Tag: book lists

Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #22 Jutland Cottage + #21 Happy Returns Wrap-Up!

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

Rereading Happy Returns in the context of the rest of the Barsetshire series proved to be much more rewarding than reading it as a one-off as I did years ago. My thanks to the people who are sticking with the project and made comments or read along with this book:

  • Liz Dexter of Adventures in Reading
  • Penelope Gough
  • Gypsi

The next book is Jutland Cottage, and I will be posting my review on Friday, March 31! I hope some of you can read along with me. Including Jutland Cottage, there are only eight more books to go in the series!

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Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #21 Happy Returns + #20 The Duke’s Daughter Wrap-Up

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments
Cover for Happy Returns

Since I know that at least one person who had been reading along was no longer able to find reasonably priced copies of the books, I got a lot more comments on the last book than I expected. I hope that happy situation continues. Anyway, my thanks to the following people who participated in discussing The Duke’s Daughter:

  • Liz Dexter
  • Penelope Gough

The next book is Happy Returns, which I read all the way back in 2015 and don’t remember at all (except that someone is running for parliament). It’ll be interesting to me to see whether I view that book differently now that I am more familiar with the characters. I will be reviewing that book on Tuesday, February 28! Hope you will join me.

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11th Anniversary! Top Ten Books of the Year!

~ whatmeread ~ 12 Comments

It’s my 11th anniversary for this blog, and as is my habit, I am using it to post my top ten books of the year. This year’s books are all fiction, which isn’t unusual. What is unusual is that six of them are historical novels, and a few others are partially historical. Only one is set in the current time (the other nonhistorical novels in the recent past). Of the historical novels, most are set in the 20th century, but one each is set in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Five of the books are by women, five by men, and two involve the supernatural. Four books are set in the United States, two in Scotland, and one each in Australia, Madagascar, France, and an island in the Indian Ocean off what would become Australia.

This year’s choice was difficult, because I read some really good books, but here they are, in the order in which I posted the reviews:

Here’s wishing you a year of happy reading!

Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #20 The Duke’s Daughter + #19 County Chronical Wrap-Up

~ whatmeread ~ 10 Comments

Again, I had fun revisiting old friends and meeting new ones in County Chronicle. I thank anyone who has had time to send in a comment. They are

The next book is The Duke’s Daughter, which I will be reviewing on Tuesday, January 31. If you get a chance to read the book or have read it or just have something to say, pop in and make a comment. And here’s our little badge.

Time for Another Classics Club Spin (#32)

~ whatmeread ~ 11 Comments

The Classics Club has announced another spin. How does this work? Classics club members select 20 books from their lists and post a numbered list of those choices by Sunday, December 11. On Sunday, Classics Club picks a number, and the club member agrees to try to read the book corresponding to that number and post a review by Sunday, January 29, 2023.

I enjoy taking part in these spins, so here is my list!

  1. The Fair Jilt by Aphra Behn
  2. The Methods of Lady Walderhurst by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  3. We by Yevgeny Zemyatin
  4. The Ten Thousand Things by Maria Dermoût
  5. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
  6. The Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerlof
  7. A Double Life by Karolina Pavlova
  8. Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare
  9. Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie
  10. Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston
  11. The Tree of Heaven by May Sinclair
  12. The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
  13. The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
  14. Merkland, A Story of Scottish Life by Margaret Oliphant
  15. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
  16. The Princess of Cleves by Madame de La Fayette
  17. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
  18. The Book of Lamentations by Rosario Castellanos
  19. The Moorland Cottage by Elizabeth Gaskell
  20. Miss Mole by E. H. Young