Not at ALL Hot Prof Related Showing 751-800 of 4,044

[Melindam]

Nah, we'd never hate on you, Cat.

[Cat]

by my Poverty Safari is missing the K. pesky pesky letters!

[Sammy]

Karen's book will probably work 😂


ETA: nope, also no V, lol!

[Melindam]

I could grab the actual book next week and read for 2 (presumably the book is tagged dog - am on the app now), 4 & 5.

My audible edition does not cover 3 and the default edition seems to be more than 150 pages, though.

[Melindam]

In exchange, could you recommend me a shortish X-book, please? :)

[Cat]

yup: dogs tagged 32 times :)

I've popped in a yellow text book, so that's #3 covered. just need a shortie to finish it (though not in a hurry if Mel's not picking up the book till next week)

[Melindam]

Goodie. :)

Actually I just realised that I read the book soooooo long ago that I hardly remember anything about it. So it'll be a nice occasion to refresh my memory. :)

[Sammy]

Armada isn't very short (300-odd pages), but is a fast read and has an X character..?

[Sophie, The other one]

Seems like I need to go on the hunt for a novella to play my part!

[Sophie, The other one]

I've got a 1000 page monstrosity on the go which doesn't even help for the 2 longer books we need.

[Sammy]

Well I for one am not going to complain about 1000 page monstrosities, being that team Country will benefit from it and all... 😂

[Cat]

Same, Sophie. well, 800 pages, but soooooo annoying.

[Sophie, The other one]

X Marks the Spot is 136p but I can't claim it was a particularly good book. MM romance which is a marmite genre as well.

[Melindam]

Yeah, my long books are both over 700 pages as well. After Wheel, I will (umm should) start The House of Niccoló, but I am too tired for it right now.

[Sammy]

The majority of my books have been just short of 500 pages this week. Also annoying. I'll see what I can find once my current crop is raced through, lol.

[Melindam]

Thank you for the recs Sammy & Sophie. :)

[Sophie, The other one]

The last TT cleared a lot of the 500+ books from my shelves so need to find another few series with them to get going with.

One day I might actually finish Niccolo - so far I'm on a book every year or 2.

[Melindam]

Sammy, I have put the Wil Wheaton narration on my Audible wishlist for a later date. :)

May go in for Sophie's rec as that I could finish off in a jiffy. :)

[Melindam]

TT is to blame for my shortage as well. :D

[Sammy]

Yeah, one of the reasons I sat out wheel last year was because between TT and MRR I had nothing over 400 pages left! And with the book cap around that time meaning "they who read the longest books win", that seemed like an issue too. (I realise the book cap disappeared for that one, but I didn't know that when the sign-ups were live. In the end I took a welcome break! lol)
Don't have a lot of them still right now, so there have been a few re-reads, but that's not a habit I want to get into, as I don't have time to read all the books I want as is!

[Sammy]

Melindam wrote: "Sammy, I have put the Wil Wheaton narration on my Audible wishlist for a later date. :)

May go in for Sophie's rec as that I could finish off in a jiffy. :)"

Makes sense! As does Wil Wheaton 😁

[Cat]

other short X books, if you can tolerate the stupidity: Diana Xarissa (in particular the "Case of..." series are all at the 105 - 115 page range, iirc)
The ones set on the Isle of Man I struggle more than most cosies to deal with. Going over there to visit my mother I see the local newspaper (one of my favourite things about a visit!) and they manage to spin out a "person was rude to a police office" court case over 2 pages, so I cannot cope with all the random murders in those books!

[Sammy]

you have a point there Cat. If we take crime thrillers and cozy mysteries at their word, everywhere outside of London in the UK seems to be murder capital of the world!

If we trust Susan Hill, small cathedral towns in the UK will happily boast half a dozen serial killers in about as many years 😂

[Melindam]

LOLOL

[Sammy]

I've lost count of the amount of rural Scottish police procedurals I've come across...

My grandfather never even locked his doors for 40 years, even when he was spending months abroad! 😂

[Melindam]

Well, I am sure the all of you lot go out in the rain on murdering sprees after consuming all that tea & whisky. ;)

Obviously you have nothing better to do. ;)

[Sophie, The other one]

The murder sprees in small communities are a constant source of amazement to me in these books. Why does anyone stay living in those communities?

