Poppins
READ Mary Poppins Comes Back

Title beginning with F:
The Fugitive Wife
READ The Forgotten Creed: Christianity's Original Struggle against Bigotry, Slavery, and Sexism

G is for Groups
READ The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

G is for Great American Read
READ Wuthering Heights

Title beginning with G:
READ A Gentleman in Moscow
READ The Garden in Every Sense and Season

H is for Historical Fiction
READ Boone's Lick

H is for (things that are) High
READ Wuthering Heights
The Tall Pine Polka

Title beginning with H:
READ Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing
READ The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women: A Social History
Hollow Kingdom
Heart of a Samurai

I is for International
READ Virgin Earth (set in England and Virginia)

I is for Ice

Title beginning with I:
READ The Importance of Being Seven

J is for Jungle

J is for Japan
Heart of a Samurai

Title beginning with J:

K is for Key

K is for Kings and Kingdoms
Hollow Kingdom

Title beginning with K:

Goal #4 - Author of the Year, Madeleine L'Engle

Here is "sort of" a chronological list of books featuring the Murrays, the O'Keefes, the Austins, and a few other crossover characters, and maybe a few books that don't have any crossover but I'm including them anyway...

The Other Side of the Sun
READ 2018 Ilsa
The Small Rain
And Both Were Young
The Joys of Love
Camilla
A Winter's Love
Love Letters
------------------------------------------
READ A Wrinkle in Time
READ A Wind in the Door
READ Many Waters
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
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Meet the Austins
The Moon by Night
------------------------------------------
The Arm of the Starfish
Dragons in the Waters
A House Like a Lotus
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The Young Unicorns
A Ring of Endless Light
Troubling a Star
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An Acceptable Time
------------------------------------------
Certain Women
A Live Coal in the Sea
A Severed Wasp

Goal #3 - Catchall, leftovers, and series
Read 12.

Series
The Hounds of Annwn series by Karen Myers, books 2-5
Ravenspur: Rise of the Tudors (Wars of the Roses #4)
Phryne Fisher series - #4
Flavia series - reread before reading #5 ?
Bring Up the Bodies (Wolf Hall #2 - #3 not out yet)
Vorkosigan Saga - next in series after Shards of Honor
John the Eunuch series - books 2-12
The Winter Crown (Eleanor of Aquitaine #2)
The Autumn Throne (Eleanor of Aquitaine #3)
Season of the Fox (Servant of the Crown #2)
Lost Innocents (Servant of the Crown #3)
Pride and Predator (Ben Reese #2)
44 Scotland Street series:
READ The Importance of Being Seven - reread #6
READ Sunshine on Scotland Street #8
A Conspiracy of Friends (Corduroy Mansions #3)
READ Whisker of Evil (Mrs. Murphy #12)
World Without End (Kingsbridge #2)

On the Night Stand(s)
Whiskey Distilled: A Populist Guide to the Water of Life
The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers
...And Ladies of the Club
King Hereafter
The Demon's Brood: A History of the Plantagenet Dynasty
The Sparrow
The Prague Sonata
First Impressions: A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen
Dreadfully Ever After
The Canterbury Papers
Eleanor de Montfort: A Rebel Countess in Medieval England
The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors
Blood & Roses: the Paston Family and the Wars of the Roses
Blood Sisters: The Women Behind The Wars Of The Roses
The Lusitania Murders
The Plum Tree
The Half-Drowned King
The Fountain Overflows
His Dark Lady
Making Marion: Where's Robin Hood When You Need Him?
Murder in A-Major
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth
A Rather Lovely Inheritance (trilogy)
The Fugitive Wife
Gretel and the Case of the Missing Frog Prints
Pride and Prescience: Or, A Truth Universally Acknowledged
The Pendragon Murders
The Ludwig Conspiracy
The River of No Return
Black Rabbit Hall
Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer
Yankee Doodle : the story of a pioneer boy and his dog
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Miss Garnet's Angel

From the library
Library of Souls
A Map of Days
READ The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women: A Social History
Awayland
READ The Garden in Every Sense and Season
READ The Forgotten Creed: Christianity's Original Struggle against Bigotry, Slavery, and Sexism
READ The Butcher Bird
The Evening Chorus
Dark Winds Rising
The Sparrow Sisters
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two
READ Becoming
READ La's Orchestra Saves the World
READ The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
READ White Birch, Red Hawthorn

Goal #2 - Daytimer's Book Club
Read all 12.

READ Jan: A Gentleman in Moscow
READ Feb: Main Street
READ Mar: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
READ Apr: Little Fires Everywhere
READ May: Pachinko
READ Jun: The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane
READ Jul: Before We Were Yours
READ Aug: Crazy Rich Asians
READ Sep: The President Is Missing
Read in 2017 Oct: News of the World
READ Nov: Educated
READ Dec: The Map of Salt and Stars

I've already read News of the World, so here are some leftover from previous years:
The Pillars of the Earth
The Tall Pine Polka

Goal #1 - Random Reads from my TBR
Read 12 books from this list of 30 titles, drawn randomly from my extensive TBR shelves... *Starred items are carried over from 2018.

