Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot - Week 138

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!
My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

I can't believe that my long winter vacation is almost over. Next week it's back to work and my motivation is quite low. I'd rather stay in hibernation for a bit longer ...

Picture by Sandra Seitamaa on Unsplash

How about you? Are you ready for the weekend?

As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week our spotlight is on Melody Jacob.

Melody says "My name is Melody Jacob, and I am a travel and lifestyle blogger in Scotland, United Kingdom. ... I take trips at least one to two times every week to nature reserves, castles, hiking spots, tourist attractions, and other places that catch my interest.
I love being in nature because it is the balm of the soul. I also love looking good, which is why I share my style preferences on the blog. I share tips on mental wellness too, and I am discovering more practical approaches as I travel and explore every day."

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Nancy's vegan minestrone looks so good!

We don't have cardinals over here, so I always enjoy pictures others share like Linda does here.

Wendy is sharing a recipe for whole wheat muffins which you can turn into pumpkin pie, apple pie or banana bread muffins.


Let's link up!

Guidelines:
This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.
Please link only blog posts you created yourself. Please link directly to the URL of your blog post and not the main address of your blog.
Please do not link to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos/shorts, Instagram or Facebook reels, TikTok videos, or any other social media based content.
Please do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment. 

Notice:
By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that the content is your own property and give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.
We welcome unlimited, family friendly content. This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more!
Thank you for linking up with us!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Silent movies - The Gold Rush

We don't have weather quite that extreme here right now, but it is still winter and the beginning of the year, so I brought you a film today which is set in the snow of the Klondike region and has a famous New Year's Eve dinner scene. It's of course Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush from 1925. Or 1942? Let's see.

Actually I watched two versions for this post both of which I hadn't known before.
The original from 1925 is longer and silent with intertitles, the recut from 1942 has some changes and instead of intertitles there is a musical score and a narration done by Chaplin himself.

As usual, I'll start with the plot (and spoilers).

Along with hundreds of others, the Lone Prospector (Chaplin's Little Tramp character) makes his way to the Klondike to find gold.

Surprised by a blizzard, he ends up in the cabin of Black Larsen, a wanted criminal, and soon they get joined by Big Jim, another prospector who has just found a big gold deposit. Larsen tries to get rid of them in vain.

When they run out of food and draw cards to determine who has to go out in the blizzard to find some, Black Larsen loses. Out there, he comes across the tent of two policemen looking for him and kills them.
Meanwhile, the little fellow and Big Jim go crazy with hunger. They eat one of the little fellow's shoes, but Big Jim gets delirious and thinks his friend is a chicken. Just in time a bear marches in and they have enough to eat.

Licorice and hard candy, just in
case you wondered like me 😉

When the blizzard is over, they part ways. The little fellow heads to the next gold boom town, Big Jim to his claim. There, however, Black Larsen, is waiting. He strikes Jim down with a shovel and makes off with part of the gold, but falls to his death in an avalanche.

In the town's dance hall, the little fellow falls in love with Georgia. In order to annoy Jack who makes aggressive advances towards her, Georgia asks the little fellow for a dance.

When they happen to meet again at a cabin nearby which he's watching for the owner, Georgia flirts with the little fellow and then invites herself and her friends for dinner on New Year's Eve.

The little fellow shovels snow to get the money for the dinner. He decorates everything nicely and falls asleep waiting for the ladies dreaming about the fun and laughter when he does his bread roll dance for them.

When he wakes up all alone, however, he goes to the dance hall where everyone is celebrating. Disappointed, he goes for a walk in the snow, so when Georgia comes to the cabin with Jack after remembering the invitation, he's not there.

Meanwhile, Big Jim has made it to town. Unfortunately, he doesn't remember the location of his mountain of gold after Black Larsen hit him with the shovel. So when he sees the little fellow at the dance hall, he drags him off to help him.
They find the cabin, but during the night it slides downhill in another blizzard and after half of it ends up hanging over a cliff, it's rocking dangerously.

They make it out just in time before the cabin falls into the depth.

As luck would have it, though, Jim's gold deposit is in that spot and they both end up as millionaires.
When they take a ship back home, reporters ask the little fellow for a picture in his old prospector clothes. Falling down some stairs because the photographer tells him to step back, he lands right next to Georgia who's also on the way back, looking quite disillusioned. She thinks he's a stowaway and tries to hide him. Her surprise and joy is big when not only the captain announces him to be a multi-millionaire, but also when the little fellow tells the reporter she's his bride.