[Cat]

Yeah, I mean, they are ALL unbelievable, but most mainland UK press no long have local papers with extensive crime and/or court reporting. IoM, however, does, with marvellous name-and-shame court reporting (eg "Joe Bloggs (26) of 3, Somewhere Close, fined ££ for being drunk and disorderly and causing damage to a bush" - and I'm genuinely not exaggerating!) And the population across the whole island is something like 70 - 90k, so they'd really notice odd things like murder sprees! (fun fact: IoM didn't abolish death penalty until the 1990s!)

[Cat]

oh! also: Death in Paradise! how is that (fictional) island still getting so many rich holidayers given the murder count. If I were the government of Saint-Marie I'd ban tourism - the loss of income would be more than made up by the saving on police overtime!

[Sophie, The other one]

And coroner etc costs. Though the funeral directors might be upset.

Love local newspapers for stories like that. Adds an element of public shame to your wrong doing.

[Sammy]

They really should report all crimes like that. Unfortunately, the daily Leeds papers would weigh too much to carry 😂

[Melindam]

Ah the power of clichés. It brought back some fond memories.

Was 16 when the 1st native speaker English teacher arrived in our school. She was from Devon, just a few years older than me and we became great friends. Got my 1st English edition of Pride & Prejudice from her and later she gave me 1995 miniseries on videotape. ♡

Anyways, as she learned about HU and Hungarians, I also learned that Britain is not just a setting for an Agatha Christie novel. ;)

[Sammy]

Melindam wrote: "she gave me 1995 miniseries on videotape"

The fact that she chose that one shows she has impeccable taste 😁

[Melindam]

Absolutely. Although it was in 1996 when she gave it to me. ;)

[Melindam]

Anyways, she was shocked when I told her back then that we had a saying in HU, roughly translated as "to leave in the English style" which means to leave w/o saying a word. She told me that in the UK it was actually considered the height of bad manners to do just that.
But that's clichés for you. As we considered British people as tight-lipped & taciturn, someone at some point in HU coined this phrase and it stuck. :)

[Sammy]

Oh goodness yes, that would be so rude!

I was completely thrown the first time I had a telephone conversation with an American. They just hung up! No goodbye, nothing. I thought I'd said something wrong and made them angry. Turns out that's just what they do. Always makes me uncomfortable though, lol.

[Melindam]

I had a good laugh a few weeks earlier when I was reading Mary Stewart's Airs Above Ground. 1 of the baddies was a Hungarian who had black hair & eyes and Mongolian features, lol.

I also remember how surprised some Belgian students (visiting our school and HU for the 1st time in the early 90s) were when they found many, many blond-blue eyed people here. LOL, they also thought like Mary Stewart and I guess everyone else on the other side of the iron curtain.

[Sammy]

lol, that's just bananas! If you can get blondes in Arab states, why the heck not in a European country? 😂

I mean, Hungary is at the side of Austria, and every Austrian I've known has been blonde. Admittedly, until you, every Hungarian (both of them! lol) I've known has been very dark haired, but I'd certainly never assume they all were 😂

[Melindam]

Well, I have dark eyes and my original hair colour.... well... let's call it ash-blondish-brown. ;)

:D

[Sammy]

Melindam wrote: "let's call it ash-blondish-brown."

Much nicer than how I describe mine... "Dirty dishwater" 🤣
was extremely light blonde once upon a time, but started going murky in my 30s.

But this is what hairdressers were invented for 😂

[Melindam]

3 cheers for hairdressers everywhere. :D

[Sammy]

I have "extermination" again. *sigh*

[Sophie, The other one]

My next book planned is

501pages, MC royalty and gold item on cover so should clear Joffrey for us.

[Sammy]

Woo!

I've started a 700+ one which of course is useless for everything...

Also, is it me, or are we one short?

[Sophie, The other one]

Oh and Cat, depending on how you are doing with Run Rose Run it also starts with a letter from Crown

[Sophie, The other one]

I was just looking through and thinking that.

700+ is not useless for wheel though!

[Sammy]

Very true. It's also not useless for my assault on the 1001 list... Apparently at the current rate I'm reading those, I'll finally finish them when I'm 70 😂

[Cat]

Oh, yes, finished Run Rose Run yesterday

[Melindam]

Sammy wrote: "Woo!

I've started a 700+ one which of course is useless for everything...

Also, is it me, or are we one short?"

We are 1 short, I think. :)

Sammy, you defeated Cyberman.

[Melindam]

OK, I did a spin while I was at it and got us The 456

1. 350 to 450
2. Author initials (all) in TORCHWOOD
3. Character regrets a past action
4. "radio" in text
5. MC has a child or children