You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion

One of the group reads for August is Remarkable Creatures. Please discuss the book in this thread.

Christina will be leading the discussion (with helpers).

In order to receive a badge you must:
1. have read the book before or during August 2021.
2. discussed it in this thread. Discussion must be more than "I read the book and I liked it". Discussion requires something more substantial and analytical of what you read, for example, thoughts, opinions, impact it had on you, what was your favourite part, was it what you expected it to be like etc. You may also like to review the book and post a link to the review in this thread. Please refer to our group spoiler policy for further information.
3. Report that you have read AND discussed the book in the reporting thread (include a brief summary of what you thought of the book).

A note on discussion: Discussion must be more than "I read the book and I liked it". Discussion requires something more substantial and analytical of what you read, for example, thoughts, opinions, impact it had on you, what was your favourite part, was it what you expected it to be like etc.

In addition to this, the group reads are meant to be a "read along" so it is preferable that you discuss the book as you read rather than wait until you've finished the book.

And finally, discussion is not about just listing your thoughts. Please interact with the other group members, comment on their thoughts, and if they comment on yours, respond to them. This is what makes a good book discussion!

You may also like to review the book and post a link to the review in this thread.

Please refer to our group spoiler policy for further information.

General Rules:
1. Please mark your spoilers with the spoiler tags along with mentioning what stage of the book you are at so other's don't get a nasty shock. Chapter numbers/titles are generally best as they are the same across all formats and editions. See our spoiler policy
2. The book may be combined with the Year Long Challenge, Topplers, and Monthly Challenges.

Happy reading!

I will be getting started this evening. I am looking forward to it.

I’ve read the first chapter. I need to look back at all the book marks now, then I can post. 😊

Am I the only person that doesn't like it when there is a change in POV? First Chapter is very short and uses "I" for Mary Anning. Second Chapter uses Mary Anning and I, refers to someone yet unknown.

I'll start later today.

I will be listening to the audio and there's only one narrator which doesn't bode well. I don't mind multiple POVs if there different readers for each. I hope that there is a change in accent or I'll be very confused 😕

I'm at the end of Chapter 2 and have to say the audio is great. Completely different voices/accents for each of the two characters. I love the premise (view spoiler)[ the female members of a genteel family having to move to a smaller (cheaper!) town when the son of the family marries is straight out of a Jane Austin novel, or indeed is a mirror of Austins own life. I mean, they are so poor they only have one servent to look after all three of them LOL

The two MCs are so different in terms of age, class, education etc, the only thing they have in common is an interest in fossils.

So far I'm hooked. I'm really enjoying the descriptions of everyday life in a 19th century, English, seaside town.

(hide spoiler)]

I do not mind different POV as long as it is not so hard to pick up the change. It slows things down for the reader and makes it harder to blast through the stories. I picked up my tablet to check back into the story. I have been reading print copies the last several books.

I did not realize that I had read so far after I downloaded my audiobook. I see that I made it into the first break in chapter four. There are eight bookmarks in chapter two. I remember that I kept thinking “who is I?” I could not remember Elizabeth’s name. Honestly, I don’t like her all that much. Her comments about “common people”.

I am going to have a hard time reporting where I am. The table of contents in the ePub version does not give page numbers for the chapters, only the number of pages in each chapter. I am currently in chapter four at the section that begins AFTER ENCOUNTERING THE SKULL, which is listed as 17 of 41. Chapter two was 44 pages long and chapter three was 28.

I spent a lot of time looking up where Lyme Regis was and looking at pictures of ammonites. I did know what they were but I did not know what the golden ones were.

After making it through Elizabeth’s POV, it was a wrench in chapter three, when it was Mary speaking. That took a little getting used to. At times she feels very provincial and other times, very sophisticated. It feels like the present as she is telling her story and then all of the sudden like she is looking back. Maybe it does for Elizabeth too, but I did not notice it. I will watch.

edited 3 Aug

I am reading an ePub ebook, not listening to an audiobook.

I have a really hard time imagining living in this time in history when single women were considered spinsters at twenty, if they were not married and had to be supported by a male family member (if they were lucky enough to have one that was willing and wealthy enough). It is unimaginable that they could not work.
Ch 2(view spoiler)[ It seemed cruel that John and his wife would not keep Margaret with them, instead of sending her off with Louise and Elizabeth to Lyme Regis where she had little prospect of gaining a husband. (hide spoiler)]

Ch 2. This statement just killed me! (view spoiler)[”Morley Cottage was a lady’s home, the size of a lady’s character and expectations. “. Also “It is so tedious being a lady sometimes.” (hide spoiler)]

