Ersatz TLS discussion

Hello, everyone
Welcome to the new thread.
Looking forward to two weeks of good reading all round — and some Spring weather!

Thank you G and primroses, too. Lovely

Some very interesting reads keeping me ticking in mid March:

The Amur River by veteran travel writer Colin Thubron reads like an adventure novel in some ways as he travels along the river of the title on the Chinese-Russian border. This is pre-Ukraine war but he notices how different things are to 20 years before when he visited some of the same areas. Paranoid cops and border guards, passes and permissions needed and the vast, decaying world of provincial Russia
Pen, Sword, Camisole brilliant Brazilian author Jorge Amado focuses on a vacant place in the Brazilian Academy of Letters and the efforts of a pro-Nazi Brazilian army officer to get himself elected to the post. Written in 1980 its very witty and well translated, unusually for Amado it is also set outside his native North East Brazil, in Rio de Janeirio

Words by Jean Paul Sartre explores his youth and the influence of his Protestant grandfather from the Alsace on his life. I have a dog eared copy purchased in Oxfam and am enjoying it

Lastly i will be starting The Death of an Adversary1959) by Hans Keilson, a novel that follows events in 1930s Germany. Its my third Keilson read after this non-fiction war diary and his 1930s novel Life Goes On

three rowan buds in my garden, a sign of early spring, also compared to last March, the snowdrops are almost gone, they were everywhere in March23. I like slow cold springs (2023 was perfect), i think this year it will be heatwaves in April sadly

Thanks for this - I have had (yet another) busy and stressful period, with no time to comment on the books I've finished recently... and today, to cap it all, our gas has been cut off following our inadvisedly contacting the emergency line. Our weekend guests - long-standing friends - 'smelled gas'; as this was the second such comment - the first from daughter and partner around Christmas - madame insisted this time - we got the engineers in. (I have never been able to smell this 'gas'.)

Well... their super sensitive device measured gas at some 1ppm, so according to the 'rules' they cut us off. "If no-one had said anything about smelling it, it could have been ignored" said the guy - but rules is rules.

So now we have to wait for some Gas Safe engineer to check: with luck, he'll say the risk is zero and reconnect us. If not, they'll have to dig up the concrete floor looking at the pipes, maybe (I do hope not).

As for reading - I'll get to reviews one of these days; in the meantime - thanks CCC for the link - I had already bookmarked that report but too much has been going on for me to read it. I'm not at all happy about the notion that more than 50% of the universe consists of 'undetectable dark matter/energy' as it sounds like a fiddle to make the current paradigm work. If someone comes up with new ideas worth testing, I'm all for it. Time will tell, though I'm unlikely to be around to see the resolution... not sure I believe in a final answer anyway. Science will go on and on, so long as there are intelligent beings here (or elsewhere) to ask questions.

scarletnoir wrote: "Thanks for this - I have had (yet another) busy and stressful period, with no time to comment on the books I've finished recently... and today, to cap it all, our gas has been cut off following our..."

oh dear scarlet, lets hope the gas gets sorted ASAP

scarletnoir wrote: " our gas has been cut off ..."

I feel your pain — mine was off for 5 days last week (heating, hot water, cooker).
The pipes go up the front of the building on the outside before turning to come inside and one of my neighbours smelt gas when walking past them. GRDF came, but didn't repair the leak immediately as the pipes were boxed in and they could turn the gas off before it reaches them. The syndic (building manager?) had to get someone to take off the coffrage and since this was Saturday ...
Anyway, getting hot water on turning a tap is a wonderful thing :)

Thubron...wow, i am just loving his tale of travels along the Amur River, at the age of 80.

The style, the humour and the standard of language and expression reminds me why i started reading his 1980s travel books a good two decades ago.

