@moonlit_centaur so far it's pretty violent! Women aren't valued,  and it's a power struggle.  I may push through and finish it, but I'm not sure it's of value to me, so I will probably pass it on via a book swap shelf at our local mall.

@coracle I'll give it a miss then. Thank you for the review!

I read one Bernard Cornwell book years ago at my brother's request, the writing so vivid I would have very much liked to read more, but the adult content was too much. It was such a bummer because I'm currently really interested in that time period.

In my last post I forgot to mention the book my siblings and I bought our parents for Valentine's Day....Love Among The Chickens by P.G. Wodehouse.   This is dad's introduction to Wodehouse, mom was already reading her first Wodehouse, Do Butlers Burgle Banks. So far they are enjoying it.  

I haven't read much this month, but I'm continuing working my way through the Cheney Duvall M.D. series. Book 6 In The Twilight, In The Evening was good and much like I remembered, I am only a few chapters into Island of the Innocent.

On a whim the other day I decided to count all of my books, dvds, and blurays, all of the dvds/blurays are in two places and easy to inventory, but my books are a bit harder to roundup. I think I currently have about 340 books, but every time I think I have found all my books, another mini stack pops up.  

@snowangel Have you read Love Among the Chickens yourself? There are some Wodehouse books out there that I love but I haven't encountered that one yet. It's got a great title though!

@coracle: I've begun reading an historic novel from the time of Alfred the Great (9th century), with Anglo-Saxons and Danes, Christians and Pagans. Its called Death of Kings, by Bernard Cornwell. Has anyone read this or others by him? 

Yes, I have read one or two of Bernard Cornwell's books, and yes, I do think I read one such book, about the death of Alfred the Great. in 2012. But it was in a series, which was televised, & I didn't like the overall storyline, however fascinated I am by that era of English history, when some of my favourite books were by Rosemary Sutcliffe's novels or those historic fictions written by Geoffrey Trease. I have read Azincourt, which I enjoyed, having bought it to read it on the plane back home in 2012, but am not sure whether or not I gave it away at some point. It was a rather bloodthirsty retelling of the lead-up to the famous battle, won by Henry V of Shakespeare's famous play, which I once had to study for my Intermediate certificate in 1962, and which was popular with our class when the favourite local Rugby League team was St George, in one of its 11 Grand final victories in a row. With so much gusto would we quote one poem, which started "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. Or close up the wall with our English dead" ....which ends:

Cry 'God for Harry, England, aanndd SAINT GEORGE!!!!' (Very loudly) "

@Valiant Archer: I often find Dickens slow going and try to strategically plan starting his books for times when I will have a good chunk of time in which I can read.

Yes, you are right about Charles Dickens, though I loved "A Tale of Two Cities". Unlike David Copperfield, it was never prescribed reading at school. But then, at least he gave us a character called Madgewick, in Great Expectations, a genuine Australian character, "from the Antipodes" as I think.

Somehow or other, 19th English literature, onwards, even after Australia's 1901 Federation, especially American literature, even when it might be relevant to do so, usually manage to frame its vision of the world, with a great big Australia & New Zealand- sized missing hole in it, or am I imagining things? After all, it was William Dampier's "A New Voyage Round the World", which inspired Jonathan Swift to write Gulliver's Travels and Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, when William Dampier, himself, was responsible for the marooning and rescuing of Alexander Selkirk from his marooning, 1704–1709, in the Juan Fernández Islands. 

Posted by: @col-klink

@snowangel Have you read Love Among the Chickens yourself? There are some Wodehouse books out there that I love but I haven't encountered that one yet. It's got a great title though!

We did picked it for the title. After my sister ordered it, I found an audiobook on LibriVox and listened to it. I didn't know about it before she mentioned getting it for our parents. I found Love Among The Chickens to be very entertaining, but the audiobook was missing the final chapter/epilogue. So I went on Project Gutenberg to find and read the ending.

Do you have a favorite Wodehouse? I've only read three or four and listened to a similar number of audiobooks, so 7-8 total. Of the ones I have read/heard I think my favorites are Do Butlers Burgle Banks? and Leave It To Psmith.

I'm reading the final book of the Cheney Duvall M.D. series, Driven With The Wind, hard to believe I'm nearly to the conclusion of the series. Happily for me there is a sequel series with three books which I also enjoy.  

