@Courtenay, no, they're not the James Herriot books, though I'm well familiar with those. The library cat one does appear to be the one you're thinking of, though! I don't usually read many animal books, but if I get a hankering for a cat book, I'll try to keep the one you mentioned in mind!
I have read several of Elizabeth Gaskell's books, yes - North and South, Cranford, Cousin Phillis, My Lady Ludlow, and Mary Barton, I believe. Mary Barton reads like a first novel, but had the surprise to me of being about half a courtroom drama and I liked it overall.

@rainyweather, I did indeed read and enjoy the Artemis Fowl series (besides the 6th and 8th). Essentially, I wasn't a fan of

What were the reasons you didn't enjoy the last book either?
I understand - a really good book stands up to rereads and to changes in maturity and perspective. A lot of books are fine and fun enough to read, but aren't really good books in that respect. And please let me know what you think if you read Beauty!

@Mel, well, it wasn't supposed to be a guessing game for the animal books, but apparently the library cat is a rare enough topic for both of you to be able to identify it. I know very little about the service dog book genre, so no idea if you're close there or not.

Speaking of, though, the library cat book should be my next full read. I finished and returned all the books I had out on WWII and immediately following today.

@valiantarcher My main issue with The Last Guardian was simply the plot itself. Not that it wasn't this way in some of the other Artemis Fowl books, but I felt that the main conflict (besides reusing a main antagonist from some of the other books) really just came from out of the blue. It was just so odd and random, and not in a way that I enjoyed. I felt that there should have been more build up to the final book throughout the series. Even Narnia has tiny bits of foreshadowing for The Last Battle. Narnia, however, was really meant to be more like individual stories than a continuous series, and Artemis Fowl was not. I just have high standards, I suppose, for series conclusions. It's rather disappointing to be following a great series and then have the ending be weak and leave you with a last impression like that. I prefer the series to go out with a bang, but also end up satisfying enough and, though maybe not completely happy, hopeful. It should wrap it up just enough and leave just enough to the imagination. I wasn't so much bothered with

that is to say, the very end of the end (though it is definitely not in my top list of satisfactory series endings, and I expected something much more original and creative from such an original and creative series), as much as the whole rest of the book. 

All in all, the book just didn't stand out from the rest of the series- at least not in a good way. The rest of the series was good and gave me high expectations for the grand finale... but the finale wasn't so grand after all. The plot was more thrown together and less clever and entertaining than the rest of the books. That was my impression, at least. It has been years since I read it and I have forgotten a lot of the plot, I am sure (though a series conclusion should have a memorable plot). I am probably being a bit harsh. After all, I did really like most of the series, and I still really like it as a whole.

Anyways, when I read Beauty I'll certainly share my impressions !

Posted by: @valiantarcher

@SnowAngel, lack of space and bookshelves makes sense. Are all your shelves double-stacked and are there boxes of books under beds already?

Well, currently under the beds is for out of season clothes and quilts, so none hidden there. However I am working very hard at getting my bookshelves stuffed and rapidly exceeding. I actually have some books in a box beside my desk, so the shelves are deceptive. Only two are currently double-stacked and I think I have enough for another shelf and half.   Plus I haven't added my latest purchase the Code of the West series by Stephen Bly. 

I'm still reading through the Anne books, currently on Anne's House of Dreams. However we did go to the library today and I stumbled across Riders of the Pony Express by Ralph Moody. I was seriously just browsing the kids books by a sibling and there it was on the shelf, I didn't even know the library had it. We have all the Little Britches books, so I hadn't even looked for Ralph Moody books at this library. It's less than two hundred pages and looks like an interest read.

While at the library I also got two of the Mrs. Pollifax books and Beyond Valor by Patrick K. O'Donnell.

SnowAngel

Right now, I'm reading the Mars Trilogy by Kim Robinson (on a bit of a space/science fiction kick at the moment). It's about the concept of eventually terraforming and colonizing Mars. Very different from the Malacandra of the Space Trilogy, that's for sure!

I always liked the Star Trek books by James Blish. They are adaptations of the episodes of the original television series from the 1960’s.  They were mostly quite good with a only a few changes made from the original scripts which aired on television.  There were twelve of them in the old paperback editions.  I believe they are now out of print, but I was recently able to complete my collection with used copies. Back in the 1960’s and 70’s there were no video cassettes or DVD’s so this was another way to enjoy the series besides watching it on television.  There were also twelve “fotonovels”, which had pictures from the episodes and photo stories from the first two Star Trek films, also in paperback books. The books are well worth reading and collecting if you can get them. The dialogue is almost the same as the TV series and movies, and the pictures in the novels are from the episodes. 🙂

I recently listened to the audiobook of S.D. Smith's The Green Ember and I am in love with this world. It has the sense of longing I associate with Narnia, the animals and adventures of Redwall, and just such a good heart. The entire series (except the newly released tenth volume) is on the hoopla app my library uses, so I'll bee listening to these for the foreseeable future.

@rainyweather, I don't remember tons about the last Artemis Fowl book either, but I think I agree with your thoughts as well. At least, I don't remember the final scenes as spoiling the book, more like just the straws that broke the camel's back. In response to your spoiler, I don't even remember that plot point, so I'm guessing there wasn't a reason for it. I actually do wonder if the series was ever supposed to end with book five - it seemed like it was set up to be a pretty natural conclusion to the series.

