Batgrl (Book Data Kept Elsewhere) > Recent Status Updates

Also Mrs. Catherick: "My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody."

Mrs Catherick: "The dress of Virtue, in our parts, was cotton print. I had silk."

I don't think Hartright ever tells us if he settles up with the poor men he offered money to to help fight the fire...

Whenever a young pup is sighing over an elder's habit of nattering on about seemingly unimportant things - odds are high that some of those natterings will be important.

Somehow I think the saddest part so far (doesn't seem as melodrama-like) is Mrs. Clements' telling of why she felt like a mother to Anne: "I always said she was sent to console me for never having chick nor child of my own."

Random link for history info http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/books... - the book caused a merchandising craze. Which means I'm sure people got sick of hearing about it. Cough, Twilight, cough.

I am in a slight bit of disbelief that Hartright and Marian are The Only Ones Who Recognize Her - not really convincing, even with True Love Eyesight. But hey, I'll go along with it.

I think I must give the book an extra star because even tho I've spoiled myself for the ending (happily) I am now STILL actively reading while hoping I'll discover that Mr. Fairlie has an aneurysm. Or something equally horrible. Because Collins has totally convinced me he's that awful, even more than the villains.

Hartright: "...I came back, as I had hoped, prayed, believed I should come back - a changed man." - please just be at least as manly/brave as Marian. She'll thank you.

If ever you're unsure what to do with a character, but need to get him out of the way for a while - Travel to Exciting and Exotic Central America! Shrouded in mystery! Heh, I see what you did there, Collins. Totally ok with it too. Hartright needed some off screen time.

Quote from Middlemarch: "She may read anything now she's married."

Randomly - and reading this book has only made me look this up and realize - Virginia Woolf has 6 volumes of collected essays. Even at this date there is not a full collected volume of all of them, either in paper or ebook. This seems wrong.

"In the 1890s the three-decker novel abruptly disappeared due to changes in its marketability" - somehow I don't think the same will happen with today's multi-novel series. (I'm weird, I don't like buying into those until the series is done. I call it my Han Solo Forever Stuck in Carbonite Fear.)

I'd not heard of Mary Brunton, for instance, who only had three books published, then died in childbirth. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bru...)

I was worried this would happen with this book - currently only up to pg 19 and already have a list of authors to check out, some of which are new to me. Will see if all of them exist on Gutenberg, and how many I can't resist downloading.

Hmm. When I start going through a GR List and find multiple ebooks on sale I begin to wonder if GR is learning my weaknesses. (That's me, searching for excuses!) When the prices go under $5 I have a really hard time saying no.

The Bird of Popular Song: "It is winter-time. The earth wears a snowy garment, and looks like marble hewn out of the rock; the air is bright and clear; the wind is sharp as a well-tempered sword, and the trees stand like branches of white coral or blooming almond twigs, and here it is keen as on the lofty Alps."

"...At any rate, the average physiologist is not known for his elegant appearance - and for good measure, I will throw in the pharmacologists also! Several living examples of each could be cited to prove my point, but I must refrain from embarrassing my distinguished friends and colleagues."

"...physiologists, I fear, do not have the reputation for being well-dressed people. They are apt to be somewhat indifferent about their personal appearance, especially when at work in the laboratory."

"...nature has provided a strong bony cage to protect the brain."

Again, another short read that leads me to other reads. Thank to Van Liere I now have Anna Catherine Green's mystery, The House of Whispering Pines, on my Kindle. I can not resist old/free ebooks.

On Watson and the Weather: Am now imagining a day of the Weather Channel where everyone would have to dress in Holmes-period costume and only speak of the weather in this language. I would watch.

Currently am reading two more books than the 4 already on my list. I have this awful (I think? maybe?) habit of slowly nibbling my way through various books. Am attempting to focus (New Year's resolution and all) more on fewer, but it seems the habit's hard to break. Perhaps even more fun since I've told myself not to do it.

Confusion in reading GR reviewers who put spoiler-hidden-thing on an entire review - for a history book. Where the only thing they're spoiling? History. Such as Louis XIV having affairs with various women. I think that the word spoiler is starting to get used in a different way than intended if we're using it for non fiction, especially history.

Note to self, find out how long a wait there was between publications of this when the novel was serialized. I would not have been patient - I'm as annoyed with multibook stories now.

If someone doesn't throttle Mr. Fairlie by the end of the book I'm going to be severely disappointed.

I kept thinking that it might be a really really bad idea to keep so many secrets written down in a diary. Without having a secret hiding place for it. Oh well.

The Count: "There is a skeleton in your cupboard here at Blackwater Park that has peeped out in these last few days at other people besides yourself."

Marian: "My courage was only a woman's courage after all, and it was very near to failing me..." - seriously you have got to STOP saying that. Especially right before you go and do something courageous.