Jennifer’s Comments (group member since Dec 03, 2021)

Jennifer’s comments from the On The Same Page group.

Janet, I hope you'll get a chance to vote for it! The poll is up here.

Oh glad you liked it! I’m reading my pick of that same book later this week… wonder who picked that…. Lol

Few world leaders see as much change during their tenure as Queen Elizabeth did. I'm in my late 50s and like most of the planet, never knew a world that didn't have her as an iconic figure in it. She embodied so many traditional British ideals. Silly as this may sound, I miss her.

Great description, Beth!

Wow, you reminded me it's been at least ten years since I read anything from that series, Bonnie -- thanks for the push!

Denise, that series is charming. I could never get into his Isabel Dalhousie series though. Too much navel contemplation. Desley, I read that back before the series came out. It was ok, but I never had any interest in reading farther or watching the show...

Glad you liked it, Eileen!

I'm in the middle of -- I read its predecessor yesterday, and what a rollicking series!

I liked it quite a bit. Also, it is set in Birmingham Alabama, which is a little unusual for a mystery, at least in my experience. I have the third book left to go in this series and something I read yesterday has led me to believe it's a three-and-done, not an ongoing series beyond that. Guess I'll find out!

Glad you liked it, Joy! Beth, that cover is so gorgeous I might buy it just for that.

Let's hope the U title helped you in some other challenge, Rhonda. UGH!

I read that last month and really liked it, Andrea.

In 1901, the word ‘Bondmaid’ was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it.

Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the ‘Scriptorium’, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word ‘bondmaid’ flutters to the floor. Esme rescues the slip and stashes it in an old wooden case that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. They help her make sense of the world.

Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others, and that words and meanings relating to women’s experiences often go unrecorded. While she dedicates her life to the Oxford English Dictionary, secretly, she begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words.

Set when the women’s suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It’s a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape the world and our experience of it.

The Dictionary of Lost Words

Pip Williams

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.

Lessons in Chemistry

Bonnie Garmus

Updated, belatedly...
The Book of Lost Names -- June 2022
Sea of Tranquility -- July 2022
The Last House on Needless Street --August 2022
Trust No One-- September 2022

Interesting choices, Lindsey, and the cover on “Blame Game” is just gorgeous.

I'll keep you posted on "Golf." I love Wodehouse, and even if he uses the same gags over again occasionally, I still roll when I read him.

Funny, I hadn't thought of Payne Stewart in years. Hard to believe it's already been more than 20 years since that happened!

If you haven't got Golf by the time I finish, I'll send you mine.

I have read that, and really liked it. (I've found my way to a few sports books before you came along, albeit very few and nowhere near as many as I now know about.... I've actually liked most of them, too. I loved and . I also really ended up liking that play I mentioned to you: ) And I am about to read .

Hard to live where I do and not be somewhat aware of sports. There are the Gators, of course, but I was also at work (in the 9-1-1 center) the day our road units were asked by the FAA to see if any could spot Payne Stewart's plane, the pilot of which had stopped communicating with the Gainesville control tower minutes before.

I'm resigned to it. LOL
I just finished another book you imposed on my list: which I quite liked, despite the fact that every time Gehrig's name was mentioned all I could see was him swinging for the fences, oblivious to what awaited him. But I guess that's true of us all.

Joy, those are great choices! I saw that you got “Mercury” on your pick list as well. This should be a good reading month!

Just read the blurb about that, Joy. Allende really defies description!