Apologies, but there will not be a proper post today because I am still very ill. I hope that I am well enough on Wednesday to write the usual Reading Roundup.
So, it’s a fortnight since I last wrote a Reading Roundup post and I have read and enjoyed three books whilst I have been away from the blog.
This was the first one:
The Human Division by John Scalzi
Some of you may remember that I really rated the first few books in Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series. This one, The Human Division is #05. Here is the blurb:
“Lieutenant Harry Wilson has an impossible mission. He must help preserve the union of humanity’s colonies, in the wake of a terrible revelation.
For years the Colonial Union has protected its citizens from the dangerous universe around them. But the people of Earth now know the ugly truth. The Union deliberately kept Earth as an ignorant backwater – and as a source of recruits for its war against hostile aliens. Now, other alien races have formed a new alliance against the Union. And they’ve invited the incensed people of Earth to join them.
Managing the Colonial Union’s survival will take all the political cunning and finesse its diplomats can muster. And Harry and his team will be deployed to deal with the unexpected – for failure is unthinkable.”
And this is my review, as written on the Goodreads website:
I really love this series. Scalzi’s writing is brilliant with its humour, wit and blazing imagination. Quite often I think that I know where the plot is going, how the “dilemma” will be sorted out, but I am always wrong because Scalzi has something ingenious up his sleeve.
The format of the book, with its interlocking short stories, was interesting and helpful to my current issues with reading.
Of course, having read book 5, I simply had to finish off the series with #06!
The End Of All Things by John Scalzi
I always feel a little sad when I get to the end of a great series – The End of All Things is a fitting title. Here is the blurb:
“The Colonial Union’s Defence Force was formed to save humanity when aggressive alien species targeted our worlds. Now Lieutenant Harry Wilson has an urgent new mission, as a hostile universe becomes ever more dangerous. He must investigate a sinister group, which lurks in the darkness of space playing different factions against one another. They’ll target both humans and aliens, and their motives are unfathomable.
The Defence Force itself is weakening as its soldiers fall – without recruits to replace them. Relations with Earth have broken down and it will send no more troops, even as human colonies become increasingly vulnerable to alien attack.
Lieutenant Wilson and Colonial Union diplomats must race to keep the peace, seek reconciliation with an enraged Earth, and maintain humanity’s unity at all costs. If they don’t, it will mean oblivion, extinction and the end of all things.”
This is my short review on Goodreads. I am definitely planning to read more books by John Scalzi!
I must admit that I am sad that I have now come to the end of the series. The first book, Old Man’s War, was simply a random choice, probably chosen because I am now an old woman! I really loved that book and have continued to enjoy the rest of the series.
Scalzi has a fantastic writing style, full of wit and humour, and also an amazing imagination. He is able to think up complex scenarios, a huge range of alien species, and exciting and unexpected plot twists. I will certainly look out for his other work and I hope that he writes another series of such high quality.
When I had finished these two books, I decided to have a complete change of genre…
The Woman in the Photograph by Stephanie Butland
The Woman in the Photograph by Stephanie Butland was a fairly random choice from the ebook catalogue. As an ageing feminist, I thought that it would be interesting to read about a period that I remember from my own young days. Anyway, this is the blurb:
“1968. Veronica Moon, a junior photographer for a local newspaper, is frustrated by her (male) colleagues’ failure to take her seriously. And then she meets Leonie on the picket line of the Ford factory at Dagenham. So begins a tumultuous, passionate and intoxicating friendship. Leonie is ahead of her time and fighting for women’s equality with everything she has. She offers Veronica an exciting, free life at the dawn of a great change.
Fifty years later, Leonie is gone, and Veronica leads a reclusive life. Her groundbreaking career was cut short by one of the most famous photographs of the twentieth century.
Now, that controversial picture hangs as the centrepiece of a new feminist exhibition curated by Leonie’s niece. Long-repressed memories of Veronica’s extraordinary life begin to stir. It’s time to break her silence, and step back into the light.”
