Retro Reads discussion

Room for a couple more! If you want to select books entries close the 31st of December - PST.

You can still join after that - you just can't select any of the books for the pool. :)

No 4.....


May be the first cab off the ranks for 2025.


1/ My Friend the Professor

Being a nurse myself for more years than I care to admit I enjoy seeing just how much nursing has changed over the years and in other ways hasn't.

Cphe wrote: "No 4.....


May be the first cab off the ranks for 2025.


1/ My Friend the Professor

Being a nurse myself for more years than I care to admit I enjoy seeing just how much nursing ..."
You are indeed the first Cphe! I've added this for you.

Cphe wrote: "No 4.....


May be the first cab off the ranks for 2025.


1/ My Friend the Professor

Being a nurse myself for more years than I care to admit I enjoy seeing just how much nursing ..."

Congrats on kicking us off in 2025, and a heartfelt thanks to you for your work in such a vital profession. I learned after two brain surgeries how important nurses are! I’ll forever be grateful for my brilliant surgeons, but the nurses are the ones that get you through the worse bits and on the road to recovery ❤️‍🩹

But I’m kind of crushed if you’re saying my dear Betty Neels wasn’t giving me an accurate picture of nursing ;o)! I haven’t read this particular book, but it sounds as if it’s in the Betty vein.

Susan in NC wrote: "But I’m kind of crushed if you’re saying my dear Betty Neels wasn’t giving me an accurate picture of nursing ;o)! I haven’t read this particular book, but it sounds as if it’s in the Betty vein. "
I have read it and it isn't very Neelsian, except for some of the hospital scenes.

Barb in Maryland wrote: "Susan in NC wrote: "But I’m kind of crushed if you’re saying my dear Betty Neels wasn’t giving me an accurate picture of nursing ;o)! I haven’t read this particular book, but it sounds as if it’s i..."

Phew!

Cphe wrote: "No 4.....


May be the first cab off the ranks for 2025.


1/ My Friend the Professor

Being a nurse myself for more years than I care to admit I enjoy seeing just how much nursing ..."


Cphe--I will echo Susan in thanking you and all nurses. And especially the ones who got me through multiple knee surgeries.

Mela #9

1st book - Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil G. Brinton - finished Jan.03

I hoped I would have liked it more. It was a nice reading but definitely, it was not Austen ;-)

Mela wrote: "Mela #9

1st book - Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil G. Brinton - finished Jan.03

I hoped I would have liked it more. It was a nice reading but definitely, it was not Austen ;-)"
Thank you, Mela, for trying this one - I wasn’t familiar with this title but “Austen sequel” got my attention!

Mela wrote: "Mela #9

1st book - Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil G. Brinton - finished Jan.03

I hoped I would have liked it more. It was a nice reading but definitely, it was not Austen ;-)"
You're on the board Mela!

No 4

Legend in Green Velvet - not my favourite by the author.

Cphe wrote: "No 4

Legend in Green Velvet - not my favourite by the author."

Nor mine. I read it when it first came out (1976) and haven't reread it since. But it sure did stick in my memory!

@Barb,

I normally like Peters but couldn't gel with it at all. Pretty disappointing IMO.

Cphe wrote: "@Barb,

I normally like Peters but couldn't gel with it at all. Pretty disappointing IMO."

I vaguely remember it, but only read it once decades ago, then I became an Amelia Peabody fangirl and never looked back! I’ll reread out of curiosity…

I might enjoy it if I go into it with low expectations.

#7

Book #1
The Art School Murders 4 stars
This is a very good mystery.

I'm just going to say, like I noticed the last couple years, it's much harder for me to "get to" the book pool books because there is no deadline except for the one at the end. Despite wanting to read them!
so I put "schedule one book pool book" on my to do list today.

Jackie wrote: "I'm just going to say, like I noticed the last couple years, it's much harder for me to "get to" the book pool books because there is no deadline except for the one at the end. Despite wanting to r..."

I hear you, Jackie! I have a mental goal of one a month, with enough slip and slide to try and fit in 12 books. I have managed that once (2023) and missed badly in '24.
Here's to better results this year for both of us.

Barb in Maryland wrote: "Jackie wrote: "I'm just going to say, like I noticed the last couple years, it's much harder for me to "get to" the book pool books because there is no deadline except for the one at the end. Despi..."

Same! My other groups have reads scheduled for January, so I’m starting with those, but added one of my pool over the weekend, Come, Tell Me How You Live - doubles as my nonfiction book for the month (a personal reading goal I’ve been doing for a few years).

Great system, Jackie, I hope you don’t mind if I steal it; one pool book plus one nonfiction book plus whatever other group reads I have going on plus the odd library loan that finally comes through should keep me reading happily through the year!

I've added your latest read Cphe & added yours Amanda!

#3 with my first book of the year. Finished 6 Jan.
Silver Canyon

Nice to revisit this early Louis, one of my old favorites of his.

