Ersatz TLS discussion

Hello again! Ersatz TL&S has made it through our first ‘official’ week, despite some issues with the GR architecture and the distractions of a particularly contentious American presidential election. So I’d say well done, us!

Regarding the group site as a whole, the moderators – that is, LLJones and I – have done some thinking about Special Topics. We’re still learning but, while wanting to encourage the opening of topics of interest, we also hope to keep the site uncluttered. So we are proposing that Special Topics which have drawn no further comments for two weeks should be closed (but still available for viewing). We hope the majority will find that a satisfactory solution.

Do you know that you can open and collapse folders by clicking on the arrow to the left of the folder’s name?

Reen adds this helpful observation:

I'm sure some other far more copped on, clued in person has pointed this out already but hovering over a person's avatar brings up an option to view that person's comment history, which I found helpful in tracking a particular conversation and you may too.’

Also, if you are trying to find a previous comment but can’t remember who it was by, you can try going to the Ersatz TL&S home page. You’ll see at the right a blank box with ‘search’ next to it. Type in a key word and click on ‘search’. For example, type ‘Emma Donoghue’, click on ‘search’, and Magrat’s favourable comment on The Pull of the Stars will pop into view.

Other reading-related comments reveal, as they always did on the old TL&S, the wide range of books we explore. AB76, for example, was ‘fascinated’ by the Penguin collection Arab Travellers in the Far North ,

tales from the 8th-12th century, regarding arab travel to the northern climes […] Ibn Fadlan narrates the first account [of the Viking Rus], he describes the "tall, fair" people, as tall as date palms who are filthy and dirty […] and have public communion with their ladyfolk, in fact the public communion(ie sex), seems to be non-stop.

LeatherCol was also enjoying his reread of Shaun Cole’s Don We Now Our Gay Apparel: Gay Men’s Dress in the Twentieth Century:

This is a serious, thorough book that gives an academic perspective on how we choose dress to express our sexuality, and how that has influenced the fashion industry.

Meanwhile, Kayaki half-liked Human Natures , by Paul R. Ehrlich.

The first half was fascinating [he writes]. That covers Homo Sapiens descent from Australopithecines through a number of Homo species to how we are now […] But, the second half of the book left me floundering. Ehrlich tackling the "evolution" of cultures from the Agricultural Revolution onwards came across as convoluted and confused.

Where fiction is concerned there’s no doubt about where LLJones stands on Colum McCann’s Apeirogon:

I’m doing my best to promote it as THE BEST BOOK of 2020, or most any year.

CCCubbon was more nuanced in her appraisal if John Banville’s Snow:

The story, set in southeast Ireland in the fifties is somewhat predictable but that did not curb my enjoyment. That says much for the writing of a tale about the investigation of the murder of a Catholic priest conducted by a Protestant detective.

Alan Bell has discovered Scottish writer Andrew O’Hagan via his novel Mayflies :

Am really enjoying O'Hagan and am looking forward to reading his other books. It's such a pleasure to come across an unfamiliar author, and think he'll be a companion through the coming years.

And then there’s Andy’s review of Shipwrecks , by Akira Yoshimura, translated by Mark Ealey:

It is a piece of wonderful storytelling.

Set in an isolated coastal community in medieval Japan, it’s a tale of simple lives, and how superstition and folklore can contradict each other in the most macabre of fashions. It’s a piece of historic fiction sprinkled with elements of horror and dystopia.

Finally, keeping with the Japanese theme, a link is given here in the hopes that the New York Times allows even non-subscribers access for one viewing. I found it both interesting and soothing:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...

Thanks Justine :)
“Winesburg” (Ohio) is an appealing name for a Midwestern town, but I felt a bit underwhelmed by Sherwood Anderson’s collection, which was just a bit plain for my liking. I can see how it may have left a mark on American writers like Faulkner, or even more recent scribes like Denis Johnson, but it didn’t strike me as a must-read in its own right.
Now onto The Awkward Age by Henry James.

Thanks Justine.
I am finding The Searcher , the latest Tana French quite irresistible. The story is set in the west of Ireland, a lone , rather jaded American ex-policeman from Chicago, moves to this small village, where everyone knows everyone. He has to learn about the culture, the nuanced meanings of seemingly general talk, everyday words which have different meanings here. He starts to help a young lad whose brother is missing and realises his limitations without the backup of a force in a society which is not always what it seems.
When I moved from London to a remote Exmoor village I was amazed how much information the local villager knew about me within a couple of days and Cal in the book finds something similar.
I was a little disappointed in French’s last book but she is right back on form with The Searcher.
It’s grand, it is.

