@Jo, I'm actually very familiar with the FotF radio theatre drama of The Secret Garden; it tends to be rarer for me to be more familiar with an adaptation than the source material, but it was that case here. I will be curious to hear what you think of the Alicia Appleman book - I'm not familiar with her, but it sounds like a worthy account to read about.

I got my chapter 22 last week, @SnowAngel, but I didn't look at it closely enough to see the "24". I also haven't see anything about new hardcovers, but that doesn't sound good. :[]
Oh, yes, that can be a problem with Christie! I've generally liked the Tommy & Tuppence books (though, I think there's one I haven't read still) - even when the mysteries aren't necessarily my favourites, they're great characters.
Alas about the books you left behind at the bookstore (hurrah for Richard Scarry!)! I hope they'll still be there the next time you go.
I know I've read one (or maybe two?) of the The Man from U.N.C.L.E. novels - I think it may've been The Doomsday Affair as I had a similar reaction to it. Hopefully the next one(s) will be better!
Glad you're enjoying your current nonfiction read, even if it's been slow.

I recently read The Dragon and the Raven by G. A. Henty; it was much shorter than The Cat of Bubastes but felt similarly sloggish and suffered from bouncing between a historical narrative and telling a separate story. But I think it was even worse than Cat in that the protagonist was the best at everything and always succeeded, even to the point of being instrumental in saving England and Paris multiple times - he should've left a mark on the historical record if he was real. He also sure went after Danish ships and men for booty an awful lot for someone who claimed he only fought to defend England.   And then there was

Spoiler

Spoiler

telling Freda that of course she would become a Christian and abandon her "barbarous" gods and people when they got married, though she rightly immediately told him that his God seemed good, but she'd like to know more about Him before she decided to follow Him.

@narnian-in-the-north yes I think I would agree about not recommending a steady diet of Henty. Or maybe it’s more that if one does have a steady diet of Henty in one’s fiction there ought to be at least some side dishes of biographies of the real people in those stories and/or general history focused on them if that makes sense? That said, if anyone has recommendations for books that have to do with border troubles between Scotland and England, and/or border troubles with Wales and England, I’m all ears!

@valiantarcher I finished The Mysterious Affair at Styles and enjoyed it! I will be listening to the next Poirot at some point soon, but my next audiobook is going to be Duncan’s War by Douglas Bond. I’ve read it before and did enjoy it, but for some reason that I don’t remember I didn’t read the next ones in the Crown and Covenant series, and I think I need a refresher before I do.

Well I may have been as much as 2/3 of the way through The Dragon’s Tooth before I really got to the “can’t put it down” point. And once I did I plowed though it, and The Drowned Vault, and Empire of Bones. So now I’m on to The Silent Bells! I’m trying very hard to pace myself with just two chapters a day but I’m already ready for Chapter 17. I’ve received 22 chapters but it seems like I’m due to get another soon?

@narnian78 I really like The Secret Garden and hope you enjoy as well! I have no green thumb but it always made me want a garden. Especially, it must be said, a secret one.  There are some children’s books I’ve reread as an adult that haven’t held up to my memory, but quite a few are either just as good or I find I appreciate them more as an adult. I’ll also happily read ones I’ve never read before if they look interesting. For a fairly recent example, a long time ago I read The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright, but never knew there were sequels (this was before I knew to search the library catalogue for more by this author, or maybe before I could do that without help? I don’t know for sure) and last year I reread The Saturdays and read the sequels for the first time. I absolutely loved them.

@jo I will be looking forward to seeing what you think of Alicia: My Story. It sounds right up my alley and it turns out I have easy access to an audiobook of it.  

 @snowangel

New covers? :[] I’ve mostly avoided looking at any news on The Order of Brendan even though I did join the forum because I’ve been worried about spoilers before I catch up. Now I’m worried.

I’m new to Christie in general but I always get excited when I see anything about Tommy and Tuppence. I’ve read them all. They’re such fun! One of these days I’ll look into the tv series.    

@valiantarcher That’s funny, you do have at least one of the same objections to The Dragon and the Raven that my little brother did (the part about how if he was real he should’ve left a mark on the historical record)! I don’t know why it didn’t bother me that he was doing things that he would’ve gotten into history books for if he’d been real, but I guess I’d gotten used to it, though this book is possibly the most egregious example of that (or at least of the ones I’ve read). And now I’ve made myself curious as to the publication order of his books and what his earlier books look like vs. his later ones. If this was an earlier one, I might say he grew as an author and realized he didn’t have to have his character save the city or an important battle in order to save the day. 

