Tracey > Recent Status Updates

Why persist in the childish belief that beautiful art must come from a beautiful soul?

- A very relevant quote these days

"Quiet people make me nervous"

As well we should.

"You'd have to try really hard" to cut yourself with a safety razor

The scar on my ankle begs to differ.

Oh, lord, more hideous offspring.

Dear authors: I don't want to have to endure fictional characters' evil children. If I want evil children I'll visit my neighbors. I don't want evil children in my life. I don't want children in my life. Make them go away.

Forget corporal punishment for this little toad, I'll murder him myself.

"Where were you yesterday?"
"What's it to you?"
"Is that polite?"
"Is it polite to be nosy?"
I gave up.

I'm ... sorry? You GAVE UP? This fictional kid is causing me to be utterly in favor of fictional corporal punishment. I'd love for him to be the next murder victim, please and thank you. My opinion of Goldy's backbone isn't any too high, either. It's usually the small fictional children who are most obnoxious.

"Your ex used your son to get your client list"

I really, really hate this kid.

"You can go now, Mom"

If I had EVER spoken like that to my mother, I wouldn't have set foot outside for at least a month. This kid is hideous. And Goldy takes it, every time.

"Do we have to talk about this?"

I like these books a lot, but the main character's son Arch makes me devoutly glad that I never had children. He makes me want to punch him in the face in nearly every scene he's in.

"The next time you eat or drink something delicious, pause and reflect on
what a life-enriching ability being able to taste is."

No. Seriously. Speaking from a place in which, at best, I feel like an oral anesthetic has been sprayed into my mouth - - pause and reflect.

I wasn't thinking about how interesting this book is going to be in terms of my current situation. Here is an exploration of how taste is sensed and transmitted to the brain - an ability that is sadly banjaxed in me these days due to chemo. Of the five basic tastes, salty is completely missing from my palate (ramen tastes like nothing); a great deal of sweet is tainted; the others are variable.

This hardly sounds like maximum security visitor protocol

Aaaannnd there goes that star

If this is Andreas, the damn book loses a star

"I'm not sure [Holmes] once presents a bill for his services"
Just as well, since half the clients who come to him for help end up dead

"[Fictional detectives] don't have to be attractive ... Lord Peter Wimsey, ex-Eton, ex-Oxford, is thin and seemingly weedy"
There writes someone who apparently never read Murder Must Advertise

Why do I get the feeling that "The Slide" is at least somewhat inspired by "The Casual Vacancy"? Except from what I can tell the latter is actually well written ...

I'm only a couple of chapters in and I've already wandered off to listen to other books. Not a good sign... but do I really care about negotiations to buy a coffee shop? Really?

No, not at all really...

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh.

As for me, I usually say "*&$@#&@^#$%!"

Things that were not remembered from childhood: Christopher Robin accidentally shot Winnie the Pooh.

<0.o>

Because sometimes grown-up comfort books just don't cut it

It's sort of appropriate to have started The Five Red Herrings on the anniversary of Culloden

Aw, they gave away the Mysterious Missing Item right up front, and removed the one reason I've ever had to feel smug while reading a mystery novel

"George went to Germany to study socialism"

OH DEAR

Oops - here Peter pointed out MIlligan's red-headed secretary before he found the hair on Levy's pillow. Pretty sure it should be 'tother way 'round

Ian Carmichael is utterly, completely, and wonderfully vocally perfect for Lord Peter. Accept no substitutes.

At the moment, I'm having a hard time with this, as a narrative of a great many silly people doing stupid, often cruel, things. I might have to jump over to one of the (many) other books I have in progress, but I'm losing patience with all of these twits, from Dickens to Marx to everybody who ever thought filling the Thames with sewage was a grand idea.

Dear lord, some idiot on Audible gave this a middling rating because ... it's British history. With which they were unfamiliar. Their three-star review is titled "British", like - that's what's wrong with it, it's British. I'm sorry - what part of "Thames" did you have trouble comprehending? I despair of humanity sometimes