Reading roundup 18/12/19

Posted on 18/12/2019 by The Librain

I have really enjoyed my reading since writing the last Reading Roundup post for the blog. I am still not managing print books as yet, but I am finding plenty of ebooks to interest me. By the way, I must apologise for the very short and rather basic reviews. I have been struggling to prepare for Christmas as I cannot leave everything to Lovely Husband and must do what I able. This afternoon I finished writing all of the cards, which was quite difficult with my poor eyesight and shaking hands.

Anyway, this was the first book…

The Snakes by Sadie Jones

The Snakes by Sadie Jones was a very strange book and totally outside my comfort zone, which must be a good thing for a retired librarian! In fact, any kind of librarian. Here is the blurb:

Bea and Dan, recently married, let out their tiny flat to escape London for a few precious months. Driving down through France they visit Bea’s dropout brother Alex at the hotel he runs in Burgundy. Disturbingly, they find him all alone and the ramshackle hotel deserted, apart from the nest of snakes in the attic.

When Alex and Bea’s parents make a surprise visit Dan can’t understand why Bea is so appalled, or why she’s never wanted him to know them; Liv and Griff Adamson are charming, and rich. They are the richest people he has ever met. Maybe Bea’s ashamed of him, or maybe she regrets the secrets she’s been keeping.

Tragedy strikes suddenly, brutally, and in its aftermath the family is stripped back to its heart, and then its rotten core, and even Bea with all her strength and goodness can’t escape.

This is my brief review (there are far better ones on the Goodreads site if you want to find out more):

The SnakesThe Snakes by Sadie Jones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book left me baffled and confused. I am not sure how to write about it or rate it. The first part was difficult to read and I struggled with it and nearly stopped. Then came quite a long chunk where the plot began to take off and I became absorbed – I definitely didn’t want to put the book down at this point. But the last section! I can’t really say more without spoiling the book for others.

Once again, I suggest that potential readers look through the range of reviews on here and make up their owns minds!

View all my reviews

Perfect Crime by Helen Sarah Fields

The second book was the next part of a long series which I have really enjoyed: Helen Sarah Fields’ Perfect Crime ( D.I. Callanach #05). I was really pleased when I saw it on the library’s ebook site. This is the blurb:

Your darkest moment is your most vulnerable…

Stephen Berry is about to jump off a bridge until a suicide prevention counsellor stops him. A week later, Stephen is dead. Found at the bottom of a cliff, DI Luc Callanach and DCI Ava Turner are drafted in to investigate whether he jumped or whether he was pushed…

As they dig deeper, more would-be suicides roll in: a woman found dead in a bath; a man violently electrocuted. But these are carefully curated deaths – nothing like the impulsive suicide attempts they’ve been made out to be.

Little do Callanach and Turner know how close their perpetrator is as, across Edinburgh, a violent and psychopathic killer gains more confidence with every life he takes…

This book certinaly didn’t disappoint!

Perfect Crime (D.I. Callanach, #5)Perfect Crime by Helen Sarah Fields
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have enjoyed this series enormously so far and this book is also excellent. There is a great balance between a fast moving plot and the cast of characters, which are very well-drawn. The main ones continue to develop, moving forward with each book to make the series coherent as a whole. The plot is exciting with plenty of unexpected twists and nail-biting moments – some parts need nerves of steel!

I can’t wait to get the next one from the Library!

View all my reviews

I hope that I can write better and longer reviews as my health improves after the stroke.

Happy Reading to you all!

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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Update 16/12/19: Hermès scarves Spring/Summer 2020

Posted on 16/12/2019 by The Librain

I must apologise for the lack of posts at the end of last week. The General Election took a lot of my emotional energy and I am left feeling very deflated. As I don’t want this blog to become involved with politics, I won’t say any more!

Plumes en Fete 90cm – Hermès Spring/Summer 2020

Plumes en Fete 90cm – Hermès Spring/Summer 2020

Instead, I will point you in the direction of the wonderful Hermès scarves for next season: Spring/Summer 2020. Yes, they are already being discussed on the Purse Forum and are beginning to appear online and in some boutiques, although not in the UK at the time of writing. I have my eye on a couple of colourways of one design and perhaps one more, but I have not seen a lot to attract my money! I expect that, as usual, the designs will grow on me with time. Perhaps I should think about no longer buying expensive scarves? That’s a difficult question to answer!

