I found Five Red Herrings remarkably tedious - too many railroad timetables and Scottish accents! I think I might have liked it on audio better so I could just hear the Scots accent (which I love to listen too, just not read) and I’d have ignore the timetables anyway.
You can also go to the bottom of this thread and change unpinned to pinned.
I wasn’t really a fan of Gaudy Night. I liked her other stories more. I also enjoyed watching the movies after reading the stories. I was able to see them all at no charge on YouTube. The movies sometimes cut out parts of the book but were entertaining.
At the top of the page next to the title of this thread, there is a pin, showing this thread is pinned. When I get to the bottom, it tells me the thread is unpinned. And after noticing it was unpinned last night, I repinned it. Yet, this morning it is once again unpinned.
I guess I don’t understand why we have to go through all these hoops to ensure we see threads and new responses we want to see. It’s ridiculous to have some obscure setting buried in my profile. Even my bookmarks seem to be unreliable. In my profile, bookmarks do not match the bookmarks found on the main menu bar.
Ugh, I just tried to reference a previous post in this thread and noticed that since I am in the middle of typing a reply, the scroll bar and post numbers disappeared.
Sorry, did not mean to get off track on this thread. To get myself back on topic, I just finished the novel, The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare. It’s about a young Nigerian girl’s quest for an education, and the suffering/hardships she deals with on her path to fulfilling this dream. It was pretty good, a quick read.
Edited to add, I have pinned this thread three times while typing this response. Every time I have I go back, it is unpinned again.
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I looked for that but I can’t seem to find that option under the settings/preferences in my profile.
One of the reasons I’ve been trying to find this thread again is that I finally read “Anxious People”. I liked it very much, though as always I can see it would be easy to see Backman’s style as a little saccharine and a little coincidence-heavy–even as he talks a lot about terrible things that happen to people, and people who behave badly. He makes it all work for me–it has a strong emotional core, and a lot of good insight into how people are. And it’s often really hilarious.
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I was one who liked Anxious people, but agree that the “dark humor” may not be for everybody.
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I can understand that, I think it could easily be either your favorite or least favorite. It’s barely a mystery. It’s more a love letter to Oxford and scholarship and staying true to your values. Also Bunter is barely in it, so if you like the (almost) Bertie Wooster/Jeeves relationship (Lord Peter is much smarter), you’ll miss that. I’m actually not a fan of the mystery genre so the ones I read tend to be because I’ve gotten intrigued by the detective.
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I have read several of Backman’s novels and was looking forward to Anxious People. However, the dialogue drove me batty, especially the police interviews. I forced myself to continue and the only thing that saved the novel from being a total miss for me was the last maybe 25 pages or so where I thought Backman was so wonderfully insightful. For me, it was a slog to get there though, and I have mostly liked his other books.
Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I had been in a different frame of mind and maybe just was not in the mood for the type of characters portrayed this time around. That happens to me sometimes. If a friend asked whether I would recommend it or not (if we typically enjoy the same books), I would have to tell them they really need to decide for themselves whether they want to read it.
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I just finished this book. Definitely one of the best I’ve read during this year–one in which I have read a LOT of great books. So many passages of intellectual intoxication, just riveting.
ETA I guess I don’t understand how the new forum works, since this post appears detached from the one I was commenting on. Anyway, the book in question is “The List of Self-Destructive Acts” by Christopher Beha.
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Gaudy Night is without a doubt my favorite of Sayers’ books. ITA with your comments.
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It’s my fave too. I may have to start a reread of them!
Also, great to see you @Consolation!
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Everything about the movie missed the mark, IMHO, and the series does eventually become wearing in its repetitiveness.
BUT I have to say that the sequence that starts with acquiring a bag of dog poop from an old lady in the park and ends with the flaming carpet car is possibly the funniest thing I have ever read in my entire life.
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This is a great thread…but why is it pinned?
@skieurope I think this thread has always been pinned.
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I agree with Mathmom that this thread has always been pinned. Can it be re pinned?
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I agree - I am constantly referring back to this thread even when there hasn’t been an active post in days. With the new launch, we had the capability to personally unpin any pinned thread that we did not wish to see. Now suddenly, this thread has been unpinned with no warning. Why can’t users who do not wish to see it at the top just unpin it, rather than take that option away from us?
Additionally, unpinning this thread without warning users is a bit unfair. I did not have this thread bookmarked b/c I knew it was always at the top.
@skieurope Wouldnt it make more sense to ask users rather than just randomly unpinning it?
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The thread is active enough that it is on top. I fail to see why this warrants being pinned but binge watched TV shows does not. These sound like personal preference threads that are prime candidates for bookmarking.
Regardless, I kicked it upstairs for
them to determine.
It’s not the same, and this has lasted for what, thirteen years? Books are a more permanent thing. I’m not trying to be snotty, but television series come and go, and perforce they are a more ephemeral topic. The long-term popularity of the thread seems clear. Why NOT pin? Can’t imagine anyone will complain. Glad you kicked it up–hope they see the positive of doing so.
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