This was another five star book for me and this is what I wrote on Goodreads:
What a fantastic book! I really enjoyed revisiting so many of the iconic feminist and historical moments of my youth and young adulthood, seeing them through Vee’s, the photographer, eyes. The structure of the book was complex, moving forward and back in time, but I was able to work my way through it as everything came together.
As someone who has had a stroke and still suffers from holes in my own memories, I feel that those parts of the book were written really well. The searching in your mind for what is lost. The occasional triggering of distant events which suddenly surge forward in bright colour, only to fade in an instant.
This book has affected me very much and I think I will remember it and its impact for a long time.
So, this time away from the blog roughy me some very fulfilling and enjoyable reading. Three books, each worth five stars! And I am presently deeply immersed in another fantastic book, which I will return to when I have finished writing this post. Such is the joy of reading!
Hello to you all and welcome to the blog. I really needed last week’s rest and I hope that I can continue to post without having to take another break for quite a while.
A couple of weeks ago, I spotted something really lovely on eBay – first we have the auction photos:
Hera chiffon scarf by Liberty of London
Yes, one of my favourite Liberty of London designs: Hera. This time the scarf is a gorgeous silk chiffon, known as mousseline in French. The beautiful peacock feather design in the centre is coloured in orange, purple and pale blue on a black background. The design shades outwards into a lovely teal border. One of my favourite colours!
The size of the scarf is 110 x 130cm.
At the time of writing, a similar version of this scarf is still available on the Liberty of London website. The images can be seen below:
Hera chiffon scarf by Liberty of London (green colourway)
In my opinion the colours are more attractive in the eBay version. The colourway on the Liberty website makes the scarf look rather muted and washed out. In fact, I have seen this many times before, but the rather dull shades didn’t attract me. In my opinion, the scarf I have acquired is a richly coloured and very beautiful addition to my collection.
These are two quick modelling photos:
Hera chiffon scarf by Liberty of London
I am really looking forward to wearing the scarf. The fabric makes it more suitable for warmer weather, but the clothing that it would enhance is mainly stuff that I wear in the colder months! The teal twinset above is an almost exact match (unfortunately my iPad camera makes the teal look more blue than in real life).
I hope you have enjoyed today’s post. Wednesday’s will be a Reading Roundup, as usual.
Hi everyone! I’m going to take a short break from the blog until next Monday (25/04/22). My mental and physical health are both poor at the moment and even everyday things are a real struggle.
Just in case you are interested, one of my many “conditions” is sarcoidosis of the lungs. This graphic from the SarcoidosisUK explains some of the issues:
Image from SarcoidosisUK
When I have better moments, during my break, I will try to work on a couple of posts that I have planned for the blog. I will also try to read several ebooks and play with my gorgeous scarves!
I am looking out of my bedroom window at a beautiful sunny day, but I am stuck indoors again. This morning, I have been feeling even more ill than usual but have recovered enough to write a very basic post.
On Monday, I showed you my latest Hermès purchase: Regina designed by Leila Menchari. I decided to try it on Wednesday and pulled out a twinset that I hardly ever wear. Why, I don’t really know as it is a gorgeous bright pink! Anyway, the pink is very close to the colour in the scarf and I think that the twinset worked very well. I must work out some more scarf ties that will show off the beautiful bouquet…
Outfit of the day 13/04/22 with Hermès’ Regina scarf
This was a simple criss-cross knot using a mother-of-pearl scarf ring by MaiTai. My earrings were pretty silver butterflies – a present from Elder Son.
Here is a larger image of the scarf to remind you of the pattern and colours:
Regina by Hermès
I hope that everyone has a wonderful weekend and that those of you who celebrate Easter enjoy yourselves. Apparently, it is going to be warm and sunny for us in the UK.
Hi fellow book lovers! I read and enjoyed two books this week. The second one really gripped me and I whizzed through it in two sessions!
