Lorraine Masch > Recent Status Updates

From Book 6, the diary entry February 1st, a classic Emma-ism quite relevant to our family:
"I sit at the very top of a fresh month with a choice before me.
One which very well may have an impact on the whole of my existence.
Which book do I read next?"

"The sense of being
which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from
things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them, and
proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life and being also
proceed." I will need to think about this for a few weeks....

Just started and had to note this charming observation: "when someone is lovely, the household staff may exchange happy glances regarding one’s sunny insouciance."
I never actually lol, but this was close.

So unusual in its POV!! I am very much enjoying the multiple voiced narration.
And just now I see that Mr. Saunders has written a new book due out this month called Vigil, which also contains characters who have passed. Interesting preoccupation.

Lastly, I have to take issue with the back jacket raves. These folks are raving mad: "It's an earthquake. A seismic shift in the world of publishing." No...no, it's not.
" ...something like if an art historian had written All the Light We Cannot See..." There is no comparison to that truly excellent and gripping novel. Zero.

To continue my rant, this book reminds me of The Wealthy Barber: Everyone's Commonsense Guide to Becoming Financially Independent, in which a barber explains to his successive customers the basics of investing, taxes etc. It's really a financial How To masquerading as a fun story. Mona is a perfectly good and thoughtful art history book, but not a novel.

I am disappointed in this book, and in Barnes and Noble for pushing it so strongly. I certainly read better books in 2025, so how it got to be their Book of the Year is a mystery to me.

It is really an art history text with a thinly veiled fiction overlay tying the discussion of each painting together. For 52 chapters. Rinse and repeat. I need much more space to say more....

Barnes and noble really pushed this book on me while I was shopping before Christmas. We shall see if my tastes align with theirs......

OK, this is not a fast read! Lots of lengthy period dialog, lots of very amusing characters and character names, making for a complex plot. Im enjoying, while I hope to finish by EOY.

Chapter 9 about the 11th European congress on menopause was completely outrageous. It took place in 2017, and all the speakers/doctors were male, and all focused on trying to restore the menopausal vagina to youthfulness - through hormone therapy and laser "smoothing" equipment. A complete denial of the normal aging process and lack of appreciation for reality. Inexcusable.

Drummond Fox was in the snow, with ghosts.

What a great chapter opening -- Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick...

Ok SOMEtimes judging a book by its cover works out REALLY well!!

Ahhhhhh, so glad to be starting a book i know i will like!!

Ok, pretty much ready for this to be over now.

On this page appears the following gem: "....she cursed me at such length and with such inventiveness that I had to check both my watch and my dictionary." An example of the "savagely funny" phrasing praised by the Wall Street Journal.

I was warned this book was "dense" and I agree. You need to absorb all the words and pay attention in order to grasp what's going on. But if you do, you find frequent clever turns of phrase and ironic, almost poetic use of words. I am a fool for that stuff. In a context of war, spying, torture, murder and double-agent plotting, it's a relief of some measure to come upon these apt, sometimes amusing little gems.

Yeah, so this one is good too.....

The suspense at this point is killing me -- when is the moment that this baby decides to interrupt the narrative be born?!?!! An awful lot of walking and etc going on at the 11th hour!

I just dipped into this book last night and found the opening to be surprising and lovely. Most would think of bees swarming your bedroom at night and buzzing in the walls all day as a horror beyond belief, but this young girl finds them to be a blessing and a wonder. This is bound to be an extraordinary book..... and now, for page 13!

"BECAUSE SLEEP WONT SEEM TO COME FOR HER AND FOLD HER IN ITS PLUMES." How beautiful is that?

Excellence surpassing my expectations!

I'm pretty sure at this point that this book didn't/doesn't need to be any longer than 300 pages. Yes, it aims to be 3 biographies in one, all to illustrate how Proust wove a character out of three real women, but i don't need to know the 6th-generation-deep pedigree of every friend and lover of each woman in order to understand the thesis!

Unfortunately I'm disappointed in this book. I expected to read Rickman's thoughts about his work and others', but it's more of a long appointment calendar. Very little color around the people mentioned, whom I don't mostly recognize by name. I probably won't finish. ☹️

Even more jealous of Tan, who persuaded hummingbirds to come to her hand feeder!! I have read a number of books on bird habits, habitats, song, communication and personality, but am still learning lots from Tan, who has simply observed!

Even more jealous of Tan, who easily persuades hummingbirds to land on her hand feeder!! I have read a number of books about bird habits, habitats, song, communication and personalities, but I'm still learning lots from Tan that she has simply observed!

I am loving every page. Also dying of envy! Wish I could spend my time watching and drawing the birds in my own backyard!