Even if you don't have spare room under the beds, sounds like you're doing pretty well at making room for your books, @SnowAngel. How are you finding the selection of books at this library?

I read through the library cat book this last week; it was okay, but I wasn't as impressed as I think I was supposed to be (sorry, Mel and Courtenay?). The author couldn't seem to decide whether it was a story about the cat, the town, or her own experiences, and overall I failed to really connect with any of the directions.

On the positive side, that was the last of the animal books, so I'm going to try to make a good dent on the loaned history books over the next week or two.

Posted by: @valiantarcher

Even if you don't have spare room under the beds, sounds like you're doing pretty well at making room for your books, @SnowAngel. How are you finding the selection of books at this library?

Umm...we discovered a used book store less than 30 minutes from us that has amazing prices. I think it might be a problem, part of the family went yesterday and came home with 17 books. I think we are probably just going to have to have stacks of books everywhere. 

The library's selection of older books is great, my little sisters have been reading Harold Bell Wright, L.M. Montgomery, and Gene Stratton-Porter among others while I have been reading my own copies of Anne of Green Gables. I've barely made any progress on Beyond Valor this weekend and Scarlet is reading one of the Mrs. Pollifax novels. I might take a break from Anne to read the Mrs. Pollifax books if Scarlet likes them.

Riders of the Pony Express was pretty good, definitely a book I would have loved reading as a kid. I've moved on to Anne of Ingleside.

SnowAngel

 

@snowangel, congrats on your haul! My siblings and i just had the exact opposite experience... we found an antique bookshop stocked with books dating back to the 1500's. (As you might guess, we didn't leave with anything).  The owner showed us a book by Martin Luther... that was printed while Luther was still alive. It was for sale if you had about $2,000 laying around! 

This particular shop struck me as more of a curiosity shop than a place to buy books you would actually read. Considering many of them were at least three centuries old and covered with deteriorating leather or vellum, I think most people would be afraid to touch the books much less read them; if anything, they were decorative. (But given the prices, most people would be afraid to buy them too!) 

The atmosphere was maybe the best thing about it. The shelves were towering old oak planking about fifteen feet tall,  all the books looked like they belonged in the libraries at Oxford, and the area was decorated with globes, wooden book presses, reading stands, magnifying glasses, and a sword on the wall. Definitely a place C.S. Lewis would like hanging around! 

Do people here like companion books to TV series?  I have a number of them, and they include books like Land of the Eagle, Nature:The Other Earthlings, The Astronomers, Cosmos, Blue Planet I and II, Planet Earth, Legendary Lighthouses I and II, and others. I have to say that I never regretted buying them.  Most of them are based on series from PBS and the BBC, and many of them are beautifully illustrated, mostly in hardcover editions.  Some of them are much less expensive than the Blu-rays and DVD’s, which were released of the series. And some are at least thirty or forty years old and out of print but still can be found online. The newer ones are usually the books related to the nature documentaries on the BBC. I think most of them are available in libraries if you do not wish to purchase them.  They may have an advantage over the TV series in that you can more easily look up information in books. 🙂

@the-mad-poet, oh neat. Must have been fun to browse.  

So the other day I went to the library to pick up some interlibrary loans that had finally come in and the library book sale is still going on. I hadn't made it down to the basement to look at the books when I was there before and I had the time, so I browsed and bought four books. One is for sure going in my collection for keeps that would be Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. The other three books are a cozy mystery, a Max Brand western, and a kid's book about the Pony Express, I haven't read any of them.

And for my library books I picked up A Cross To Kill and Cross Shadow both by Andrew Huff. I read A Cross To Kill pretty quick and really enjoyed it. I love suspense/mysteries, but most of the recent releases I have read have been very disappointing...really happy this one was good. Going to start reading Cross Shadow shortly. I think I should gotten all three books in the series at once, I haven't made a interlibrary loan request for book three yet and it's been taking 2 weeks for the books to arrive.  

SnowAngel

 

There are a lot of North American titles that I hadn't met before reading their names here. 

However I have been re-reading some of my collection of pre-midcentury UK children's classics. One series I'm now halfway through is by the late Judith Kerr, and tells her own story as a German Jewish girl whose family escapes from Berlin and ends up as refugees in France and then England.  The second book, her experience during the Blitz, is very moving.
[When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Bombs On Aunt Dainty, and A Small Person Far Away]

Judith Kerr's books are mostly for children, and I recommend them - she illustrated them herself, in a distinctive style, and it's a good introduction to how English children looked in say, the 1960s and 70s.

Another book I've been planning on reading is Jurassic Park. I've seen the movie and loved it. I love dinosaurs, so it would be interesting to compare the book to the big blockbuster movie and how they are different.

@SnowAngel, I'm glad to hear you all aren't at a loss for reasonably-priced second-hand books at least.

@the-mad-poet, sounds like an impressive bookstore!

@narnian78, are the companion books coffee-book-size?

@coracle, I'm most familiar with Judith Kerr from her Mog books, though her nonfiction series is one I'd like to read at some point.

@Jasmine_tarkheena, can you get Jurassic Park from the library or will you need to purchase your own copy?

Posted by: @valiantarcher

@Jasmine_tarkheena, can you get Jurassic Park from the library or will you need to purchase your own copy?

I might purchase it on apple books on my ipad.