Nonfiction:
READ Owls: Our Most Enchanting Bird
READ 2020 The King in the North: The Life and Times of Oswald of Northumbria
READ *Claxton: Field Notes from a Small Planet

Wales and Arthurian:
To Carry The Horn (Book #1, Hounds of Annwn)
The Book of Joby
*Flint

Next in Series:
Bloodline (Wars of the Roses #3)
READ 2020 Murder on the Ballarat Train (Phryne Fisher #3)
Speaking from Among the Bones (Flavia #5)

New Series:
*Shards of Honor (Vorkosigan Saga #1)
Wolf Hall
One for Sorrow

Themes (old and new):
*Railsea (Moby Dick)
*The Drago Tree (Tree titles)
READ 2021 *Peregrine (Bird titles)
Blackbird House (Bird titles)
Orfeo (Music and musicians)
A White Wind Blew (Music and musicians)

Historical Fiction:
*The Golden Horn (11th cent. Vikings)
*The Summer Queen (12th cent. France)
*Queen By Right (15th cent. England)
READ Apr *The Aviary Gate (16th cent. Constantinople)
Season of the Raven (12th cent. England)
When Knighthood Was in Flower

Other:
*Stone's Fall (19th/20th cent.)
*The Evening Chorus (WWII)
Letters from Skye (dual timeframe, 1912, 1940)
Waterfall Glen (contemporary Scotland)
Mothering Sunday (20th cent. England)
Neverhome (Civil War - U.S.)

Leftovers (not carried over, but not deleted, mostly because I own them)
*The Long Walk Home
*The Story of the Champions of the Round Table
READ May *Bertie Plays the Blues
*Death in Bordeaux
*The Chocolatier's Wife
*The Seventh Magpie
*By Honor Bound
*Searcher in the Dawn
*Freshwater Road
*Wicked Like a Wildfire


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Overview:
I really liked my Random Reads category from last year where I drew the names of 30 titles from my huge TBR list. The goal was to read 12 of those. I didn't manage that in 2018, BUT if you count sequels, and the fact that I chose to reread a whole series up to the title on the list, I did read 12 titles. My other goal was to either carry over the rest of the titles OR delete them from my TBR page. While I only deleted two titles, I did carry over 12 to this year, so only drew 18 new slips to make 30. And the titles that didn't get carried over or deleted I am calling "leftovers" and listing them as alternates...

The second category will be my Daytimer's book club selections, which is a guaranteed 12 books and the third category will be a catchall list of things that are sitting on my bed table, or recently checked out or recently purchased, or related to the first category titles because they are sequels, or rereads of series, and previous authors of the year. I'm not creating a separate listing for anything new that comes my way, online bookclub reads, etc. Those will just get posted as I read them.

My "author of the year" to read will be Madeleine L'Engle.

And my overall goal this year is increasing to 52, because many of the L'Engle books are children's books, so I hope to be able to manage the 4 extra!

Closing in on my goal of 48 books for the year. But only because 9 of them have been children's books and a few more will be children's books.

I "have" to read
The Wild Robot Escapes
and my Daytimer's book group will be reading
Mary Poppins for our December meeting. I'm hoping to get to several of the sequels as well.

I am almost finished listening to
The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, #5 in my reread of the 44 Scotland Street series. I have a long road trip for the Christmas holidays, so I may be able to finish at least one more audiobook by the end of the year.

#39 Lethal White
5 stars - the best one yet

#40 The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story
2 stars only because I have a high interest in the topic and managed to read the whole thing. Just read the epilogue.

#41 Ilsa
4 stars - "a still life of the south in all its inertia and its persistence for the past"

#42 The World According to Bertie
5 stars just for the comfort factor - #4 in my reread of this series

#43 The Wild Robot
3 stars - mostly because it seemed unfinished and ended only so there could be a sequel.

I'll do the 21st. It's my birthday!

I just finished Britain Begins which was one of the Random slips I drew out of my stash for this year. That made me realize that I have fallen behind on current theories/research about the origins of the Celts, which I've always been interested in, so I've just started The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story, and added Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland to my TBR.

On audio, I have finished my book club read quite early in the month - The Life We Bury - so I am freed up to listen to whatever I want. Several online groups are already discussing Lethal White and I didn't want to be spoiled with spoilers so I used my Audible credit this month on that. Enjoying it so far. I've also recently purchased the TV series Strike and watched that.

For next year, one of goals is to read most of Madeleine L'Engle's fiction and I have started Ilsa, one of her earliest works.

Thinking about what I want to finish by the end of the year, and I have a number of "leftovers" to try and get out of the way. Next book club book is Mary Poppins - that will be nice light reading during the busy holiday season. I found a cheap Amazon offering of the first four Mary Poppins books all in one, so we'll see if I manage all four!

I read it several times as a child/teen and fairly recently as an adult. Not planning another reread. I've always identified with Alice with her curiosity and openness about the world. I hosted my adult book club when we read this, and decorated the table appropriately.

November.... I've already finished this month's book club book. Currently listening to
READ Lethal White
which several online groups are reading and I didn't want to risk spoilers. The library waiting list was going to be 6 months so I got it from Audible.

Still want to read the first three I listed for October, but they got set aside when I got Britain Begins. It was an interlibrary loan, so I had to get it read within the alloted time and everything else got set aside. Now, I have to read Oppenheimer and Sykes....
READ The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story
Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland

I've also started
READ Ilsa by Madeleine L'Engle

and still want to read
READ The Wild Robot

#32 My Prairie Cookbook: Memories and Frontier Food from My Little House to Yours
4 stars - Comfort food with trivia and photos from Little House on the Prairie's Melissa Gilbert.

#33 What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia
3 stars - Some good information, but mostly an angry diatribe against J.D. Vance.

#34 Love Over Scotland
4 stars - Thought I was re-reading this, but it was not familiar at all...

#35 Never Let Me Go
3 stars - a contemporary classic, but creepy and unsatisfying

#36 The Handmaid's Tale
5 stars - another classic, thought I wouldn't like it, and loved it, even though it feels all too plausible...

#37 The Life We Bury
4 stars - a great debut, lovely writing, but not a great mystery plot...

#38 Britain Begins
4 stars - comprehensive and scholarly