Anyway, if you are interested, the Purse Forum link is here: …The Hermès Spring/Summer 2020 Scarves… – comprehensive listing with images from the website starts at page 41 onwards. The thread will continue over the next weeks and months with images and modelling photos, giving all of us scarfies invaluable information to help us choose wisely. As the official Hermès websites don’t show the true colours of the scarves, to help with the battle against counterfeiting, the Purse Forum allows us to see them much more “true to life”.

The Hermès UK scarf site (which I will visit daily) is here: Hermès UK Scarves and Silk Accessories – there are still loads of lovely scarves from previous seasons still available as well as shawls and other formats.

I hope the new scarves become available to UK buyers before the inevitable price increase in January!

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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P.S. since I wrote the post this afternoon, I might just have succumbed and bought from the French site…

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Outfit of the day 10/12/19

Posted on 10/12/2019 by The Librain

Well, as I promised a post today – here it is! I am very tired, so it won’t be very long and there is a simple photo instead of a collage, but at least I have written something.

I am tired but pleased that we managed to go out for a few hours today. It was only errands and suchlike, but I feel a real sense of achievement. The wet and very windy weather seems to add to my confusion, as do the Christmas lights everywhere. I love illuminations at this time of year, so I am trying to work through the muddled thoughts in my brain! Home is my safe space. Well, to be more accurate, my bedroom is really. When I go anywhere else I feel nervous and quite unsafe. I do hope that this wears off as soon as possible.

We picked up a couple of parcels from the Post Office in town and then went into Sainsbury’s to collect another parcel, visit the café and wander around for a while.

Outfit of the day 10/12/19 with Liberty’s Ianthe shawl

So here is today’s outfit with my lovely navy cotton cable jumper from Lands’ End and an Ianthe Varuna wool shawl from Liberty of London. I also wore navy cord trousers (Lands’ End), navy leather shoes from Hotter and a fun pair of earrings which look like slices of Christmas cake! To finish this navy blue outfit, I carried my beautiful blue Africa Massaccesi midi zip Selene handbag and wore a warm jacket in the same colour.

Tomorrow, if everything goes to plan, I will write the usual Reading Roundup post.

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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Update 09/12/19

Posted on 09/12/2019 by The Librain

As I have had a pretty bad migraine this afternoon, with an aura, I cannot write a proper post today. I will try to write an update tomorrow.

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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Update 06/12/19

Posted on 06/12/2019 by The Librain

We have had such a difficult time recently and I am trying really hard to develop some Christmas cheer! Now that so many family members have passed on, our present buying is  reduced to just the four of us. I am looking forward to a time when our lads start families of their own and we can all enjoy larger celebrations again.

These last few days have been spent recovering from the difficulties that Eldest Son’s situation put us all through. (Sorry for not explaining in more detail and for posting so cryptically, but I really cannot write more.) To take my mind to a happier place, I have concentrated instead on gift buying and very simple planning for the festive period. We are unable to do very much, but will have a lovely Christmas dinner at the very least!

The lads tend to prefer cash gifts these days, but I usually add in a few items for them to open, plus I have managed to collect a few things for Lovely Husband. My own main present is sorted (I am eagerly anticipating its arrival from Italy – hint 😉).

Decorative touches from Dunelm

So, we now need to clean and tidy up the house before putting up the tree and some decorations. LH and I decided to buy some new additions to our lounge this week – mainly cushions and a throw – so those will help to add to the festive feel. I will take a photo when it is all finished.

I hope that you all have a lovely time over the weekend and don’t do to much! Christmas can add so much stress.

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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Reading roundup 04/12/19

Posted on 04/12/2019 by The Librain

I am very tired after over a week of difficult days for the family, so will have to make this post short but, I hope, sweet-ish!

This week’s Reading Roundup is again about one book, but it was a long one and I feel rather pleased that I managed to read it. Reading is difficult when you have memory problems. Trying to remember the beginning chapters of a book when you have got halfway through… well, I hope you can see what I mean! I am having to read as quickly as I can so that the outline of the plot doesn’t fade away. It’s very frustrating indeed!

Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff

I had been waiting for Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff (#03 of The Nevernight Chronicle) for what felt like ages. Finally it became available from the library’s ebook service and I have just finished it this morning. Here is the blurb:

A ruthless young assassin’s journey for revenge comes to a stunning end in the conclusion of this acclaimed epic fantasy trilogy.

The Republic of Itreya is in chaos. Mia Corvere has assassinated Cardinal Duomo and rumors of Consul Scaeva’s death ripple through the street of Godsgrave like wildfire. But buried beneath those same streets, deep in the ancient city’s bones, lies a secret that will change the Republic forever.