Let's get to the plot differences first.

In the 1925 original, Georgia refuses Jack's kiss after they find the cabin empty but decorated, but later writes him a letter apologizing and telling him she loves him. Jack shows the letter to the others at his table laughing at it, then he has the letter taken to the little fellow just to spite Georgia. So when the little fellow tells Georgia he got her note, kisses her hand and promises her to make good before being dragged away by Big Jim, she is clearly confused what's going on. Only when she is afraid for him on the ship because she thinks he'll be put into irons, you can tell she has really feelings for him.

In the 1942 version, however, the note goes directly to the little fellow and only says that she wants to apologize and explain about New Year's Eve and there isn't a mention of a relationship between Jack and her.

The ending is also a bit different, in the original you see the little fellow and Georgia in a long kiss, in the recut they just climb the stairs arm in arm.

I think the first version adds a little more drama and the note seems to be giving the little fellow the motivation to go back to look for gold in order to be worthy of Georgia.
The note in the recut is a bit lukewarm and doesn't really say that much about Georgia's feelings towards him, so that makes his reaction to it look rather over the top.

To be honest, the romance is what I'm struggling with in this film, anyway. Jack is a bully and I don't understand why Georgia suddenly changes her mind about him (in the first version) and then changes her mind again, this time about the little fellow. At least she's not after his money when she tries to help him on the ship, but does she really know what she wants?
On the other hand, a happy ending usually makes me happy as well, and in this one Chaplin's Little Tramp gets a really happy one, his lady and a load of money on top.

"The Gold Rush" was Chaplin's own favorite and a critical and commercial success. It was inspired by pictures of the Klondike Gold Rush and a book about the Donner Party.
Now you may wonder what on earth could be funny about these two historical events, but Chaplin always managed to find humor in tragedy.
The film didn't make me laugh out loud, though, because I always felt that tragedy around the corner.
Take the Thanksgiving dinner with the shoe, for example. I enjoyed the way the little fellow celebrated the presentation of the "meal", but thinking about this being inspired by real events was also gruesome.

I also couldn't help wondering how cold it must have been for those dance hall girls in their beautiful but rather flimsy looking dresses, and seeing the little fellow in his usual outfit walking through the snow was funny, but also made me shiver (you may remember that I wondered about heating when I saw the huge castle in Doug Fairbanks's Robin Hood, too 😂). I just hate snow (except in pictures of lovely winter landscapes).
Of course, I was aware that those were studio scenes, but I think that rather speaks for Chaplin's talent at evoking the feeling of a harsh Klondike winter.
There were also some amazing effects, such as the rocking cabin or Black Larsen's death scene.

It's really no surprise that the movie has received such high praise and still does.
Of course, people are divided about the two versions, though.
If I had to choose, I'd take the 1925 version, but with the score of 1942. I didn't mind the narration as such, but I think Chaplin went a bit overboard with the pathos and he could have said less (maybe I'm really getting used to title cards?).

Why is there a recut, anyway?
Chaplin wanted to revive the film - as mentioned, it was his favorite - but knew that after talkies had been around for more than a decade now he couldn't just present the old version the way it was. So he tweaked and rearranged and modernized and added music and narration.
The 1925 version had entered the public domain in the USA because the copyright hadn't been renewed, but in the end it went into the trash. Only in 1993, film historians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill were appointed by Chaplin's heirs to reconstruct and restore it from available sources.

For people who shy away from completely silent movies, however, I think, the recut is a great choice. I know I have waited far too long myself, but I believe "The Gold Rush" is worth a watch by everyone who's interested in classic movies at all.

P.S. I'll deduct a point for bringing in a dog that suddenly disappears. That's too much tragedy for me.


Sources:

1. Fritzi Kramer: The Gold Rush (1925) - A Silent Film Review. On: Movies Silently, July 5, 2015
2. Jeffrey Vance: The Gold Rush. On: San Francisco Silent Film Festival, presented at the "Little Tramp at 100" event January 2014

How do you read your books?

It seems to be an endless discussion.
What does "reading a book" mean? Is listening to an audiobook even reading? Can an ebook give you the same feeling as reading a "real" book? Why do people who like print books mention the smell so often? And so on ...