It feels like he has reached his own late style, with decades of experience honing travel writing to something beyond that sometimes simple classification. The balance is perfect too, the humour is a key to his writing i feel, the english humour that can cut through even the grimmest times, a humour that is warm and engaging but also sometimes very sad

Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: " our gas has been cut off ..."

I feel your pain — mine was off for 5 days last week (heating, hot water, cooker).
The pipes go up the front of the building on the outside befo..."

as my modest house was built in 1798 and the piping and boilers are equally aged(though probably given a new lick a paint in the 1960s), i am sure i will be sharing these experiences soon. ideally during the summer where heat isnt needed and cold showers are a relief but sods law does not usually let things occur that way

Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: " our gas has been cut off ..."

I feel your pain — mine was off for 5 days last week (heating, hot water, cooker).
The pipes go up the front of the building on the outside befo..."

Our plumber just used a super sensitive 'smelling device' to track down the area where the gas is leaking. Unfortunately, the pipes are buried under concrete - he is currently drilling down, a noisy and messy business. We'll see how it ends... :-(

scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: " our gas has been cut off ..."

I feel your pain — mine was off for 5 days last week (heating, hot water, cooker).
The pipes go up the front of the building on the..."

eek!

scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: " our gas has been cut off ..."

I feel your pain — mine was off for 5 days last week (heating, hot water, cooker).
The pipes go up the front of the building on the..."

🤞 Things get sorted soon. Many moons ago I smelled gas on Halloween night (a Saturday of course). Fortunately it came from where the pipe came up through the kitchen floor to the cooker. All the gas appliances were on the same wall except my gas fire which was on the opposite corner of the house. It was a case of digging up the solid floor or taking the pipes round the outside of the house. I chose the latter. Unfortunately when the plumber checked everything again he had to condemn the gas fire because the flue was defective. Got that sorted and two weeks later the central heating pump packed up! The replacement fire some years later was condemned for the same reason. Fortunately, I was able to have one fitted with a balanced flue that went out through the rather than up through the roof.

Meanwhile back to the books. I have just finished


and really enjoyed it. A beautiful woman and her lover were found shot through the heart. Her very rich, very much younger husband is suspected. But meanwhile her phone records show a recent call to someone who was also killed in the same way. What is the connection, and why were they killed?

For Gpfr and the Resurrection Walk. I wanted to wait and see what you said before commenting. It looks like a 'different strokes' situation.

I liked Harry in a little more mellow tone. It also 'goes without saying' that the part of the Lincoln Lawyer I like best is his snarkiness.

I seem to be in an audio state of mine lately. While I take an old green Penquin to bed, the bookmark won't move. Only clue is I am so cold that I'm burrowing in with no space or light for reading.

Yesterday I finished The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. It's the only Agatha Christie I've found that had its premis taken from the news a number of years earlier -See Gene Tierney.

The odd newspaper piece is popping up here - about how Charles gets care immediately while others remain in 'wait' mode.

Thankfully no gas leaks to report, although last week I did receive 5 'as is offers' for the house from developers. This little WW2 2-bedroom is becoming more of an endangered species in my neighborhood as Seattle changed its real estate rules last year. Now our smallish lots can be pretty much covered by house. Trees? What are those? The 3-bedroom across the street was leveled last year and has 2 new homes now (the second has alley access only). The larger, street-side one has had open houses two weeks in a row and still no sold sign. That must have to do with the price tag - $3.2M Meanwhile I'm waiting to hear back from an attorney about saving the some of the trees on my lot -with a deed covenant. Fingers crossed.

MK wrote: "For Gpfr and the Resurrection Walk. I wanted to wait and see what you said before commenting. It looks like a 'different strokes' situation.

I liked Harry in a little more mellow t..."

urban trees are becoming endangered accross the western world, every early spring my area rings with chainsaws as people cut back even more greenery. Trees are a vital part of a well balanced urban environment...