Here's my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Barb in Maryland wrote: "#3 with my first book of the year. Finished 6 Jan.
Silver Canyon

Nice to revisit this early Louis, one of my old favorites of his.

Review to come."

You're on the board, Barb!

No 4

North From Rome

Cphe wrote: "No 4

North From Rome"

Added for you Cphe. In future could you give the number of the read for you & the date finished? This helps me if I go off track.

I'm looking for a copy of North from Rome. I have a largish number of MacInnes's books but not this one.

I may have made a mistake starting with Jessica Mitford's book. I am a very slow non fiction reader & some of the material in this book has dated badly - especially when you are not an American.

@ Carol.......will do

#5 with my first book of the year, Come, Tell Me How You Live , finished January 8

4 stars for this charming memoir by my favorite mystery writer of life on archeological digs in pre-war Syria and Iraq with her husband. Here’s my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Susan in NC wrote: "#5 with my first book of the year, Come, Tell Me How You Live , finished January 8

4 stars for this charming memoir by my favorite my..."

Added for you Susan!

Susan, I now really want to read it - thank you for the excellent review.

Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "Susan in NC wrote: "#5 with my first book of the year, Come, Tell Me How You Live , finished January 8

4 stars for this charming memo..."

Thanks Carol!

Jackie wrote: "Susan, I now really want to read it - thank you for the excellent review."

You’re welcome, I hope you enjoy!

Susan in NC wrote: "Jackie wrote: "Susan, I now really want to read it - thank you for the excellent review."

You’re welcome, I hope you enjoy!"

One of the libraries in my area did have this one, but it has been deleted now.😒 I'm keeping an eye out for it!

#5 with book 2, a five-star, humorous delight, Paying Guests by E.F. Benson.

Finished today, January 14; I first read this decades ago, but was delighted to revisit the goofy denizens of Wentworth, a boarding house in the seaside watering town of Bolton Spa. Here’s my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I have had this one lurking on my kindle for years; glad to have the excuse to finally read it.

Tania wrote: "I have had this one lurking on my kindle for years; glad to have the excuse to finally read it."

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did - with the news so grim already in the new year, I was ready for some humor!

Added for you Susan, I'm sure I will get to this one. Love me some Benson!

& after a slow start Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking is a most absorbing read. I'm old enough to remember that Famous Writers School (My aunt used to send Mum American magazines like McCalls when she had finished with them)

Thanks, Carol! Yes, I could use some humor, it was delicious. Benson never lets me down. Now I’m on to Wodehouse-not a pool,offering of my own, but I want to continue the humor! ;o)

& I'm away!

#1 First book read finished 17/1.
Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking
4.5★

Not a great start but when Jessica got going, she really got going.!

Like her sister Nancy (when writing non fiction) Jessica has a warm conversational style which makes you feel you would like having a glass of wine & a gossip with her. favourite chapter The famous Writers' School.

Recommended!

#15
I've finished reading Jane & Prudence by Barbara Pym. It was 5 stars for me. Satirical and compassionate at the same time. Pym was such a lovely author.

Here's the link to my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

No 4

Book 4

The Big Sky - paled in comparison to The Way West.

Added for you Sharon & Cphe!

#5 with book #3, another funny five-star treat that truly brightened this dreary freezing January, Jeeves in the Morning by P.G. Wodehouse, finished January 19, five 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟.

It was a reread, but it had been years, thank you to the bright star who threw it in the pool! I have a collection of used paperbacks by this genius of wordplay, and he never fails to lighten my mood. As Fry himself has said, these books are “pure sunshine on the page”!

#11 with book 1, After the Funeral by Agatha Christie finished 17/01. 4*s.

I thought I had read this one, but apparently not. Great to find a new to me Christie to read. There aren't too many of those left now.

Susan in NC wrote: "#5 with book #3, another funny five-star treat that truly brightened this dreary freezing January, Jeeves in the Morning by P.G. Wodehouse"

I don't think I had spotted that one. I think I might have to dig it out as it is equally bleak here. I was also thinking of reading The Enchanted April shortly, that is also a good one for bringing sunshine into my life.

Added for you, Susan & Tania!

Thank you.

Tania wrote: "Susan in NC wrote: "#5 with book #3, another funny five-star treat that truly brightened this dreary freezing January, Jeeves in the Morning by [..."

Ah, good choice! The power of books…;o)

Thank you, Carol

Tania wrote: "#11 with book 1, After the Funeral by Agatha Christie finished 17/01. 4*s.

I thought I had read this one, but apparently not. Great to find a new to me Christie to r..."

Oooh, I love Christie, that’s definitely on my pool list! Maybe I’m a bad person, but Christie is comfort reading for me -she’s got a way with murder…

I think Christie is like Heyer in that she completes a complete world that a reader can retreat to.

Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "I think Christie is like Heyer in that she completes a complete world that a reader can retreat to."

yes, and the writing is never, ever less than excellent.