I still have only vague memories of it and probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much now as I did at the time I read it but I’m still mildly curious, if only to see what I did see in it at the time. I probably won’t try though, just because I’m still stuck on Both Sides the Border. There are some very engaging scenes but I admit I do get rather tired of it when the protagonist gets to be the best at everything and is universally praised and so modest etc. etc.

The going after Danish ships and also what you referred to in the spoiler could be seen as examples of how the character isn’t perfect, but it is unfortunately hard to say whether that was intentional on the part of the author.    Freda’s response leads me to say it could be, though I actually can’t remember how I took it when I read it.

Given that this is one I probably would’ve said is a decent one to read to get an idea of what his books are like, I think you can say you’ve given Henty a fair shot by now. Sorry they were more of a slog, but I’m glad you got to read something more enjoyable next! What was the collection of mystery stories?

@lady-merian I haven't read the entire series but The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett is an excellent historical fiction series set during the Tudor era that features the conflict between England and Scotland, as well as what was happening in the rest of Europe at the time. I've seen the series compared to Game of Thrones, which I can't verify since I neither read that book series nor watched the television show, but The Lymond Chronicles are very violent, however I feel it is probably historically accurate. The series is not for the faint of heart though.

I can highly recommend the books written by Ellis Peters/Edith Pargeter for the Wales/England border wars. They aren't as violent as those of Dorothy Dunnett but are just as enjoyable. 

@Lady-Merian, I'm glad you enjoyed The Mysterious Affair at Styles and look forward to reading more! Ooh, I hope you enjoy Duncan's War (and the rest of the trilogy). I read them years ago and have fond memories, but I haven't reread, partially because I have a bit of a suspicion that it won't live up quite to my memories.    
You've made great progress on The Silent Bells then! Chapter 23 should be arriving in the mailbox soon, I would think.
That is funny that your brother had the same objections I did; I don't think that the narrative treated Edmund's flaws as flaws, though. :/ According to a list I just found, The Dragon and the Raven is book #16 while Both Sides of the Border is more like #66? So not one of the first books he wrote, but earlier in the grand scheme of things. Sounds like Henty didn't entirely learn his lesson.
The mystery stories were a collection ostensibly collected by Alfred Hitchcock called Let It All Bleed Out.
I feel like I should know some books about the border wars, but am drawing a blank this moment.

I settled on the book of Czech folktales. I do feel like they were a bit of a mixed bag, but there were some quite fun ones too. I've now moved onto a Wodehouse book for something slightly different.

I'm going to have to do a lot more reading if i want to match my goal from last year, let alone beat it, but i made a bit of progress over the past couple weeks by reading the first four Murderbot Diaries (and accidentally skipped #5 and jumped ahead to #6, whoops).

TMD is a series i've heard a bit about here and there on the Internet, finally learning more about the premise with the recent Apple TV adaptation. It's about a security robot, the eponymous Murderbot, who has gained social anxiety along with free will, and would rather watch soap operas than deal with humans. 

Overall, i'd give it 3/5 or 6.5-7/10. It's occasionally funny (though more action-y and less comedic than the above premise might suggest), the robot characters are interesting (the humans.... not so much), and as it's mainly a series of novellas (i think #5 is novel-length?) they're quick and easy to get through. That said, it's annoyingly light on the world-building; for example, it's mentioned that some humans are augmented, but how, what, and why are completely unexplained, even six books in. The plots aren't very imaginative (#3 in particular feels very much like a variant on #1), and the characters (especially the humans, and especially-especially the villains) are poorly developed. Also, there's a fair amount of, erhm, modern values referenced in the background, though the books share Murderbot's total disinterest in romance. There's also a fair amount of bad language.

I'm going to see if my local library has the fifth book, and probably read #7 at least -- i'm not sure if there are more, tbh. #6 felt like it took a couple steps in the right direction, and the plot of #5 sounds more promising than the first four, so maybe it will improve more. It's one of those series that i could go on and on for paragraphs about what i didn't like and what i don't think works, but there's something that keeps me reading. If nothing else, it's fun to complain about.