I've not made much progress on reading 1453 by Roger Crowley, only read a quarter of it thus far. I've had a hard time staying focused on it. Perhaps reorganizing my books and inventorying the nonfiction wasn't such a good idea.  

Posted by: @snowangel

Do you have a favorite Wodehouse?

Probably either Right Ho, Jeeves or Leave It to Psmith.

I've begun reading The Hobbit, which I want to finish before next Saturday when I start my annual reading of LOTR (22 March is 6 months from 22 September, Hobbit Day, and starting in Autumn here in NZ fits in with the events better).

Over our summer I read the Narnia series on my Kindle, and only just finished as I read other things too. 

@coracle 

A couple of years ago I bought new editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. They were much better quality and will last much longer than the paperbacks that I had previously owned.  If you love Tolkien it is better to invest in permanent editions. They were quite reasonable in price and I don’t regret spending a little more money on a well made book. 🙂

@narnian78 Yes I agree. I have 4 copies of The Hobbit, only one hardback - a pocket edition hardback put out for 75th anniversary (bought at Weta Cave, where the Weta Workshop is based), and three paperbacks (Unwin Books copy 1966 costing 8s 6d, with author's own sketch on the cover, got second hand, and two copies of 1975 edition paperback by Unwin Paperbacks).
Last northern winter I finally bought a hardbck set of Lord of the Rings, at a great bookshop called Hatchards, in Piccadilly, London. They have beautiful early illustrations on their dust covers. I had them all plastic-covered as well (the sort you can slip off). These were worth the cost, and should see me out!
My original copies were bought 50 years ago at the end of my university exams; it was my first reading, and I devoured them! I had another paperback set with the black covers, 20 years ago but spines didn't last well.

I've been reading-or trying to read-the fairy tales of Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy. She's actually very important to the history of literary fairy tales as she was the one who coined the term "fairy tale." Most of her plots are great, even exciting, but I just can't love the execution of them. They feel overly detailed, sluggishly paced and way too heavy on adjectives. Of course, what I'm reading was produced by a different culture than mine and it was originally in French and translated into English. But I don't find these writing problems with the fairy tales of Charles Perrault or Jeanne Marie Leprince de Beaumont.

I've actually been trying to do my own English translation in my spare time. Well, not really. What I've been doing is taking the original French text online, putting it through Google Translate and then rephrasing that. Trying to fix it, I guess. Anyway, my favorite d'Aulnoy stories are The Golden-Haired Beauty, The White Cat and maybe The Blue Bird. (The White Cat actually has allusions to a number of other d'Aulnoy stories in one scene so you kind of have to read them to get that part.) 

Posted by: @col-klink

Posted by: @snowangel

Do you have a favorite Wodehouse?

Probably either Right Ho, Jeeves or Leave It to Psmith.

My sister's collecting Wodehouse and she has a couple of collection I haven't read yet, I need to see if she has Right Ho, Jeeves.  

I finished the Cheney Duvall M.D. series, still so good. I love how long the series is (8 books and more than 2,400 pages) and yet it doesn't feel long. And I love Shiloh's redemption arc. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel series after my current library books. 

I've moved onto the latest library books, The King of Attolia and A Conspiracy of Kings (The Queen's Thief #3-4). I've read about a third of CoK and there is just no good place to stop in the book or the series for that matter. A very full weekend kept me from being able to read the whole book before Monday rolled around.

I've gotten stuck in 1453, barely read any of it over the past couple weeks. I was hoping to have it finished by now, but as is I'm not sure if I'll even finish it this month.  

Hello all, 

At the moment, I’m reading Persuasion by Jane Austen, Summers End by Juneau Black, and Young Elizabeth Nicola Tallis. I’m really enjoying all 3. 

Posted by: @lucy85

At the moment, I’m reading Persuasion by Jane Austen

My favourite book by my favourite classic novelist! Is this your first time reading it, or is it a favourite of yours too? And have you read any of Jane Austen's other books?

@courtenay It’s my first time reading Persuasion, but I’ve read Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Northanger Abbey. I really like Austen. My favorite so far has been Sense and Sensibility. I love the sister relationship in that one.