SydneyH wrote: "“Winesburg” (Ohio) is an appealing name for a Midwestern town..."

I immediately thought of NatashaFatale when I saw this, Sydney. Wondering if he ever gave us his thoughts on this book, I searched his Guardian profile. Sure enough, he did.

(I haven't read it in decades, wonder how it would feel today.)

SydneyH wrote: "Now onto The Awkward Age by Henry James"

The Awkward Age was the first Henry James novel I tried to read and at that point I didn't get on with it. We had a James reading list in preparation for our 2nd year at university - I left The Awkward Age, picked up The Bostonians and never looked back. That same summer I took The Portrait of a Lady backpacking to Greece & have read it again at least twice, most recently before reading John Banville's Mrs Osmond. I did appreciate The Awkward Age when I went back to it, but haven't reread it since. I have been thinking recently about doing so - maybe you've spurred me on.

CCCubbon wrote: "Thanks Justine.
I am finding The Searcher , the latest Tana French quite irresistible. ..."

Heard the same from my bff...looking forward to it.

Thank you, Justine, that's great. You and Lljones are doing a fantastic job, thanks for all your efforts.
Last Train from Liguria by Christine Dwyer Hickey -it's the first book of hers that I've read and I recommend it.
The story starts with Edward and a violent incident in Dublin in 1924 and then alternates between London (briefly), Italy in the 1930s and Dublin in 1995 and between the POV of Bella in London and Italy and Anna in Dublin.
Bella is in her early thirties at the beginning, living with her widowed doctor father, who arranges for her - to her surprise/shock - to go to Italy to take care of a little boy. There she meets Edward who lives on the property and gives the boy piano lessons. At first Mussolini and fascism seem very pale and unthreatening copies of what is happening in Germany...
Anna is visiting her grandmother, whom she calls Nonna, in hospital. She makes some surprising discoveries ...

Justine wrote: "Hello again! Ersatz TL&S has made it through our first ‘official’ week, despite some issues with the GR architecture and the distractions of a particularly contentious American presidential election. So I’d say well done, us!"

Two wonderful reads this morning inter, your post and the NYT article, thanks a mil! (Do you prefer I call you Justine btw? For me you'll always be iw/inter/interwar/Esme, but very happy to simply call you by your name!)

For those who have not seen my tip over at TLS on being able to read NYT articles even if you do not have access, it's here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...

I was reading about 'Japonisme' only a few weeks ago (see for instance here - in French, sorry! - http://ccfjt.com/meiji150eme/japonism...), via an incursion into 'Ligne Claire', as I had discovered a wonderful French artist I had never heard of: Henri Rivière. As you'll see from the google image, he has done a lot of woodblock prints too, including a series of 36 views of the Tour Eiffel, our own urban Mount Fuji! (No Prussian blue sadly: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Tre...).

CCCubbon wrote: "Thanks Justine.
I am finding The Searcher , the latest Tana French quite irresistible. The story is set in the west of Ireland, a lone , rather jaded American ex-policeman from Chicago, moves to this small village, where everyone knows everyone. "

CCC, I don't know the tone of this novel, but if you'd like to see a brilliant film with a similar premise: American cop arrives in a Gaeltacht region, I whole-heartedly recommend The Guard, directed by John Michael McDonagh, and starring the inenarrable Brendan Gleeson.

Morning from a very mild Surrey, global warming in full evidence with temps at 14c, very dissapointing

Apart from celebrating the welcome demise of Trump, i am reading the following:

THE TUNNEL by AB Yeshoshua
Modern novel by the most prominent Sephardi writer in Israel, a 70 something ex-engineer with dementia is paired with a younger engineer to work on road-planning in the Negev, unpaid, as an idea of his wife to restore his esteem. Economic, speech based prose with a dry wit, this is a very rare modern novel that i actually am enjoying

THE REFUGE by Kenneth Mackenzie (1954)
What a find, this could quite easily be the best novel i have read in 2020, its a deep, tense exploration of a troubled mind, in times of war in Sydney. There is an element of a thriller, elements of crime noir but so much more cerebral and thorough in its dissection of the mind. I am constantly startled by its immmaculate tone and style, i had been hunting for it since summer but expected a bit of a let down, as it just seemed such a perfect topic, location and time for a novel.

WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT by Andy Beckett
Political history of the 1970s,a decade i barely remember except for seeing Jim Callaghan on tv aged 4 and asking my father who he was, being impressed he was something as grand as a "Prime Minister" and then he wasnt, very soon after
Unlike the Sandbrook 900 page popular culture craze, this is a detailed, well written political account, which i prefer. I'm not really interested on what a character in a 1970s sitcom said if it becomes a reference point for everything that happens, i prefer the Kynaston school (though since Austerity Britain, its been diminishing returns). The recently topical Ted Heath is the subject of the first chapters, his 1970 election win and the Conservative consensus in welfare spending and planning remains central, its still a few years before Thatcher/Joseph and the austrian school poisions the well...

The Atom Station by Icelandic Nobel leaureate Haldor Laxness... didn't much work for me.

Having previously read Independent People and being quite impressed with it, I picked up this Italian translation. The two books could not have been more different. Independent People is a mix of John Muir, Emile Zola and Thomas Hardy. A realistic, brutal novel in which a person's existence is mashed between the mortar and pestle of society and nature. The Atom Station, instead, reads like a less digressive Gravity's Rainbow blended with The Third Policeman and In Watermelon Sugar.

Weird, largely inconsequential. The protagonist is Ugla, a farm girl from up North who comes to Reykjavik to watch the children and tend the house of a wealthy parliamentarian. Vacillating around the central conceit that the prime minister wants to sell Iceland to the Americans in order for them to turn it into a NATO nuclear air base. Communists and anarchists plot lazily to counter the loss of sovereignty.

It's hard to detail a plot, because there isn't much of one. There are piano lessons, hysterical wives, teenage pregnancies, shy policemen...weird more than anything else. Not necessarily bad, but Flann O'Brien and Richard Brautigan were both better equipped to deal with the outlandish. It was slim, broken into small chapters and easy to dip in and out.

Next up is The Five by Hallee Rubenhold, which I think might have the finest idea for a non-fiction book in recent memory

Paul wrote: "The Atom Station by Icelandic Nobel leaureate Haldor Laxness... didn't much work for me.

Having previously read Independent People and being quite impressed with it, I picked up this Italian tran..."

i had same experience with "The Atom Station" Paul,though i read another of his novels(The Fish Can Sing) before this one

Thanks for the poem shelflife.. its a lovely one. Though you are really overdoing it by assuming I speak German. I can understand a few simple phrases/words, the simple vocabulary of my early childhood! And the grammar!.. from a couple of mostly misspent years at secondary school.. I do love Germany though I always feel at home there. I had a job once upon a time, cleaning tri-stars at Dusseldorf airport... I got the sack one day... for sending my cleaning bucket to Romania!... (which would have been an illegal import in those days!)

Paul wrote: "Next up is The Five by Hallee Rubenhold, which I think might have the finest idea for a non-fiction book in recent memory"

Now that intrigues me - but being too lazy to look it up, I await your report with keenest interest.

AB76 wrote: "Morning from a very mild Surrey, global warming in full evidence with temps at 14c, very dissapointing

Apart from celebrating the welcome demise of Trump,"

With climate change, I guess our autumns and winters will increasingly lack crispness.

I'm trying to follow up on Yeshoshua. My library stocks a good number of his works, although The Tunnel, which is new, is out on loan. Have you read any other novels by him?

Machenbach wrote: "Gladarvor wrote: "I was reading about 'Japonisme' only a few weeks ago ."

There's a decent (non-academic, over-sized) book on this subject: Japonisme and the Rise of the Modern Art Movement: The Arts of the Meiji Period"

Ooh, this looks good, thanks a lot. The French and English wiki on Japonisme have similar visual entries (including Porcelaine de Chantilly, my hometown), but one that struck me and that is only in the French wiki was that Monet:

(if that was not for the wall itself, and of course the signature, I would have been clueless as to its author I think). For those who'd like to see a high resolution, it's here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...

Gladarvor wrote: "Justine wrote: "Hello again! Ersatz TL&S has made it through our first ‘official’ week, despite some issues with the GR architecture and the distractions of a particularly contentious American pres..."

So many nice things here to follow up on here (and I can read French - and ought to keep in practice!) Years ago I visited a museum in Washington DC, where the connection between Whistler and Japanese art was explored. Can't remember if it was a permanent or temporary exhibition.