Mia and her brother Jonnen must journey through the depths of the ancient metropolis. Their quest will take them through the Godsgrave underdark, across the Sea of Swords, back to the library of the Quiet Mountain and the poisoned blades of Mia’s old mentors, and at last the fabled Crown of the Moon. There, Mia will at last discover the origins of the darkin, and learn the destiny that lies in store for her and her world. But with the three suns now in descent, and Truedark on the horizon, will she survive?

I really loved the first two books in the series, giving them four and five stars respectively. This is what I wrote about Darkdawn:

Darkdawn (The Nevernight Chronicle, #3)Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read the first two books in the trilogy almost exactly two years ago and absolutely adored them so, when I saw that the third was available, I couldn’t wait to read it. Yes, it was exciting, adventurous, violent, gory, etc., etc., just like the others. Sadly, it was also badly flawed and disappointing.

The other books received very mixed reviews and I ignored the negative ones, but this book deserves fewer accolades. The violence and sheer amount of killing and blood is vastly overdone. Mia loses her heroic status for me and simply becomes a crazed murderous figure. Scene after scene involves so much gratuitous violence that it is very near to boring in the repetitive gore-fest. In fact, monsters are repeated, as are ideas. Worst of all – the library!!!!! Ok, that last comment is an attempt at humour.

A small niggle is the poor editing in places where there were several homophones. As for the sex scenes! One went on for more than three pages and it was just boring and unnecessary.

If this book had been shorter it would have, perhaps, been much better. A tighter and less repetitive (yes, I know I am repeating repetitively) plot might have raised this book up to the level of the others. I love so much of this author’s writing and will look out for his next book as I am sure that he has something much better to give us all.

View all my reviews

I am not sure what I am going to read next, but will enjoy browsing through the ebook site.

Until next week: Happy Reading to you all!

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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Update 02/12/19

Posted on 02/12/2019 by The Librain

I hope that all my visitors and friends had really good weekends. Everything seems to be speeding up towards Christmas now, so I expect loads of you are very busy. In our household, we are planning a very quiet (and peaceful, I hope!) holiday period. Both of our sons work in retail, so they won’t get many days off. We will try to make the best of things.

Elder Son’s issues have not been sorted yet and, although he is coping reasonably well, we feel on a knife edge waiting for some kind of resolution. I really hope that we have an answer this week!

I did try to get up today for a while and I put on a lovely mauve cashmere v-neck from Marks and Spencer, with navy cords from Lands’ End. The earrings are old ones that I made nearly forty years ago but the small scarf is an Hermès’ gavroche called Baobab Cat – an interesting juxtaposition! Sorry about the hair – I don’t have the energy to get it properly cut and styled.

Outfit of the day 02/12/19 with Hermès’ Baobab Cat gavroche

All of the stress is making me very tired. I have managed to sort out some Christmas things – thank goodness for online shopping!

Love and best wishes to you all,

Anne

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Update 29/11/19

Posted on 29/11/2019 by The Librain

Apologies to anyone visiting who expected a proper post today. Our household is still very tense and difficult so I do not have the head-space to blog. I hope the major issue of the moment is resolved early next week then things can return to our “normal”.

Best wishes to you all,

Anne

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Reading roundup 27/11/19

Posted on 27/11/2019 by The Librain

This will be a short post today. Firstly, because I have only managed to finish one book this week. And secondly,  because we are living with a huge amount of stress on top of the usual level so I don’t have the strength to write very much!

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh

I finished this book: Sophie Mackintosh’s The Water Cure. Here is the blurb…

The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Virgin Suicides in this dystopic feminist revenge fantasy about three sisters on an isolated island, raised to fear men

King has tenderly staked out a territory for his wife and three daughters, Grace, Lia, and Sky. He has laid the barbed wire; he has anchored the buoys in the water; he has marked out a clear message: Do not enter. Or viewed from another angle: Not safe to leave. Here women are protected from the chaos and violence of men on the mainland. The cult-like rituals and therapies they endure fortify them from the spreading toxicity of a degrading world.

But when their father, the only man they’ve ever seen, disappears, they retreat further inward until the day three strange men wash ashore. Over the span of one blistering hot week, a psychological cat-and-mouse game plays out. Sexual tensions and sibling rivalries flare as the sisters confront the amorphous threat the strangers represent. Can they survive the men?

A haunting, riveting debut about the capacity for violence and the potency of female desire, The Water Cure both devastates and astonishes as it reflects our own world back at us.