Ch 2 re Richard Anning (view spoiler)[ Elizabeth says she took against him from the start because he did not set down his brush (he was varnishing a small cabinet. Obviously, she did not know anything about woodworking because she would have known that he could not just stop in the middle. She should have waited for him to be done before accosting him in his own shop. (hide spoiler)]

Ch 2. Re Mary Anning (view spoiler)[”How can a twenty-five-year-old middle-class lady think of friendship with a young working girl?” What a conceded woman Elizabeth was! Bessie is even worse! She WAS a working woman but considered herself above Mary for being dirty and poor trader girl. (hide spoiler)]

Re the curiosity cabinet (view spoiler)[ I had to look up the difference, money wise, between a guinea and a pound. (I thought a guinea might have been 5 pounds.) A guinea is one pound and one shilling (21 shillings) or one pound - five pence to understand. Anning counter offer was one shilling less. One shilling is 12 pence. I want to scream! (hide spoiler)]

Cherie wrote: "After making it through Elizabeth’s POV, it was a wrench in chapter three, when it was Ann speaking. ..."

I haven't been paying proper attention - Who is Ann?

I looked at pictures of Lyme and ammonites too Cherie. I have a vaugue recollection of a school trip when I was about 10. I always loved natural history.

I've got to the end of chapter 4
(view spoiler)[ The attitudes of the men in the story infuriating, they are all so certain that their views are right about history, religion, social convention etc Their isn't one pleasant male character in the story so far.

Elizabeths ideas about "common people" are, sadly, a product of the age she lives in, in fact I think she would be considered progressive for associating with Mary. She occupies a higher place in society just as his Lordship is her better. Everyone knew their position.

It was such a waste of intelligent women that they couldn't work are even share the same interests as men. Elizabeth would have made a great scientist.
(hide spoiler)]

Cherie wrote: "Ch 2. Re Mary Anning [spoilers removed]

Re the curiosity cabinet [spoilers removed]"

Enjoying your frustration Cherie! (view spoiler)[ I never got my head around old money. Luckily for me we went decimal the year I started school (hide spoiler)]

Chapter 5 (view spoiler)[ Jeepers, I've just watched some online clips and those land slides are scary! Poor Mary thought she was finished and Capt Curie is no more. That experience would put me off beaches for life put I have a feeling Mary will keep on as normal. (hide spoiler)]

Margo wrote: "Cherie wrote: "After making it through Elizabeth’s POV, it was a wrench in chapter three, when it was Ann speaking. ..."

I haven't been paying proper attention - Who is Ann?

I looked at pictures..."

It is not you, Margo. It was me. I meant Mary when I mentioned Ann in my message 9 post. I edited my remark.

Margo - I agree with your chapter 4 spoiler about the men and Elizabeth's attitude. :o)

I was shuffling books around in my bookcase trying to find a cover with a guy with a beard and guess what I found?

Yes, indeed, a hard copy of Remarkable Creatures. I bought it at a library sale for $2.00 - who knows when? The cover has an embossed ammonite on it. I guess I can send my ebook back to the library. 🤓

I also found that I have three other hc books on my shelf by the same author. 🙄

Wow... ! I keep a small shelf. I will be reading on it tonight. I was bad and start "another" book knowing that I had this one and Silence Lake to start... smh

*** Lake Silence

Cherie wrote: "I was shuffling books around in my bookcase trying to find a cover with a guy with a beard and guess what I found?

Yes, indeed, a hard copy of Remarkable Creatures. I bought it at a library sale ..."

Lucky find Cherie! Her books seem to turn up in a lot of Audible sales so I own a few.

@Christina, I have 4 books on the go at the moment, I don't know 8f I'm coming or going but this is the one I'm most invested in.

I have finally finished chapter 2. (view spoiler)[ Poor Margaret... it is a good thing that I don't have to rely on my family for a good impression for anything.. lol. I was expecting Mary to be so young. She seems like a very interesting young lady. (hide spoiler)]

The 2 MCs are so different from each other aren't they? A very unlikely friendship. (view spoiler)[ If I were to change places with one it would be Mary. For all her families poverty she has so much more freedom than Elizabeth (hide spoiler)]

Cherie wrote: "Ch 2. Re Mary Anning [spoilers removed]

Re the curiosity cabinet [spoilers removed]"

I didn't know that about varnish either. So okay, that makes sense. Thank you for putting that information out there.

I just finish chapter 3.. (view spoiler)[ Captain Cury may not be a "nice" person, but he just proved that he isn't a complete A-hole either. Mary got away with a scary ordeal. Now I am just wondering what they are gone to dowith the part they did get cut out. (hide spoiler)]

Christina wrote: "Cherie wrote: "Ch 2. Re Mary Anning [spoilers removed]

Re the curiosity cabinet [spoilers removed]"

I didn't know that about varnish either. So okay, that makes sense. Thank you for putting that ..."