Do the people here like the Amish novels by Beverly Lewis and Wanda Brunstetter?  I have been reading some of them lately, and they seem quite good.  I am now enjoying The Rose Trilogy, which has the conflicts of people who have left the Amish lifestyle and have returned to it. Beverly Lewis spoke in our area a few years ago, and I met her in person.  I haven’t read much of Wanda Brunstetter, but I am interested in reading more of her books sometime in the future. The other Lewis may be better known here, but Beverly Lewis’ books are certainly worth reading. 🙂

There is one Australian book that two of my daughters had to study at school but which we all enjoyed immensely. That is Ruth Park's Playing Beatie Bow, which was later filmed. If you want to see a film reasonably faithful to its literary source on Netflix, it will be available until August 31 on Netflix after which it will be deleted. This is time travel back & forth from the poor & rather sleazy Rocks area of Circular Quay of 1873 and the later Sydney of 1973, with both the Opera House & the Harbour Bridge in place. The church featured in the story is the old Garrison Church, the oldest in the colony. If you do choose to give this film or book a go, I'd dearly like to hear what you think about it. 

@Arin, hurrah for getting some more reading in, even if the books aren't knockouts! Have you been able to track down the one you accidentally skipped?

@waggawerewolf27, I've never read Playing Beatie Bow but the title sounds vaguely familiar (though I'm not sure why). But what fun to have a book that you and your daughters all got to enjoy.

I've made it through a couple of Wodehouses (Jeeves and Wooster stories); I can't say they were standouts, but they were fairly solid Wodehouse, which was fun.
I'm now reading the Volume One of Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1849. This series gives women's first-person accounts of travel along primarily the California and Oregon trails (though I think a few other ones are represented too) and - despite it being the first -  this is actually the only volume I haven't already read. I'm not very far along, but I'm excited to read it as these accounts have been pretty interesting.

I also got my last chapter of The Silent Bells this past week. So very odd to think it's done after...eight or so years! I haven't gotten into it yet, but I suppose I should go ahead and find all the chapters and see about moving them to the to-read shelf.  

@Arin, I find I have a similar opinion on the quality of the Murderbot Diaries, but that hasn't stopped me from enjoying them like marshmallow fluff... I've been doing a reread over the summer and I skipped #5 on purpose, because if I remember correctly, #7 is its direct sequel so I want to read those two consecutively. We'll see how that goes when my library holds come in.  

@waggawerewolf27, I tracked down a copy of Playing Beatie Bow and read it over my lunch breaks. I enjoyed it, though I imagine your interest in the landscape is different than mine. (I could picture the Opera House because of various calendar photos but that's about all.) Time slip fiction must have been a popular mini-genre for a while because the other titles I can think of off hand were all published around the same time!

I also received chapter twenty four of The Silent Bells last weekend! I think back when the project started, @fantasia wondered what to do when we had all the chapters. My answer is this, though it's probably a lot easier just to keep them folded in some sort of folder. When I told @valiantarcher what I was planning, she asked if it wouldn't be oversized, and I said no (I was picturing the folded mailpiece)... Well, I was wrong. Turns out unfolded the sheet is taller than my copy of Poortvliet's Noah's Ark which had previously been the tallest book on my shelf. Oh well. My copy of Silent Bells will be very unique.  

@Meltintalle  I enjoyed it, though I imagine your interest in the landscape is different than mine. (I could picture the Opera House because of various calendar photos but that's about all.)

Yes, of course, when Sydney, founded in 1788, the first city in Australia, has always been our home. The Garrison Church, built in 1840, a picture of which I copied here, is one of the anchoring points in both the book and the film, when the story of Playing Beatie Bow, written in 1973 by Ruth Park, was from about 1873, a century earlier, I believe, when life was much different from Abigail's (the name of the main protagonist) own more modern life in the now more gentrified Rocks area, adjacent to the Garrison Church in Miller's Point. 

The film does depict the Opera House, itself, which was opened in October, 1973, but the absence or presence of the close at hand Sydney Harbour Bridge, finished in 1932, defined the era portrayed. Believe it or not, the sleazy laneway nicknamed Suez Canal after the completion in 1869, of De Lessep's short cut through the Red Sea, still exists, as a short cut through two separate areas of The Rocks, though it was cleaned up long ago. I understand that the Harbour Bridge, part of which is glimpsed in the background, was roughly modelled on New York's Hell's Gate bridge.

@valiantarcher   But what fun to have a book that you and your daughters all got to enjoy. 