I do like 'inter'; it has friendly TLS associations, but of course everyone is welcome to use my 'real' name if they choose.

Justine wrote: "Years ago I visited a museum in Washington DC, where the connection between Whistler and Japanese art was explored."

Ah! Maybe you can ask for Christmas the book on Japonisme Mach's recommended? It does feature Whistler too... 🎁

CCCubbon wrote: "Thanks Justine.
I am finding The Searcher , the latest Tana French quite irresistible. The story is set in the west of Ireland, a lone , rather jaded American ex-policeman from Chicago, moves to th..."

During the 1980s, some friends of mine ran a bed-and-breakfast about a mile outside a tiny village on the Welsh border. One day one of the villagers noticed an unfamiliar car parked in the street and so - as one does if one in such a community - he wrote down the number. When it became known that a burglary had occurred, he gave this information to the police, and the thieves were thus caught.

Justine wrote: "Gladarvor wrote: "Justine wrote: "Hello again! Ersatz TL&S has made it through our first ‘official’ week, despite some issues with the GR architecture and the distractions of a particularly content..."

Whistler is a bit of hero for me in that he had what I think was the best (very short!) career in the US military that a person can possibly have, drawing military maps, until he got the sack when he was found to be drawing pictures of mermaids and sea nymphs in all the margins.

He was also known to be quite a 'wit'. At one dinner in Paris where he gave a very witty speech, a young Oscar Wilde, interrupted with "I wish I'd said that". Whistler replied with "Don't worry Oscar... one day you will"...

Justine wrote: "During the 1980s, some friends of mine ran a bed-and-breakfast about a mile outside a tiny village on the Welsh border."

Not only in villages - when I first moved here (inner suburb of Paris), I went into the pharmacy and was met with, "Oh, I know who you are: you're English, you've got a 6-month-old baby, you've just moved into number ...". Some time later, I was accosted by a woman on the bus, who also turned out to be English and said, "I thought it was you, the pharmacist told me all about you."
But I don't think it would happen now :)

I didn’t expect that our moderators would do a full-on Sam Jordison above-the-line summary every week. Knowing that it may save them some effort, I’m going to confess that, except for looking over the 3 or 4 links that were included near the end, I never read this. Having followed the discussion pretty closely over the previous week, I never felt that I needed any kind of re-cap.

*Not* TLS-related (pre-empting any kind of false hope): just got an email from Sam to pass onto you all, for those who'd like a bit RG action!

(...) I'm hoping a few forest dwellers might be interested in a side-hustle I have... I've been running a thing with Galley Beggar for a few years where I look at books in a similar style to the reading group, but do it live in a two hour class - and also talk a bit more about editorial and publishing and co... We used to meet up in London, but that's not on the cards at the moment, so we're running it on Zoom, meaning people can join in all over. It's going pretty great, I'm glad to say and the first class is actually on the brink of filling up... But I'm wondering about doing some more dates, if there's demand (...)

Details are here: https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/school...

Tam wrote: "He was also known to be quite a 'wit'. At one dinner in Paris where he gave a very witty speech, a young Oscar Wilde, interrupted with "I wish I'd said that". Whistler replied with "Don't worry Oscar... one day you will"..."

Nice anecdote!

Machenbach wrote: "I have La collection d'estampes japonaises de claude monet"

But of course you do!

Yeah, I knew about him collecting estampes, I just wasn't ever exposed - I think - to a painting of his that was so obviously intricate and 'Japonaiserie' in its essence.

Gpfr wrote: "Justine wrote: "During the 1980s, some friends of mine ran a bed-and-breakfast about a mile outside a tiny village on the Welsh border."

Not only in villages - when I first moved here (inner subur..."

Ha ha! My parents lived for a while in a smallish Rhode Island town, and it was not unknown for the mailman to arrive with the greeting, 'Hey! You got a postcard here from your daughter. Sounds like she's having a great time in Colorado!'

Bill wrote: "I didn’t expect that our moderators would do a full-on Sam Jordison above-the-line summary every week. Knowing that it may save them some effort, I’m going to confess that, except for looking over ..."

Confession noted, Bill! What do others say? I thought it might be nice to recap a few of the books people had mentioned, but don't want to be a bore.

Justine wrote: "Confession noted, Bill! What do others say? I thought it might be nice to recap a few of the books people had mentioned, but don't want to be a bore."