First of all, this post is just about my own experience. You do your thing, I do mine, we can talk about it without judging one another, right?

The inspiration for the post was "The Case of the Silken Petticoat" by Christopher Bush.

Trying out a pen? Or was it a kid
(I have been guilty of drawing
into two books as a small kid, and I
wasn't a prodigy which could
excuse that, I can tell you.)

You may or may not know that I'm a librarian at the circulation department of a university library. I have seen books with as many marginalia as original text, books full of color (thanks to highlighting and underlining), loads of dog ears, coffee and other stains, ripped pages, but the worst was probably the acid victim (we have a chemistry faculty).
While I will never understand why people do that with books that don't belong to them, I get if people want to work with their books, add notes or highlight passages important to them - I made notes in my own copies of books we worked on in school - and I don't get grossed out by stains or foxing easily anymore unless they are really yucky or smelly.

I love print books. I love feeling the different kinds of paper. I love old books and if I had had a better experience at it during my first year of library training - which was neither my teacher's nor my own fault - I might have liked to try my hand at bookbinding.
I love marbled paper, gilt edgings and embossed book covers, sometimes with beautiful patterns. I love the uniqueness of a book and I can get excited over old journals even if they were about physics or chemistry.
And yes, I'm one of those who loves the slightly musty smell of old books, but I'm not a fan of active mold, that would be weird.
I still miss our old second-hand bookstore. The store still exists, but in a bigger space. The old one would probably be considered a fire hazard today with its narrow aisles, but for me it was like a beautiful book maze.

Over the years people have often tried to convince me to  listen to audiobooks or to read digitally. One of them was the ex who loved his audiobooks, but I got distracted way too easily (or even fell asleep, but I don't count that as a con because I have hit myself with printed books or my tablet more than once falling asleep) and he finally gave up.
A friend kept telling me that she could take hundreds of books on her vacation bringing her book reader, but I never understood why that is an advantage when I could just take one or two books along and have the perfect excuse to go to a bookstore during my vacation.

So why do I read a lot more books in electronic form now? There are several reasons.
I have sold books (not really worth the hassle for me), donated books to reading projects, and now I take books to our public book cabinet, but there are still so many in my library.
It may be an age thing that I don't really want to add that many to them anymore on a whim, but only those that I'm pretty sure I'll want to keep for some reason or other.

My solution was of course to get myself a library card which I didn't have for years because I preferred to own my books. As mentioned before, I don't get much out of the house anymore, though, and although it's embarrassing to admit, I haven't always been good at returning books on time, anyway.
So instead of borrowing print books, I'm mostly hanging out on OverDrive.

And then there's The Internet Archive where I have read quite a few books last year, among them the book by Bush.

My former boss would have
freaked out about this.
I can still hear him
"NEVER use ordinary tape
on a ripped page!!" As if
we would have dared.

I had noticed before that it felt differently to me if I read a book on The Internet Archive or on OverDrive, but I didn't try to analyze why.
This book has been the one looking the worst so far, and strangely enough that was what made me realize that if I have to read books digitally, I prefer reading digitized books over real ebooks.
It probably has to do with my being so old-fashioned in some regards. I said above that I love the uniqueness of books. Maybe you remember the post about the rose between the pages of a book? Sometimes I find myself wondering about the story of the specific copy. Why the rose? Why the scribbles in the Bush book?
Real ebooks don't give me such a feeling even if I change the font or the spacing or whatever. Accessibility, quick and easy word definitions, visual adjustments, I understand the advantages. Maybe one day, I can't do without them anymore and will be happy to have them, but that day hasn't come yet.

A friend of mine said: "I do all my reading digitally. It really started when I found it easier to focus on the words than in a  book." For me, it's the other way round. Digitized books give me at least a bit of that print book feeling which makes it easier for me to concentrate. And again - both is fine and it's great if we both get what we need to enjoy our reading!

Sometimes I miss not
having to stamp books
at work anymore 🙃

By the way, it even makes a difference for me which device I read on. I only got myself a tablet some months ago and I don't use it that often (yet?).
Having my laptop when I'm lying on my bed - where I do most of my reading these days, I don't have a couch - is often easier for me than having to hold the tablet because of my wonky thumb. Of course, I'm careful that it's not too hot.
The tablet obviously makes more sense if I already have a non-see through cat sitting or lying on my chest for some time (Gundel does it almost every day now and she doesn't care how comfortable or not it is for me which is okay because I'm here to serve my cats, their looks tell me 😂).