We do not have any gas here or in my place in Somerset, took me a while to get used to cooking electric. Don’t much like not having main sewerage - it can easily be blocked and has to be rodded out.
Swings and roundabouts I suppose, at least no gas leaks.
Hope yours gets foxed soon, scarlet.
Yes, I would love to know whether or not invisible dark matter is there ot even something else but the wobbly spacetime research is very interesting.

from the "people are currently reading" marker i can see that the following numbers are reading same books as me:

160 are currently reading The Amur River by Thubron
43 are currently reading The Death of an Adversary
10 are currently reading Pen Sword Camisole
and 609 are reading "Words" by JP Sartre

AB76 wrote: "from the "people are currently reading" marker i can see that the following numbers are reading same books as me:

160 are currently reading The Amur River by Thubron
43 are currently reading The D..."

I never think to look at those numbers. Since I mentioned Gilead in the previous thread as a frequently recommended book, I thought I'd check how many readers it currently has. A whopping 9,766!

Another frequent recommendation, Stoner, has only 6,772. But the recommendations for that one probably peaked a year ago or more: I haven't seen it mentioned as much in the past year.

On the other hand, the perennially popular The Secret History has a current readership of 78k and To Kill a Mockingbird 85.4k.

Bill wrote: "I never think to look at those numbers. Since I mentioned Gilead in the previous thread as a frequently recommended book, I thought I'd check how many readers it currently has. A whopping 9,766!

Another frequent recommendation, Stoner, has only 6,772. But the recommendations for that one probably peaked a year ago or more: I haven't seen it mentioned as much in the past year.

On the other hand, the perennially popular The Secret History has a current readership of 78k and To Kill a Mockingbird 85.4k."

Where do you see those numbers? I see a "Statistics" thing you can click but it doesn't seem to show the number of current readers, though it gives some other figures, e.g. number of reviews, etc.

Gpfr wrote: "Hello, everyone
Welcome to the new thread.
Looking forward to two weeks of good reading all round — and some Spring weather!

"

Thanks for the new thread. We're celebrating spring here in the wilds of Auburn with brief intervals between rain and clouds.

Berkley wrote: "Bill wrote: "I never think to look at those numbers. Since I mentioned Gilead in the previous thread as a frequently recommended book, I thought I'd check how many readers it currently has. A whopp..."

if you pick a book on your reading list...look below the "book details and editions" line and there should be a people are current reading and a people want to read link

Bill wrote: "AB76 wrote: "from the "people are currently reading" marker i can see that the following numbers are reading same books as me:

160 are currently reading The Amur River by Thubron
43 are currently ..."

apparently goodreads has 150 million members, so i wonder what is the most read book at the moment...or ever...in 2023 it was" it ends with us"by colleen hoover which i have never heard of , right now 104,000 are reading it

book by a plasterer found in salford working class movement libraray and now republished by penguin:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

MK wrote: "Seattle changed its real estate rules last year. Now our smallish lots can be pretty much covered by house."

Around 20 years ago, the family went on holiday to British Columbia. By chance, our visit coincided with a housewarming for one of my distant cousins, and we were invited. There was little furniture (to protect from damage - probably!) and on one wall the cousin had stuck a long and involved family tree...

The house itself was a surprise to us - very big (by British standards) and detached - surrounded by a narrow strip of garden all the way around. A plan view would show something looking like an artwork in its frame. All the houses in that new estate were like that.

Very odd (we thought).

(It was in a suburb of Vancouver called Langley, where an ancestor had built many civic buildings.)

Scarlet has blighted me! Last night 11pm water started running down the light fitting in my living room ! The hot water tank has sprung a leak. A new one has been ordered. So until it comes I am without hot water and central heating. Good job it didn't happen while I was in hospital or the place would have been flooded!

giveusaclue wrote: "Scarlet has blighted me! Last night 11pm water started running down the light fitting in my living room ! The hot water tank has sprung a leak. A new one has been ordered. So until it comes I am wi..."

oh no....i bet i am next.....!

water seems to always find a way of getting through somewhere

giveusaclue wrote: "Scarlet has blighted me! Last night 11pm water started running down the light fitting in my living room ! The hot water tank has sprung a leak. A new one has been ordered. So until it comes I am wi..."