Another book we all enjoyed was Judy Blume's Remember me to Harold Square, which relates the story of three teenagers left on their own, making a real project of exploring New York City, and all it has to offer the world. I've always maintained that one could do the same thing for any other major world city, along the same lines portrayed in that book, whether our own Sydney or Melbourne, (which we have all visited from time to time ), or somewhere else overseas. 

Sydney's Garrison Church seen from Observatory Hill, nestled under Sydney Harbour Bridge. 

Posted by: @lady-merian

New covers? :[] I’ve mostly avoided looking at any news on The Order of Brendan even though I did join the forum because I’ve been worried about spoilers before I catch up. Now I’m worried.

I showed the new covers to my siblings and we are in agreement they are not an improvement. We prefer the more vivid illustrations on the originals, the colors are too soft on the new.

Over the last few weeks I read three more westerns from my stash, two of three were pretty good, but I'll probably not be keeping any of them as I'm still in need of shelf space. I've started another western, making extremely slow progress on it.

I am going read The Dragon's Tooth next since the final chapter of The Silent Bells is now sitting on my desk waiting. Although I am trying to knock out my current nonfiction book, The New Concise History of the Crusades, before I start anything else, but it's been slow going this week due to variety of factors. Hopefully I'll be able to dive into Ashtown by the first of next week.

Ooh, that is so cool, @Mel.  

Latest book: CRUNCH by Leslie Connor.

A great example of how children's books are not "easier" or "simpler" just because they get to the point. At the same time, this book keeps the youngsters safe so that youngsters (and young at heart) can read it. (I am reminded of C.S. Lewis commenting that someday we will be old enough to read fairy-tales again.)

A fuel stoppage crisis brings a nation to a sudden halt. Suppose one day all gas stations ran out of gasoline (and diesel). It is to be hoped that your last drop of fuel happened to be in your own driveway, at your home. Otherwise, where you run out of fuel is where you stay. (Unless you leave your vehicle...)

Now imagine you are a bike mechanic and suddenly the nation of cyclists wants what you have. But your parents are hundreds of miles away with their empty gas tank, and you are only 14 years old ...

Great characterization and mostly realistic. A good choice if you want to read about broken systems without being frightened.

Posted by: @valiantarcher

hurrah for getting some more reading in, even if the books aren't knockouts! Have you been able to track down the one you accidentally skipped?

Yes and no. Put a hold on the electronic copy at the library, hasn't become available yet. Ironically, as Mel noted below, the #5 book actually comes after #6. Checking goodreads reviews, seems some people were annoyed that #6 went back instead of continuing with what happened in #5, and just based on what was suggested by what i saw in #7, i can understand that annoyance. So i guess it's a good thing i read #6 first!

Posted by: @mel

I find I have a similar opinion on the quality of the Murderbot Diaries, but that hasn't stopped me from enjoying them like marshmallow fluff... I've been doing a reread over the summer and I skipped #5 on purpose, because if I remember correctly, #7 is its direct sequel so I want to read those two consecutively. We'll see how that goes when my library holds come in.  

I'm still going to read #5 and probably #7, but i have to admit, i'm retroactively getting more irritated with the series as i reflect on it. It really is a one-trick pony, and the pony is Murderbot, so if you don't love Murderbot (and i don't dislike Murderbot, just... don't love it), there's really not much there for you. Not sure if the problem is the author's disinterest in developing... anything, or just the fact that the series' hype has escalated beyond what it can actually deliver. 

Well, at least you won't struggle with losing any chapters of The Silent Bells, @Mel? Have you started yet?

@waggawerewolf27, that's great! I haven't read Remember Me to Harold Square, but it does sound like a lot of fun and I agree that it sounds like an easily-repeatable concept for any other larger city.

Congrats on being able to get a few more books off your shelf, @SnowAngel! Hope you'll be able to start your Ashtown reread right away.

Crunch sounds interesting, @the-old-maid - glad you enjoyed it!

Ah, well, that's how holds seem to go, @arin. Glad you avoided some of the frustration by not reading the last few books in order.

For a few reasons, reading has been slow this week, so I'm still working on (but enjoying!) the Covered Wagon Women book. However, I have now collected all my chapters for The Silent Bells and put them on the shelf; I had forgotten they came folded a couple of different ways, so it's not the neatest stack. Not sure when I'll get to them, but I would like to tackle at least a few more books off the to-read shelf over the next couple of weeks - we'll see how it goes!