As for everything else inter, people can just scroll on if they don't want to read, but I for one love it! And yes, it does remind me a bit more of TLS, where I did read Sam's selections (only skipping passages if I'd remember exactly what had been said). Even if I try to read closely most of the comments, I'm still likely to have missed some, or forgotten some, and not everyone has got the time to peruse the hundreds of comments... In short: this made me smile this morning (and I needed that)!

Gladarvor wrote: "Justine wrote: "Confession noted, Bill! What do others say? I thought it might be nice to recap a few of the books people had mentioned, but don't want to be a bore."

I thought it was nice!

I for one welcome it, as I miss quite a few of the comments, and it makes it feel a bit more like the old TLS, which I am still busy being nostalgic for. There are lots of things I haven't worked out, such as how you aquire friends, and updating your personal details. It just imported in my very outdated FB page details... thats me... stuck in a time warp... "I was so much older then... I'm younger than that now..."

If I could choose (and had the money needed) I would spend part of the year in Norwich. Alas, I could not even visit for a week last year, but I still keep in touch electronically. So if you want a quick read or two here are short story winners (including one from Elly Griffiths) celebrating Jarrold's 250th anniversary.

https://www.jarrold.co.uk/departments...

Acquire friends: Easiest way is to click on the person's avatar and you'll see "Add Friend" at the top of the page.

Update profile: click on your own avatar, far right of top menu bar.

(Love that song...)

Alwynne wrote: " I much prefer the earlier version of The Portrait of a Lady"

I've never read the later one.

Justine wrote: "Bill wrote: "I didn’t expect that our moderators would do a full-on Sam Jordison above-the-line summary every week. Knowing that it may save them some effort, I’m going to confess that, except for ..."

I say it's not a bore at all, it made me feel quite at home in fact!

I mentioned last week that I was reading (and still am) The Bookseller's Tale by Ann Swinfen, well I came across this article today:

http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com...

I found it very interesting and hope others do too, and might be tempted to try her books. Unfortunately she died suddenly in August 2018.

Machenbach wrote: "to say that James did a great job revising all his earlier books, and especially 'The Portrait of A Lady'..."
I'm reading the preface at the beginning of The Awkward Age, which I think James would have written late in his career, and gee it's a struggle.

Justine wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Morning from a very mild Surrey, global warming in full evidence with temps at 14c, very dissapointing

Apart from celebrating the welcome demise of Trump,"

With climate change, I gue..."

i have had "The Lover" on a pile for a long time but i read one other that i didnt like but this latest novel is just right, it may start to lose focus, but so far i am enjoying reading it fairly slowly and i like its steady, everyday feel. no drama(yet), just an old man dealing with age and interacting with a younger man in the same line of work. Though i suspect there is someting exciting about to occur...maybe

I found I wasn't quite in the mood for Trollope, but am game to start the Angela Thirkell Barsetshire series. . Annoyingly, I can't order it right now from my independent bookshop - but can from any of the online sellers. That seems grossly unfair.

Machenbach wrote: "Ah, that's a shame as the one way to get NatashaFatale - sometime of this parish - to lose his shit in a way that is enlightening to all is to say that James did a great job revising all his earlier books, and especially 'The Portrait of A Lady'."

Hehe, he's chockablock with work for the next two days but who knows... Maybe he'll make an appearance after that?

Machenbach wrote: "I am trying to rustle up the enthusiasm to review Kavan's A Scarcity of Love but reading it was brutal enough and I may need a stiff drink to consider thinking about it again."

Christ. Even the summary in GR is one of the bleakest things ever.

giveusaclue wrote: "I mentioned last week that I was reading (and still am) The Bookseller's Tale by Ann Swinfen, well I came across this article today: http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com..."

That was a great read @give, thanks a lot. So, secondhand book trade in mediaeval times, eh? Really interesting, and I learnt a few things about Oxford itself too.

Shame Oxford residents @Theothebook and @Larts have not followed us here, but @Miri/Cardellina and @NatashaFatale who both lived there might be interested in that blogpost...