I do apologise for the unintentional hex.

Our plumber has now given up on digging up concrete to find the gas pipe - he found a pipe, but reckons it's water - and has recommended re-routing the gas supply from the meter instead.

He can't come tomorrow, so with luck we may have hot water by Thursday evening...

Plus, unfortunately, our lovely friends who 'smelled gas' have bequeathed us a bad dose of cold virus. I could hardly breathe overnight - let alone sleep (always a problem). Ah, well - it was nice to see them!

Book-wise, I'm keeping going with about three different ones at various stages...

I am just about 'Holocaused-out', I reckon - there have been far too many books and films whose intent is a little dubious for my taste (morally and/or politically). After 'Shoah', what more needs to be said? And I can no longer face another visit to the Anne Frank house (done it twice - too painful to do it again).

And yet... just occasionally, something comes up which sounds as if it is worth doing or saying... maybe on the aftermath, rather than the event. I'm actually considering reading a book reviewed in today's Guardian, which seems to have quite a few things to say outside the usual paths AFAIK:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

Too expensive in hardback for me (and you never know - it may prove to be a disappointment, though somehow I doubt it)... so it'll have to be a paperback, ebook or library loan.

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne - Katherine Rundell (2022)

This was a cracker. A learned and subtle study of his life and work which is equally a statement of her personal response to the poetry, and in that she is funny, lively, intent, and totally uninhibited. If the telling gets more sombre as he ages, her appreciation of the sermons is no less involving.

AB76 wrote: "...every early spring my area rings with chainsaws as people cut back even more greenery...."

I’m one of those who make the neighbourhood ring with the sounds of chainsaw. Of course it’s a bit different out here in the un-urban backwoods of Vermont – with the rain/snow in the winter months plus heat in the summer, it’s like the northern jungle. We live in what is basically a clearing. If we didn’t cut back regularly, the whole property would revert to forest in short order, as our neighbour’s field has done in just 15-20 years.

Interestingly, there was a time when the hills of Vermont were bare: in the mid-19th century almost every tree had been cut down to make the land usable for subsistence sheep-farming. Then the hill-farmers migrated west (having heard from other regiments in the Civil War that in Indiana or Ohio you could plough all day and never hit a rock), leaving just the dairy farmers in the valleys, who kept their lands clear.

scarletnoir wrote: "I do apologise for the unintentional hex."

Forgiven. And your problems seem a lot more difficult to solve than mine, so good luck!

Russell wrote: "AB76 wrote: "...every early spring my area rings with chainsaws as people cut back even more greenery...."

I’m one of those who make the neighbourhood ring with the sounds of chainsaw. Of course i..."

that makes sense. i live in a very wooded part of the shires too which makes chainsaws ubiquitous, i just resent urban slicing, of slithers of green. in the countryside its vital in so many ways.

scarletnoir wrote: "Book-wise, I'm keeping going with about three different ones at various stages...

I am just about 'Holocaused-out', I reckon - there have been far too many books and films whose intent is a little..."

i wish all these huge volumes on the rise of Hitler had been around 20 years ago, when i couldnt get enough of it, right now i'm not really that interested but i can reassure myself that they will be there to buy and read if i return to the detailed story of that period.

Holocaust reading is naturally even grimmer and so soaked in human sadism that you need to solder through. to this day i have not read any novels about the holocaust camp experience, it really doesnt need fictionalising. I'm not squeamish and i can compartmentalise but as i get older, human cruelty of that nature, the oldest cruelty, becomes less and less my kind of thing. however the questions, morals and the history of the system are always worth reading about

i have just been researching in a casual manner Westerbork transit camp in Holland, from where dutch jews were sent east. its linked to my Hans Keilson reading, the german author who spent WW2 hiding in Delft.