@narnian-in-the-north Ooh this makes the second recommendation for at least the first book of The Lymond Chronicles (a friend said I would likely dislike some content later on in the series but that I might be able to treat the first one as a standalone if I go into it acting like it is).

I love the Brother Cadfael books!  I did find a nonfiction book that might be what I’m looking for. The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers by George MacDonald Fraser. I have heard nothing about it but it showed up in my Hoopla recommendations. I hope to start it after I finish Both Sides the Border (which I’m making very slow progress on but I do have less than a hundred pages to go.)

@valiantarcher  I finished Duncan’s War, and it was even better than I remembered! I got some extra listening in the last few days so I’m already almost done with King’s Arrow. At this rate it won’t take me long to read Rebel’s Keep and then I may go back to another mystery.

Huh, In Freedom’s Cause was written before The Dragon and the Raven so that was unexpected. *skims list* ooh Saint Bartholomew’s Eve: A Tale of the Huguenot Wars. I remember liking that one! I wonder if Dorothy’s Double is the one my sister liked, or if it was A Search for a Secret… *wanders through the list and the memories*

All in all, since I’m still going through Both Sides the Border and having some trouble sinking into the story in places like I used to, I don’t feel like I want to go and reread a bunch, but I can also see what I saw in them at the time and why they come so highly recommended in homeschooling circles: The placement of a young character set in a historical period that isn’t well-represented* to inspire readers to bravery and virtue** and a love of history.

*my favorites of his tend to be set in under-represented times in historical fiction. I know of one book for children that features the persecution of the French Huguenots and it is a good one (Hammer of the Huguenots by Douglas Bond) but that was done after we read Saint Bartholomew’s Eve.

**putting aside some of the values of the times he lived in, as discussed elsewhere in the thread, his heroes and heroines are (quote from The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature:) “intelligent, courageous, honest and resourceful with plenty of 'pluck' yet are also modest.” …Well the character is modest, the narrative is less so about the character. But all that being said, yes the style, the unwavering goodness and cleverness of the characters (which doesn’t leave as much room for character growth) can get annoying when there’s so much of it.

The first-person accounts of California and Oregon trails sounds like a great series!

And I’ve finished The Silent Bells. That was a wild ride, and I think it was almost everything I wanted from the ending.

It has, for me, been eight years. I don’t know when the first signups for the serial version started because I missed them, so I can’t say I’ve been here since the beginning, but it feels good to be here at the end.

@mel I think that is a very cool binding of The Silent Bells! I have gone back and forth about wanting to type up my chapters so I can get them into ebook form for easier rereading/ease of traveling with it vs. just preserving them in page protectors, but knowing me I probably won’t get to it before there’s an official book out. ;))

@snowangel just curious, did you see the pictures inside the printed chapter, or did you see them on the site? I can’t say I like either one, but the colors are much brighter on the site. I never liked my copy of The Dragon’s Tooth (the hardcover one with Cyrus holding up the tooth.) but the paperback version and the next two I liked better. It is a shame that he doesn’t have the rights to the original covers.

I watched the Q&A about them after I finished and my main takeaway (besides the fact that he doesn’t have the rights to the original images) was that I’m kind of glad he wanted something completely opposite from anything remotely resembling AI, but that the linocut designs could be much better. I’d still rather not linocuts though I know they can be done well. I just don’t think these really evoke the atmosphere of the books. Ah, well. I’ll be keeping my copies of them anyway and I’m used to non-matching series. Hope you enjoy the reread!

Also I didn’t wait long before looking into the Tommy and Tuppence tv series. I binged it last month. I was glad you mentioned it! It was so much fun it makes me want to reread them already.

@narnian78 I’ve thought about getting into Beverly Lewis’ books, at least to give her early ones a try. It has seemed to me that they’re largely what kicked off Amish Romance as a genre because people liked them and wanted more. I don’t know if that’s an accurate assessment of where the genre came from, but I do know my oldest sister liked them, and soon after that I started seeing more and more in that genre in the Christian fiction sections of bookstores so the association stuck. More recently my mom read one of her earliest books and enjoyed it. 

Lately I’ve been seeing recommendations about Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund. Life changing, some said. I remained skeptical about that until I listened to it. He draws from Puritan authors like Thomas Goodwin, Richard Sibbes and John Bunyan, among others, and at times I forgot it was not an old book (up until something about the internet or cell phones are mentioned ) but above all else it’s scripturally based.