A few weeks ago over at TLS there was a review and discussion of Simenon’s The Widow which led us to clarifying that The Widower was actually a different one of his romans durs; I finally got round to reading it at the weekend, a scanned pdf from archive.org. (Translator Robert Baldick).
It’s the story of a freelancing designer named Bernard Jeantet, a colourless man with a mundane existence, who returns to his Paris home from work one day to discover that his wife, Jeanne, is missing. Years ago, they met under extraordinary circumstances; Jeanne was a prostitute and Bernard took her in after she was viciously attacked by her pimp on the street.
In Bernard’s mind, their life together was a happy one, but on her death (it's not a spoiler...as it's the title..), he is driven to examine whether that was actually the case.
Like many of Simenon's romans durs this is a study of character, Bernard Jeantet under the microscope, although the process is onerous and unsentimental it is never malicious.
It is a skilful piece of noir writing, a heartbreaking pageturner as Jeantet's quiet life is revealed..

He had taken care to set limits to his domain and to surround it with protective barriers, and now, all of the sudden, from one hour to the next, almost from one minute to the next, everything had begun to collapse.

I think it’s probably a bit better than The Widow, a bit more substance..and one of his later ones, 1959, 17 years later.

Then somewhat reluctantly, to a bit of young adult science fiction, that was shortlisted for the NTB this year, Underdogs by Chris Bonnello. It really wasn’t for me, I was way out of my depth. I sped through it; interesting to see what the ‘buzz’ was all about - a fast paced action thriller that felt like (I imagine) playing a video game (I never have..).

Finally, Desirable Body by Hubert Haddad, translated from French by Alyson Waters (Haddad is Tunisian).
This has some really rewarding parts, some clever ideas, but it’s not consistent, more than once I was confused as to where it was heading. Though the ending is predictable, it comes with an additional twist, which makes it the best part of the book.
Cedric Erg is a journalist who dislikes pharmaceutical companies, long estranged from his billionaire father who owns one. Chasing romance, he suffers a serious accident on a boating holiday in Greece, his spinal cord severed, but his father pushes for a transplant operation that seems impossible and out of a Shelley novel..
Haddad skilfully avoids issues of brain surgery and tries to focus on ethical issues. It has its moments, he stays clear of the expected conventions of a horror story, and injects humour at the right levels, but ultimately I thought it needed something else to make stand out; it was pretty much as I expected, and interesting premise.

And I got round to watching the movie of Donald Ray Pollock’s The Devil All The Time. It’s a long time since I read the book, which is excellent, so I’d forgotten most of it. I really enjoyed the film and can recommend it. It’s a bit long for me at 135 minutes, but it keeps the attention, and a large Jameson’s helped..

AB76 wrote: "Morning from a very mild Surrey, global warming in full evidence with temps at 14c, very dissapointing

Apart from celebrating the welcome demise of Trump, i am reading the following:

THE TUNNEL b..."
Cheers AB.
Warm in the Lakes also, and the salmon are jumping in our river..gave me quite a shock this morning.
Keen on the Mackenzie in particular..

Tam wrote: "I for one welcome it, as I miss quite a few of the comments, and it makes it feel a bit more like the old TLS, which I am still busy being nostalgic for. There are lots of things I haven't worked o..."
Keep those Dylan quotes coming Tam..
soon we will be dancing the fandango..

If anybody else here watched University Challenge, did you have that one forlorn moment (followed by the mad screaming at the screen of 'Truffauuuuut!!') when you saw this?

Andy wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Morning from a very mild Surrey, global warming in full evidence with temps at 14c, very dissapointing

Apart from celebrating the welcome demise of Trump, i am reading the following:
..."
if its warm up there in november....its deffo global warming!
Mckenzie is well worth investing in Andy

Andy wrote: "A few weeks ago over at TLS there was a review and discussion of Simenon’s The Widow which led us to clarifying that The Widower was actually a different one of his romans durs; I finally got round..."

yes i picked up a secondhand version of the novel(The Widower) from Oxfam

Machenbach wrote: "Don't read James's prefaces. And, if you have to, do so after the book."

Don't read James's prefaces. And, if you have to, do so after the book. Fixed it. (I often wanted the strike-through option on TL&S.)

Gladarvor wrote: "If anybody else here watched University Challenge, did you have that one forlorn moment (followed by the mad screaming at the screen of 'Truffauuuuut!!') when you saw this?
"

Never mind that, I've only dried my tears of laughter after watching Nigella's new programme in which she cooks a curry featuring manky banana skins. I don't know how she keeps a straight face; well she doesn't really. I like to mix up my Monday night viewing. Neither am I "ever knowingly undersalted".

AB76 wrote: "Though i suspect there is someting exciting about to occur...maybe"

One reads on in hope ...