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The Sunday Salon


Another quiet Sunday here (what else is new?). I’ve spent most of the weekend on the couch, read Elizabeth Chadwick’s The Champion, set among the jousting tournaments of the late 12th century. Very good, as always from Elizabeth Chadwick. Also read this week were Last Night in Twisted River, by John Irving, and The Scapegoat, by Daphne Du Maurier.

This weekend I’ve also been watching the BBC production of Lark Rise to Candleford (based on the Flora Thompson book from the 1940s), Season 1. I’ve only watched two episodes thus far, but it’s a lovely, bucolic look at a girl’s childhood and the turn of the last century. I've not read the book, but I have it on order from Amazon as we speak.

Other than that, I don’t have much to report. How was your week?

Comments

Judy Krueger said…
My week of reading has been mostly good. My review of Wolf Hall appeared on BookBrowse.com. After re-reading Oryx and Crake last week, I finished Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood. Both are great. It was spooky to find Oryx and Crake so much more real only 6 years later.

I also finished Mudbound by Hillary Jordan feeling badly disappointed. Just a story, no magic. Now I am well into Sara Paretsky's 7th V I Warshawski novel, gradually working my way through all her books. She is one of the A-list feminists in my opinion.
Liz said…
My week of reading has been OK -- finished a Philip Margolin and started the latest Spenser from Robert Parker which I'm speeding through. Also reading a very fun book that explores the Nobel Prize experience -- "Reindeer With King Gustaf" by Anita Laughlin, whose husband Bob won it. It chronicles what happens AFTER the phone rings (which it did in 1998 for this family). Turns out you just don't show up in Stockholm -- there's tons of preparation involved -- they even went to the White House for a formal reception with Bill and Hillary -- and all the winners get to have an intimate dinner with King Gustaf in his palace. (The author was the king's dinner partner and the evening included reindeer; hence, the title.

Think Obama is going through this prep now? Anyway, it's fun. I also liked how she talks about being married to a Nobel laureate as challenging, because the spouse tries to minimize distractions so the smart person can focus. In this case it was on mathematics -- I can safely say that in MY house, NO ONE is focused on mathematics...

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