These days, I usually read three books at a time, by the way, a print book (still the best for me), an ebook, and a book I read to the cats which can be in print or electronic form.
That way I can pick what works best for me at that moment.

So - what's your personal reading experience and why?

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot - Week 137

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!
My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

I hope you all had a good New Year's Day!
Do you have any traditions for that day (that don't include getting chased by people wanting a tip, see yesterday's post)?
I mostly enjoy how quiet it usually is except for a few people using up their leftover firecrackers from the night before somewhere in the neighborhood which never fails to make either the cats or me jump which then makes the others jump 😄

Picture via pxhere

How about you? Are you ready for the weekend or are you still confused by all the holidays?

As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week our spotlight is on DIY Party Mom.

Kimberly from "DIY Party Mom" says "I love to have a good party. I love to plan a good party.
I was raised by the Queen of Party Planning herself and wish I had inherited even a little of my wonderful mother's amazing talent. But for what I do have, it is a work of joy and love. I began my business career helping that wonderful mother in her small candy business. It's hard to be a "little guy" in the business world these days, and we started making candy bouquets and wrappers to give her sweet store a personal touch.
It has bloomed from there.
I have discovered the joy of blogging as it gives me a SWEET outlet for crafting and party planning urges. Hopefully this blog will help you as you try to plan your own amazing party on a budget with a personal touch."

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Moois is sharing a museum trip with us and if you like the sea, you should really have a look!

Lynne shows us beautiful Christmas items she found during the end of season sales. There will be another tree next year after all.

Lisa reflects on her one word for the year 2025.

Look at this festive outfit, I just love black with red (and the Snoopy tie is perfect!).


Let's link up!

Guidelines:
This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.
Please link only blog posts you created yourself. Please link directly to the URL of your blog post and not the main address of your blog.
Please do not link to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos/shorts, Instagram or Facebook reels, TikTok videos, or any other social media based content.
Please do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment. 

Notice:
By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that the content is your own property and give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.
We welcome unlimited, family friendly content. This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more!
Thank you for linking up with us!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Silent movies - Buon Anno!

For today I managed to find a silent film which works perfectly as "Buon Anno" means "Happy New Year".
"Buon Anno" is an Italian short from 1909.
The "plot" - you can hardly call it that - is told very quickly.

New Year's Day. A man is getting
ready to go out and looking
forward to it. He has put on some
scent, has had his coffee, and
he's in a good mood.

Not even out of the house yet, he's
offered calendars by the servant
and the mailman who on this
occasion expect a tip.

The more people push for a
New Year's tip, the more aggravated
the man gets. The concierge gets a
tip, but he throws the calendar on the
the ground. At the café, he's so annoyed
that he knocks over the table. At the
barber's he shoves the two men.

In the street, he runs into more
people trying to escape the Happy
New Year wishes and they all chase
after him (turning this into a classic
chase film), even after the police
turns up to take him away.
He starts having hallucinations
about all those people carrying
calendars ... 

... and the images even follow
him to the police station.

Finally, he's allowed to go, but not
before one last calendar pops up.

On one page it said that "obsession lurks in the symbolic places of the bourgeois social ritual" and that "time doesn't stop and chases us everywhere".
Maybe I'm too simple a person, but I don't see this short as more than a man being annoyed by the tradition of people expecting a tip at certain times. I remember one time years ago when someone rang my bell on Christmas Eve yelling "Mail" only to then "notice" that they didn't even have mail for me. It was the first time they ever rang, and although I am usually a tipper, I was stubborn in that particular case. So I kind of get that the man was overwhelmed (who was played by Ernesto Vaser, one of the first Italian film comedians).

I like what I think might be a little homage to Georges Méliès near the end with the moon winking at the man over the dancing calendar leaves (done in stop-motion).

I wish you all a very Buon Anno, Frohes Neues Jahr, Happy New Year!


Sources:

1. JEC: Buon Anno ! (1909) Happy New Year. On: A Cinema History, October 2023
2. Museo Nazionale del Cinema: Restaurations - Silent Films - Buon anno!