There are truly sad photos of the bewildered, assimilated dutch jews dealing with this new form of civil servant, the camp civil servant, chilling photos of dutch police smiling with SS guards and some of the photos have the stories of the jewish victims attached. Like in France, the germans had willing dutch helpers to do their work for them. Unlike in France however, where the french official who designed the jewish census card system sabotaged his own work(paying with his life), in holland the official who created the dutch census card system for jews seemed to relish his role.

Russell wrote: "Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne - Katherine Rundell ..."

I should have included a thank-you for the prompts that led me to read it.

AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Scarlet has blighted me! Last night 11pm water started running down the light fitting in my living room ! The hot water tank has sprung a leak. A new one has been ordered. So un..."

I still have a bleached out portion of the linoleum that covers the basement floor - hot water tank leak. It was 16 years ago that I replaced the tank with an on-demand hot water system. At a later date it, too, developed a drip. However, the plumber siad it was a pressure issue since I am near the bottom of a highish hill. He installed a regulator of some sort. I hope I haven't jinxed myself by putting this on paper as I have had no concerns since.

One excellent current of thought running through The Amur River by Colin Thubron is the China-Russia situation. He wrote the book before the Ukraine war and Putins desperate turn to recruit any old allies he could

Thubron uncovers a mutual distrust along the Amur, the river that divides the two nations, on both sides. Colonial era attitudes from the Russians seem odd when they are in total decline in that region, demographically and economically, while the Chinese seem to resent Russia holding land which was one Chinese, colonial again i guess, as well as habouring the age old loathing of "the hairy ones"

It makes me wonder if Putin is probably very uneasy with the giant on his doorstep in the long term, hoping to reclaim lost lands, via soft or hard power. Russia is fading demographically, its GDP is about the size of Spain, on the Amur about 3 million Russians face 60 million Chinese...its a lose-lose scenario for Putin i think

AB76 wrote: "if you pick a book on your reading list...look below the "book details and editions" line and there should be a people are current reading and a people want to read link .

Ah, I see it now, thanks. It is interesting to see how many other people are reading "your" books!

Berkley wrote: "AB76 wrote: "if you pick a book on your reading list...look below the "book details and editions" line and there should be a people are current reading and a people want to read link .

Ah, I see i..."

yes, especially if its an obscure secondhand bookshop find

The hex continues. I hijacked the plumber to come to my leaking water cylinder from a friend for whom he was going to fit some thermostatic valves. We met for a coffee today and she just happened to mention that she tended to worry about the water tank in the loft. She rang later today to tell me it had sprung a leak!! 👻

giveusaclue wrote: "The hex continues. I hijacked the plumber to come to my leaking water cylinder from a friend for whom he was going to fit some thermostatic valves. We met for a coffee today and she just happened t..."

this is getting spooky!

AB76 wrote: "this is getting spooky!

You are not kidding.

giveusaclue wrote: "The hex continues..."

Meanwhile, our plumber - whose sniffer device had indicated a certain area where gas was reaching the surface - dug a couple of holes in the concrete. To no avail - he couldn't find the 'right' pipe or joint. So, he suggested a different solution - re-routing the gas supply from the meter to another point where the pipe reappeared from the concrete. This had to go along the wall, so not the most elegant solution, but at least it worked (we have heating!). I am far from convinced that it is sensible to bury pipes under concrete, after this.

I've just finished Fatal Harmony, the 6th book in Kate Rhodes' Alice Quentin series. A.Q. is a forensic psychologist.
A brilliant young musician who murdered his parents and elder sister, has escaped from the institution where he was held. He now wants revenge on those who cut short his musical career and prevented his achieving the recognition he thinks he deserves for his compositions and performance.