This is the first one…
A Necessary End by Peter Robinson
This is the third book in Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks series. I have previously read the first episode and wasn’t very impressed, but thought I would try again in the hope of improvement. Anyway, this is the blurb:
“In the usually peaceful town of Eastvale, a simmering tension has now reached breaking point. An anti-nuclear demonstration has ended in violence, leaving one policeman stabbed to death. Fired by professional outrage, Superintendent ‘Dirty Dick’ Burgess descends with vengeful fury on the inhabitants of ‘Maggie’s Farm’, an isolated house high on the daleside.
Inspector Banks is uneasy about Burgess’s handling of the investigation. But he has been warned off the case. Soon Banks realizes that the only way he can salvage his career is by beating Burgess to the killer …”
Here is my response to the book, written on the Goodreads website:
This book is really difficult to review. Written in the 80s, it really shows its age with the awful police methods, attitudes to women, heavy smoking and drinking, and the social issues of the time. Did we really need to know the names of every glass of real ale? The actual plot and investigation are good and kept me reading. The dated background means that I do not intend to return to the series.
I suppose I might try one of the more recently published books in the series (the most recent episode, #27, was published in 2021), just to see if there has been any change to the 1980’s sexism. But, I will only do this if I can’t find anything better to read! It’s a bit odd, but I have enjoyed the TV versions of the books. Perhaps the script writers toned everything down and concentrated on the well written plots.
This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
For my second book of the week, I had a complete change of pace. These days, I very rarely read non-fiction as I prefer the escapism of stories: crime, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy etc. I just chose this book at random – This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay.
Here is the blurb:
Welcome to the life of a junior doctor: 97-hour weeks, life and death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids, and the hospital parking meter earns more than you.
Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know – and more than a few things you didn’t – about life on and off the hospital ward.
I read the book very quickly as I was glued, sometimes in shock, to the unfolding episodes. This is my first, rapid response on Goodreads. I will comment further underneath…
Brilliant black humour, desperately heartbreaking, incredibly informative about the state of the NHS in recent times (and I am sure it has got even worse since). As someone whose life has been saved multiple times by the wonderful staff of our precious NHS, I can only pay tribute to them. I wouldn’t be here without them.
Reading through other reviews of the book has been both interesting and enlightening. Many are very similar to my first reaction (although, generally more informative and better written). Others are far more negative, for a range of reasons. I can see some of their points. The writer has the “typical” black humour of many in the medical profession and that is OK up to a point. Most of the incidents in the book were either darkly funny or extremely sad. But some rather unpleasant things were also lurking beneath the surface. I detected prejudice towards the elderly, particularly women. I also found the gory details of horrible births and women’s anatomy very distressing. The author’s reaction to these was sometimes unpleasant and I am not surprised that many women prefer to have female practitioners for these kinds of procedures. This made me very glad that I am past the child bearing years!
Anyway, it would be interesting to know what any of you think about the book.
Having finished the book, I now have the happy task of choosing my next read! All to be revealed in next week’s Reading Roundup post.
Hi! Welcome to a new week on the blog. I have a really unexpected reveal for you today. Unexpected, in the sense that those who know me well would be very surprised by this purchase. I will show you what I have bought first, then I will explain…
Here’s the reveal, starting with the seller’s photo of the iconic Hermès box. Is it an older version than usual?
Ooh! This is the magnificent Regina by Leila Menchari. The design was originally made to celebrate Queen Elizabeth in 1972. This one apparently dates to 1987. The scarf is in almost pristine condition with only two tiny marks that I can see.
Here is another image of the whole scarf:
Regina designed by Leila Menchari for Hermès
I haven’t tried to wear the scarf yet, but these are a couple of photos of the bias folds:
Regina by Hermès – bias folds
As the scarf is quite old, it may take me a while to compile a Scarf of the Moment post. Accurate information about these scarves is fairly difficult to find. If any readers of the blog have useful insights or information about the design, I would be very grateful if you could pass this on to me.
