I finished West With Giraffes, and although it took a while to get into it, I ended up liking it a lot, I mean, a LOT! :) I'm sure someone here mentioned it, so whoever it was, thank you! The historical setting is rendered so well - Dustbowl, Jim Crow attitudes, pre-interstate highways, train hobo traffic, and more. Then the intertwining of the 3 primary characters, even through the single POV of the first-person narrator, pulls the story together and drags you along. This one will stay with me a long time. Now I'm on to Death in Brittany, the first of the series mentioned by some of you in the Best of 2022 thread. Although the comments were for the most recent in the series, I like to start with #1 when checking out a new series. If I can finish it when it's due at the library next week, maybe I can start catching up with my borrowed books again. I've already had to renew Holton's Abigail Adams without even opening the cover yet. Tsk!

Just finished Tomorrow will be a Good Day by Captain Sir Tom Moore (although he wasn't a 'Sir' when he wrote it as he was knighted by the late Queen after the book was written) He came to prominence during the Covid crisis when he raised a huge amount of money for an NHS charity (approx. £32 million in, I believe less than a month) by walking 'laps' around his garden . . . at the age of one hundred, having recently broken his hip. The book follows what appears an 'ordinary' life. Brought up in Yorkshire with a keen interest in things 'mechanical' (cars motor bikes etc) which stood him in good stead during WWII where he served in a Tank Regiment out in India and Burma. Perhaps the most difficult aspects of his long life was his first marriage to a woman who would never let him touch her. A psychiatrist so-called helped her by getting her to run-away with him . .. a happier second marriage followed but this woman also developed serious mental-health problems. Despite these setbacks he remained positive always holding true to his motto 'Tomorrow will be a good day'. Short Video about Sir Tom Moore

I just finished Do Let's Have Another Drink: The Singular Wit and Double Measures of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother by Gareth Russell, and found it very disappointing. It's a kind of biography where the author has told anecdotes from each decade of HM's life, and several of them are quite interesting. But there is a lot of boring fluff, repetition and not much wit, I'm afraid. I think it could have been much better (the idea is quite good) in another author's hands.

i read The Stolen Marriage ( Diane Chamberlain) for book club. I was going to pass because it just didn't seem like my type of book, and the past few I've read have been really duds. Anyway it was available on kindle from the library so I tried it. I was so pleased at what a good read it was. It really drew me in and each time I read, I'd start to take a break and then think, well, maybe one more chapter. It was a very good mystery, historical fiction, romance, etc. All the things. It was a very "easy read" in that it was effortless to stick with it. There's definitely a lot to discuss, and the historical parts of it were very interesting. ( for starters, the polio epidemic, as well as WW2 and race relations in the south). I would have given 5 stars, but to me the ending was a bit forced and the few improbable pieces began to bother me more. So, I'd give it 4 stars but high 4 stars. I still would recommend it and am glad I read it.