RE varnishing - You have to keep a wet edge going as you make your brush strokes, or you get streaks in the varnish and you have to re-sand and start over, if you want a good finish. It dries very fast, and if you put your brush down, it dries like a rock. If you don't clean it immediately, while it is still wet, you might as well throw your brush away. Brushes were very expensive - good ones still are. The synthetic varnishes today are a lot more forgiving, but varnish back then was "mix your own", from dried materials reconstituted with mineral spirits. Varnishing requires almost a clean room atmosphere to get a good finish, so maybe Anning was not so fussy about it, given Elizabeth's description of his work room. I would have locked the door.

Of course, just as I log out of the website, I realized that I had more bookmarks to check in chapter 2.

Re Mary (view spoiler)[ Elizabeth was lucky to have Mary to show her the “ropes” of collecting and where to look and have her as a companion. It is good that she had an inmate sense of the tides and her surroundings. It wouldn’t be so easy for Elizabeth to climb up the cliff face if she got stranded out by the water. That Lord Henley guy is a jerk! I did feel sad for Margaret over Henry Foot. (hide spoiler)]

Ch 3 (view spoiler)[ I could not imagine Mary thinking it was okay to take the baby out on the beach, but, I understood her dilemma. Captain Curry is another jerk - but a dangerous one! That was a tight squeak for Mary and Captain Curry not getting caught in the landslide, even if Mary had been trying to do him harm. (hide spoiler)]

Cherie wrote: "Ch 3 I could ..."

(view spoiler)[ I don't think she was trying to do him harm as much as trying to protect her territory. He was always following her and claiming her finds as his own. A mobile phone would have made her life a lot easier lol

(hide spoiler)]

Cherie wrote: "Christina wrote: "Cherie wrote: "Ch 2. Re Mary Anning [spoilers removed]

Re the curiosity cabinet [spoilers removed]"

I didn't know that about varnish either. So okay, that makes sense. Thank you..."

I didn't realise that varnish in those days was so unforgiving. Like E, I thought that Richard was a a bit of a jerk for not greeting her - now I just think he's a bit of a jerk for not explaining himself!

I finished the book last night much to my own surprise as I hadn't realised it was so short.

(view spoiler)[ I thought it was cleverly written with the parts that the author couldn't have known too much about always written from the other persons POV e.g. Annings relationship with colonel Birch. Overall though I think I might have preferred a non fiction version of the tale because I spent a lot of time wondering what was based on fact.
As a story it was slow moving and character focused, usually these would be words of high praise from me, but I felt it was somehow lacking. It's a balancing act to write hist fiction about real people and still put enough emotion into them to make the reader care. In this one I don't think Chevalier quite managed it as I was never 100% invested in the story.

The audio, by Hattie Morahan, was really great and I enjoyed listening. If I had been reading I'm not sure I wouldn't have ditches it in favour of a factual version.

The end of the book: I was very happy that Elizabeth made the trip to london to stand up for Mary's good name. Those men were so pompous but that was par for the course in those days. It is only recently that equity laws in my part of the world have made "men only" clubs illegal while in other parts of the modern world such things would still be taken for granted.

I'm glad that Mary and Elizabeth ended up friends. I saw online that Mary died when she was only in her late 40s. Sad loss to the scientific world, although they wouldn't have viewed it that way!

(hide spoiler)]

Cherie wrote: "I’ve read the first chapter. I need to look back at all the book marks now, then I can post. 😊"don't mind the point of view changes. I usually prefer a more linear book. I prefer stories to be told in a line like pattern.

I finished this a while ago. I loved the friendship aspect of the book

Chapter 4 (view spoiler)[ I couldn't agree more about the male characters, but it sure got a emotional reaction out of me when he referred to women as spare parts.. lol. I could of shown Elizabeth how to really cuss (hide spoiler)]

Christina wrote: "Chapter 4 [spoilers removed]"

Yeah that Paster (or whatever he was) was the worst!

Oh! It looks like my spoilers are messed up.. I’m sorry.

I just got onto the mobile app to update my status before going to bed. I will fix them first thing in the morning!!!

I'm starting this today. I'll read spoilers and comment when I'm back home later this week.

Yay Peggy!

I fixed my spoilers.