And this was my response to the book on the Goodreads website…

The Water CureThe Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It irritates me that this book is described as a “feminist dystopia” and compared with excellent books like The Handmaid’s Tale. It simply doesn’t compare at all! I don’t think that it ranks as a feminist book either, as there is nothing feminist about it, as far as I can see.

I struggled with the first half of the book, but persevered and managed to finish with the story becoming more compelling in the second half. It is certainly an odd book and difficult to write about without spoilers. I am not sure why it was long-listed for a prize as it just does not seem to be of such a standard, but again there are very mixed views here so what do I know?

View all my reviews

I don’t seem to have had much luck with my recent choices from the Library’s ebook catalogue and this one was no exception. I am very pleased, however, that I am currently reading a far better book and will be able to write a much more positive review next week. Well, that’s assuming that this book carries on developing from a great beginning! I hope so.

Until next week: Happy Reading to you all!

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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Update 25/11/19: with some painful thoughts

Posted on 25/11/2019 by The Librain

I didn’t really know how to title this post as I decided to write out some truthful and painful thoughts today. I started this blog, back in January 2017, as a way of getting myself back into writing again and, since then, I have written about quite a wide variety subjects. Some posts have been fairly frivolous: about fashion, my daily outfits and my love of scarves etc. Others have been much more serious: about my health issues, hospital visits and difficult family circumstances. Today’s post will be about the latter and I urge those of you who prefer to read about scarves to skim over this and return later in the week!

Cracking under Stress by Bernard Goldbach on Flickr

To be honest, I’m using today’s post as a way of getting my feelings out and recording them for myself. My memory is still so poor that I struggle to remember things from an hour ago, never mind a day or a week. Events from decades past are, in contrast, very clear! Also, I apologise if this post is muddled and confusing – my thoughts are too.

Life in this household is becoming increasingly difficult:

  • Lovely Husband is disabled with severe back problems that he has had for almost 30 years, diabetes, depression and other serious issues. He can still drive and go out shopping and he cooks, cleans as well as he can, and organises everything for us all. However, he is beginning to slow down and is under a huge amount of stress.
  • I am so ill now, both mentally and physically, with a pile of meds which I have to take daily. I can only get up and go downstairs for a couple of hours before I have to return to bed. As I said above, my memory is poor, I cannot do housework or cook because of my chronic cough and dizziness, but I do help with some of the household organisation (via my iPad) and can put a load of washing on. I am afraid to leave the house except in a dire emergency or a medical appointment. I am terrified of having another, even worse, stroke.
  • Elder Son is becoming more difficult to cope with as we get older. His autism means that his moods are very changeable. One minute he is cheerful, helpful and lovely to be with; the next he is angry, violent and unreasonable. LH and I are now struggling to manage the fallout from his condition and an event (which I cannot write about in detail) happened yesterday that sent him over the edge and us to the brink too. We now have to wait for a resolution to the event in order to move forward. In the meantime, we also have to manage ES’s reaction to it all as he always turns his worries against us, as his parents!
  • Younger Son now lives and works away from home. We try to support him from afar when he needs us (and he does his best to offer support for us), and he does not add any stress on a daily basis. Of course, as his parents, we worry about him, but that is only normal, I think!
  • All of LH’s and my parents, and their generation of relatives, have now passed on and we have very little support from wider family. In addition, we have no close friends locally. Of course we really appreciate the online support from friends who live further away.
  • Our house is causing us a lot of stress too. It is basically sound, but we have been so overwhelmed with other issues that we have allowed regular maintenance to slide for a quite a few years. We don’t have money worries, thank goodness, but we cannot find the headspace to sort everything out: windows need replacing, the loft cleaning out and boarding, carpets cleaning or replacing, the rendering removing, many rooms decorating, loads of basic maintenance jobs doing, masses of general clutter removing… We feel helpless in the face of mess and just “stuff”. LH has suggested that I move out to a hotel whilst he sorts it all out, but I am struggling with the idea of leaving my safe space.
  • The future frightens us all. We really need to move to a house with a downstairs bedroom and bathroom for me and LH to stave off having to use residential care. ES worries about how he will manage without us. We worry about how long we can cope with him at home, but would it be even worse if he didn’t live with us? I suppose that this is the major cause of stress for us – what will the future bring?

So, now that I have got all of that off my chest, I will try to be more cheerful and hope that ES’s issue is sorted out favourably as quickly as possible. I have an appointment with my Consultant tomorrow, so will probably write about that later in the week.

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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Image credits

Cracking under stress by Bernard Goldbach on Twitter

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