As to why this is a very unexpected purchase for me…
I am trying to avoid being too political here, but since I went to University I have been strongly in favour of getting rid of the monarchy, or at the very least, slimming it down. In more recent years, as the Queen has reached old age, I have become more supportive of her personally. Her long reign is quite amazing – she has been Queen for all of my life, to date. So, I felt that a purchase of this scarf in the year of her Platinum Anniversary was appropriate. I have waited to see whether Hermès would produce a special scarf, but I haven’t seen one yet. This version of Regina was offered at a very good price and in excellent condition.
It has been a strange kind of week with very changeable weather. My health has also been very variable. When I felt at my best, I was able to work through some useful tasks, but at the worst times, I was unable to leave my bed.
My main focus this week has been on our laptop. It is almost out of warranty, but has had very poor performance since it was first set up. The issue has been speed. It loaded so slowly that I could almost knit a jumper whilst waiting for it. Also, programs kept crashing to the extent that it was unusable. I should have returned it ages ago, but kept putting it off because I felt too ill to do anything about it. Anyway, to cut to the chase, I have finally backed up all of the data onto a new hard drive, parcelled the machine up and had it collected at lunchtime. I will let you know the outcome.
I have managed to wear one reasonable outfit this week. My Hermès Grand Manège Love Bandana in blue, pink and red was the basis, and I put a simple navy ensemble around it. I only have one pair of earrings in red, a present from Younger Son. They bring out the red elements of the scarf.
Outfit of the day 08/04/22 with Hermès’ Grand Manège Love Bandana
Here is a larger image of the scarf so that you can see the details:
Grand Manège Love Bandana by Hermès
Well, that is all for this week. I do hope that you all have a great weekend.
I hope you have had an enjoyable reading week! I finished one book and then had a lot of false starts choosing a second. That means I have just the one book to tell you about.
The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
The book of the week, chosen at random from the Library’s ebook service, was The Wonder by Emma Donoghue. Here is the blurb:
“An eleven-year-old girl stops eating, but remains miraculously alive and well. A nurse, sent to investigate whether she is a fraud, meets a journalist hungry for a story . . .
Set in the Irish Midlands in the 1850s, Emma Donoghue’s The Wonder – inspired by numerous European and North American cases of ‘fasting girls’ between the sixteenth century and the twentieth – is a psychological thriller about a child’s murder threatening to happen in slow motion before our eyes. Pitting all the seductions of fundamentalism against sense and love, it is a searing examination of what nourishes us, body and soul.”
And this is the review that I posted on Goodreads:
I found this a most unusual book, set in mid 19th century Ireland. The plot centres around a young Catholic girl who has apparently stopped eating for several months. Many in her local area, including her family, venerate her as a possible saint and a group set out to test the circumstances. They hire an Irish nun and an English nurse, trained under Florence Nightingale, who are supposed to stay with the child in shifts to see whether she takes any food.
The English nurse begins with a very practical and fairly harsh regime and manner, determined to find out the truth and expose the girl. As the plot slowly unfolds, the reader is drawn into a charged atmosphere of strict religious observance, attempts to prove cheating and lies, and, at the centre, an intelligent and suffering child.
Some readers have found the book too slow, but I was quickly drawn into the story and enjoyed how the two main characters, the English nurse and the young girl, developed and changed.
All in all, I found the book a really interesting and satisfying read and will look out for more ebooks by this author on our system. Donoghue is also the writer of Room, which I have also read. You may remember that this book was made into a film.
OK, well I had better turn to the book I am currently reading so that I finish it in time for next week’s Reading Roundup post!
Former professional school librarian, now retired through chronic illness. Trying to keep cheerful by reading, drinking lots of tea, blogging my new life, and my love of bling!
The Librain
The Librain......retired 
Anne, Happy belated Mother's Day! That tea looks delicious and who does not love cakes! I'm glad you had a…