Margo - re my Chapter 3 spoiler about Mary (view spoiler)[ No, I do not think she meant any harm to the baby, just that she might have just left him in bed with her mother. I totally understood why she needed to go out with her brother to protect their find. (hide spoiler)]

I am still in Chapter 4 re Mary's mother (view spoiler)[ Molly? was a surprise when she talked to Lord Henley about the head of the fossil and intimated that they had a Shop. There were a few other points about her and her house keeping in this section, but I do not have the book in front of me. Something about Bessy always keeping food (bread and jams) on the shelves vs what Molly Anning had on her shelf. If you have no money to buy ingredients, how could she have bread on the shelf, etc. Elizabeth seems to not realize how poor they are compared to what she and her sisters have. (hide spoiler)]

Cherie... re chapter 4... but I am currently in chapter 5
(view spoiler)[ I got the feeling that Molly was a weak woman... then it keeps getting mentioned that so many of her babies died including the one that she just had... and then it hit me that she was in mourning. It took her a long time after her husband dies. After all that loss it would probably be hard to keep going. Then when she stepped up... I admired her. So strong. (hide spoiler)]

I ‘m going to try to finish chapter four before I crash for the night.

Christina wrote: "Cherie... re chapter 4... but I am currently in chapter 5
[spoilers removed]"

that's a good point Christina. (view spoiler)[ we don't see much of her in the early chapters and start to think of as a non entity. Of course she was in morning. (hide spoiler)]

Cherie wrote: "I am still in Chapter 4 re Mary's mother [spoilers removed]"

(view spoiler)[ Yes, I think it came as quite a shock to her when she realised how poor the Annings actually were. Mary must have been good at keeping up appearances. I suppose she had to seem "respectable" to deal with clients and her pride made her keep up a good front with Elizabeth. E obviously wasn't very observant when it came to non fossilized matters!
(hide spoiler)]

I think it is interesting why and how the four "collectors" approach the fossil business and why. (view spoiler)[ Captain Curry is in it only for the money and will do anything to get his hands something, the easiest way he can. It does not appear that he does a lot of cleaning, but we do not know. Mary is in it for the money, but also for the wonder of it, and she seems to enjoy the process of finding and cleaning - shown to her by her father. Elizabeth is in it for the knowledge. She only wants whole, showable things to keep as a collector, but she wants to be part of the science of it all. Lord Henley is in it for the honor of having his name associated with a find - because he can and because he feels that the fossils are found on his land, therefore his property. I wonder what he sold Mary's find to the museum in London for? Elizabeth is frustrated by all of the "junk" stuff that Mary squirrels away. If Leaky had decided that the bones he found of Lucy were only junk finds, we probably still would not know of her. Pieces lead to other things, I think. (hide spoiler)]

Re Molly (view spoiler)[Yes, at first I thought she was weak, but I understand now that she was still in mourning and having a new baby and Mary and her brother to take care of with no prospects of any money would have been crushing. I wonder if she and Elizabeth could ever be friends or see eye to eye regardless of their circumstances? (hide spoiler)]

Cherie wrote: "

Re Molly [spoilers removed]"

Nice analysis of (view spoiler)[ the the motivations of the different collectors.

I think Elizabeth would have appreciated Mollys shrewdness but she was too conscious of class to ever have regarded Molly as a friend. With Mary, their mutual love of the hunt may finally overcome their social inequality, they are fellow scientists, where as Molly is a mere tradespeople :-)
(hide spoiler)]

Cherie wrote: "I think it is interesting why and how the four "collectors" approach the fossil business and why. [spoilers removed]

Re Molly [spoilers removed]"

Leaky? Lucy?... I might not be that far yet.

But yes that is interesting how they all want the same thing for different reasons.

Just finished chapter 5... (view spoiler)[ I don't know why I am so sad about Captain Cury, but I am. Fanny and Mary just weren't meant to be friends... some sort of devine intervention. They were actually having funny when tragedy struck.

Mary was right though... there must be quite a few crocs in those cliffs. (hide spoiler)]

Christina wrote: "

Leaky? Lucy?... I might not be tha..."

I didn't recognise those names either but I put it down to my aging brain LOL

Christina wrote: "Cherie wrote: "I think it is interesting why and how the four "collectors" approach the fossil business and why. [spoilers removed]

Re Molly [spoilers removed]"

Leaky? Lucy?... I might not be tha..."

Not in the book, Christina and Margo. I was not trying to confuse you. Louis Leaky was a paleoanthropologist. He and his wife discovered a fossil cranium in Etheopia. "Lucy" is the name of a partial skeleton of a female Australopithecus found in Ethiopia by Donald Johanson and his team . She was definitely not a complete skeleton (only 40 %) was all that I was trying to point out. If you look up her name on Wikpediai, you will see all of the few fossil bones that make up her skeleton.

Dang it Cherie... lol. Just spent the last 30 minutes reading about Lucy and evolution (which I don't believe in). It was an interesting read.