Now I'm reading the 1st volume of Tove Ditlevsen's Copenhagen Trilogy, Enfance: La Trilogie de Copenhague T1 (transl. Christine Berlioz & Laila Flink Thullesen). I was given this in French, but will read the other two in English, having got a cheap e-book deal on the trilogy.

. The other book I'm reading is S.G. / Shona MacLean's The Winter List, the latest in her Damian Seeker series.
Charles II is on the throne having made a "promise of clemency to his and his late father's enemies" — or to some of them ...
The book opens in 1660, Milton's books are being burnt ...

scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "Seattle changed its real estate rules last year. Now our smallish lots can be pretty much covered by house."

Around 20 years ago, the family went on holiday to British Columbia. By chan..."

I'm thinking this was close to the time Hong Kong was handed back - with promises subsequently unkept - either Vancouver or all of Canada gave the overseas Chinese a way to settle there. I also recall seeing those check-by-jowl homes in Vancouver.

scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "The hex continues..."

Meanwhile, our plumber - whose sniffer device had indicated a certain area where gas was reaching the surface - dug a couple of holes in the concrete. To ..."

i agree...all that mess to get to the pipes!

MK wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Vancouver or all of Canada gave the overseas Chinese a way to settle there."

Certainly, one of our relatives of the younger generation had married a person of Chinese extraction - though I can't recall if they had immigrated or (more likely) were second generation.

Ross MacDonald: A Biography by Tom Nolan

This is a first report on a lengthy book - I may add more later. I have been working my way through Macdonald's private eye (Lew Archer) tales set mainly in southern California, and got to wondering about the author. Nolan is no great writer himself, but a comprehensive biographer - he seems to have interviewed every man, woman and dog to have crossed Macdonald's path and gathered a mountain of 'evidence'. BTW - the spelling he used was 'Macdonald', not 'MacDonald' - but even the Kindle people managed to get it wrong!

So - first a brief look at the life. Ross Macdonald is the pen name of Kenneth Millar (1915-83). (I'll offer some facts and some cod psychology.) Millar had a significantly disturbed childhood in or near Kitchener, Ontario... his father left the family when he was four (a brief reconciliation didn't take), and his mother was too weak physically and disturbed mentally to cope (she was institutionalised at one point). Millar - at times along with his mother - was passed between relatives who helped out; at one point, they were reduced to begging on the streets. Millar estimated he had stayed in more than fifty homes by the time he was 16. Despite the frequent moves and insecurity, Millar did well at school and some teachers who recognised his potential helped him. On the other hand, the shambolic nature of his home life led to disturbing behaviours - sexual experimentation with a girl at age 10 or so, and with boys in adolescence. He was well on the way to becoming a 'juvenile delinquent', indulging in petty crime such as taking cars without permission. Whatever way his life is interpreted, it's obvious that this early insecurity marked him profoundly, and for life.

Now for some guesswork... Millar started reading the Greek philosophers (he read widely), and my feeling is that he decided to completely stop his misbehaviour. He chose to become a 'good man', not a criminal - and for him, this meant adopting a somewhat rigid and inflexible code of conduct. In 1938, he married Margaret Sturm, a girl he'd known and admired at school though nothing happened then - Margaret was one year older, and Kenneth felt intimidated. The marriage was tricky - both were authors and there was a degree of professional jealousy from Margaret (not from Millar, apparently). She was capricious - there are reports of shouting and banging doors; later, when both were known, Millar wanted to travel both for pleasure and to meet publishers, attend conferences and book fairs etc. Margaret would often agree, only to either cancel at the last minute, or return 'home' to Santa Barbara early. You would think that Millar might have got fed up with this - but he stuck rigidly to his marriage vows. At one point, he tried to persuade a friend not to divorce his wife in a failing marriage - the friend went on to be happily married to his then mistress for 40 years. Millar was not going to change tack from the person he had decided to become, and deferred to Margaret's whims.

