A puzzling book which I really enjoyed. I’m still not sure what it has to do with Jesus, and it ended abruptly. A man finds a lost boy on a ship to South America and takes him to a new life. But he is really the lost boy, and cannot find his feelings or emotions, either with the boy or the boy’s mother. They place him in a weird Music and Dance Academy where he soars, only to be involved in a brutal murder of his adorable teacher by his adored friend the janitor Dmitri. The novel explores, but doesn’t finally resolve the need for forgiveness.

On Kindle. Married woman flees with her kids to Alaska. Perhaps a film that became a book? I see I’m only half way through, which is good, because I can go back to it.

I loved it. Read it in Cedars. We shared a little email exchange about the effects of meds on reading. Oddly afterwards I think he was right. Don’t trust your reactions on meds. When I returned to it I couldn’t get into it again so much and I’m, not sure whether the meds had changed my reaction or whether they had caused me to enjoy it more. Published November 2016. Found a signed edition.

Hadn’t read it in a long time and it made me chuckle. On my I Phone. Trying to decide whether to do a reading of it. Happy to find it funny.

Timely re-reading of this touching story of redemption. Find the child. Even Scrooge comes from some unhappy childhood. His emotional connection with his past as we see how he got to be him, prepares him for his great moment of reconnection with mankind. Has led me into Oliver Twist.

Watching a bad movie adaptation by Amazon led me to the original. Was it really about the effect of the Nazi’s on the Studios in Hollywood? Of course not. But after the elegant opening of the book I was struck by how unfinished it was. And how far from being a masterpiece it is. I used to like it a lot. This time I didn’t. Two previous readings. Previous: Sept 2010  •  THE LAST TYCOON by F. Scott Fitzgerald Read on the plane flying from London to LA. Interesting because of the notes and the insights into how much work he put into constructing his novels and characters. His writing seems to come effortlessly to him but here we see that there is indeed a great deal of effort in it and he is harshly self-critical. He writes “Only Fair” opposite one paragraph. These notes in many ways are more valuable than the unfinished novel because they show the artist in mid brush stroke. The only thing I don’t find convincing on re-reading is the narrator – the female character Cecilia. Does he ever try and inhabit another female narrator? She doesn’t really come alive for me. I still love the Pat Hobby stories for the shabby view of Hollywood, but here you see that Fitzgerald was seen and appreciated for what he is when he first went to Hollywood. Stahr really knows him and admires him.

This time on Kindle. I liked it. Then I thought the Fagin portrait was really anti-semitic, then I switched to

When I realized if I was going to re-read Dickens, I’d want Bleak House or Dorrit.

I had a good read of this. It’s covered in highlights and I need it again as I’m taking up Act Two of the Universe.

A surprisingly good read. Surprising, not because he isn’t good, he is, but I didn’t think he’d grip me with a yarn about a Papal election. But he did. I loved it.

A true story about an arsonist amongst the Napa vineyards, the emergence, growth, survival and rebirth of California wines. Interesting. He destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of vintage wines.

Sending out for emergency supplies on Amazon, this is a beauty book of short stories by a wonderful writer who I discovered this year. I love it.

Here's what I have selected to send to selected friends. I get them packaged with brown paper and ceiling wax sent from Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights / in Bath. https://www.facebook.com › Places › Bath, United Kingdom › Book Store ENDING UP  by Kingsley Amis DYNASTY  by Tom Holland MAIGRET GETS ANGRY  by Georges Simenon MADAME MAIGRET'S FRIEND  by Georges Simenon THE PIGEON TUNNEL  by John Le Carré NUTSHELL  by Ian McEwan THE HOTEL ON PLACE VENDOME  by Tilar J. Mazzeo ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE  by Anthony Doerr THE ORPHAN MASTERS SON  by Adam Johnson DEAD IS BEST  by Jo Perry

A fine novel, really nine interlinked short stories, about the frustrations of man. From all ages of men, with their disappointments, hopes, dreams and lives exposed as nothing in the stream of time. The book is carefully and cleverly worked, and features many European scenes, which somehow all link with a rather bleak view of man, and men, cars, transport and modern life. I read most of it before I left but read it all again on my return. He really is very good.

The Queens are Catherine de Medici and her daughter Marguerite de Valois (married to Henri 4). Amid the madness and the religious and sibling rivalries of a French court, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in Paris in August 1572, after Marguerite’s forced wedding, here laid very clearly at the door of Catherine, ran the streets of Paris red with Huguenot Blood, and would lead to years of chaos and warfare. Well told narrative of a period I find fascinating.