The tension in the marriage must have affected their daughter Linda, who appears to have had an unhappy childhood despite its being so much more stable and comfortable than MIllar's own, at least in material terms. Linda would misbehave in various ways, but Millar always believed and defended her (bad parenting, as any teacher will tell you). I assume he felt that no-one had defended him when he was a kid. The outcome was disastrous - Linda was responsible for a fatal hit-and-run accident, following which she underwent psychiatric treatment. She struggled for many years, but finally met her husband and seemed to be on course for a happy life when she died suddenly of (I think) a brain aneurysm, aged 31.

These experiences affected Macdonald/Millar's writing - and none of the above would be in any way worth recording, if it wasn't for the fact that he was a very, very good writer. His characters have some depth, and are hardly ever presented as simply 'good' or 'evil'. His experiences are reflected by the sympathy he shows especially to the younger, unformed people in his novels. In addition, he writes beautifully about California, giving word pictures of what it was like in the 1950s and '60s, as it developed. It's also significant that his choice of detective fiction followed on from his insecure youth - he wanted to be a writer, but also was determined to make a living at it... he was determined that his family should not suffer the privation he had endured in his own childhood.

Millar/Macdonald is an excellent crime writer... but so much more than that. I'll try to post some quotes at a later date, as well as a list of his admirers for those who doubt their own critical faculties (!)

scarletnoir wrote: "Ross MacDonald: A Biography by Tom Nolan

This is a first report on a lengthy book - I may add more later. I have been working my way through Macdonald's private eye (Lew Archer) ta..."

I just the other day found a few more of the Archer series that I had been missing so I think there are only two or three now that I don't have. I agree with your positive assessment of these books: the earlier installments were perhaps a little weaker - I think mainly because Macdonald seemed to feel obliged to add in more action and excitement than he really felt comfortable with, presumably in order to meet the requirements or conventions of the genre - but the thoughtfulness and understanding are there from the start and become more marked as the series progresses.

I'm nearing the halfway point in the series, though I missed one or two of the earlier books. My last was The Doomsters (no.7) and I had been planning to read The Galton Case (no. 8) next, but I've decided to backtrack a bit and will read The Barbarous Coast (no. 6) first instead.

Berkley wrote: "I'm nearing the halfway point in the series, though I missed one or two of the earlier books. My last was The Doomsters (no.7) and I had been planning to read The Galton Case (no. 8) next, but I've decided to backtrack a bit and will read The Barbarous Coast (no. 6) first instead."

I've read most of them by now, but not in order.

IIRC, I have yet to read 'The Doomsters', but rate both the others highly.

Reviewed 'Galton' on 13 November '23, and 'Barbarous Coast' (briefly) on 12 February 2024.

I was perturbed the other day to see a notification of a text message flash up on my phone screen, headed R.I.P. When I clicked on it, I found it was a reminder for an x-ray appointment — the initials of Réseau Imagerie Parisienne, oof ...

We've talked at various times about waiting for results etc. I had a short wait, the technician did the x-rays, another short wait and I saw the doctor who discussed the results with me, a 3rd short wait and I got the report and the x-rays which I can also consult online. Just over half an hour in all.

Temporarily broken off Kangaroo by DH Lawrence to start on Jack Sheppard by William Ainsworth, which has arrived via ILL from the excellent Middlebury College Library.

Gpfr wrote: "We've talked at various times about waiting for results etc.... Just over half an hour in all."

Very good. When I go for 6-monthly 'bloods' tests in the UK, it takes about a fortnight for the results to come back to me - though much quicker to the doctors, if they care to read them promptly. At first this was difficult to negotiate, but since nothing has changed for years I'm now pretty blasé about it.

Back in the day, I'd see the doctor in person - then a phone call - then a phone call from the specialist nurse - and now a letter. I'm not sure if this is for everyone (lack of resources) or if it reflects the lengthy 'no change' in my case. Whatever - I'm relaxed about it by now.