My December books

Another year gone by, I can hardly believe it.
What better to end the year with, though, than a list of books. Here are those I read in December.
It's an overview of what I have finished in a month (not necessarily started in the same month) and what I have read to the cats (marked with 😸)
Have you wondered, by the way, why some of the pictures in my book posts look so professional and some not? Of course, I could always find pictures on the web, but doing it like this is a way for me to remember which books I read in electronic form, either from the library - professional looks - or on The Internet Archive - screenshots of the covers digitized from physical copies - or which books I read in printed form - those pictures are taken by me just holding them up. As I usually seem to finish books at night, you get the "reading lamp colors and weird angle look".
I will be adding a short explanation why I chose a book and possibly if it's a re-read candidate, but I'm usually not going to add real reviews or ratings (the cats also refuse to give ratings 😉). Should you want a personal rating for a book you are interested in, though, or a little more information, just let me know.


1. "Peter Cushing : An Autobiography" by Peter Cushing, first published in 1986 😸

"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on 'til you come to the end: then stop." What better advice than Lewis Carrol[l]'s when attempting to write a life story? However, since my life how I knew and loved it ended with the passing of my belovèd wife Helen, I intend to take this narrative no farther than that fateful Thursday in 1971, January 14th."

I have to admit that to me Peter Cushing has mostly been Van Helsing and Sherlock Holmes, I hadn't even seen him as Baron Frankenstein. This book covers his rather short Hollywood career - he chose to go back to England - and about his theatrical and TV and film career back home.
He also speaks about his childhood and youth and the times before becoming an actor and thoses when he "was resting" meaning when he was without an engagement.
In fact, he had to earn his living for a while by designing head scarves.
A big part of this book is dedicated to the love story of him and his wife Helen, though, which will not surprise you after the quote above.

2. "The Last Library" by Freya Sampson, first published in 2021

June is a library assistant who lives only for her books and for the small village library where her mother worked until her death.
Only when the council discusses closing down six village libraries including hers, she finds her voice thanks to the support from her patrons for whom the library is just as important as for her.

I read Sampson's second book last month, this is her debut novel. As a librarian, I was interested in this (in a very nostalgic way) although I don't work in a public library myself.

3. "Black as He's Painted" by Ngaio Marsh, first published in 1973
(Roderick Alleyn 28)

When Ng'ombwana's (a newly independent African republic) president Opala - who happened to attend the same public school as Alleyn and was a good friend of his - is about to come to London for a state visit, the Special Branch is in uproar because "The Boomer" (Opala's nickname at school) refuses all their security measures.
At a reception at the Embassy, there's an assassination attempt, but instead of the president the Ambassador is killed. 
Hampered by the fact that the murder has been committed on "foreign soil", Alleyn and his Special Branch colleague try to solve the case.

This is still part of my vintage crime project for which I keep getting books by Marsh and Allingham.
Although the book was easy enough to read, it was also tough because some of the speech hasn't aged very well, but part of that is actually needed for the plot.
There's one character I really liked and a cat for which I had to do a quick check of the ending (not the solution, though) after a few pages, but she's not only fine, she also plays an important role.

4. "The Art Thief" by Michael Finkel, first published in 2023

Within six years, Stéphane Breitwieser stole artwork from museums and fairs in different countries while his girlfriend Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus stood watch - even in crowded museums during the day.
Unlike most art thieves, however, Breitwieser didn't sell the sculptures, paintings, weapons, etc. He stole them for "his" collection displayed in the attic bedroom in his mother's house where they lived. The value of the stolen pieces from over 200 heists is estimated at around $1.5 to 2 billion.
When he got caught, his mother threw part of the collection into a canal and burnt the other part.

Another random find on OverDrive. I like watching art documentaries and have also seen several on art forgery and theft, but surprisingly - I watch most of them on our French-German TV channel - I hadn't heard about Breitwieser yet.

5. "Antarctica" by Claire Keegan, first published in 1999

The debut collection of stories by the Irish author, each one of them gripping you in a different way.

I found it as a new entry on OverDrive.

6. "Old Christmas : from the Sketch Book of Washington Irving" by Washington Irving, first published in 1875

These five sketches around old English Christmas traditions are from Irving's "Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." from 1820.
They describe the holidays as spent on a rural estate where traditions even older than from the 19th century are still observed.

When I did some research for my blog post about ghost stories at Christmas, I came upon this book and it made a quick seasonal read. The style is very flowery, but I quite enjoyed it in connection with the illustrations.

7. "The Secret Christmas Library" by Jenny Colgan, first published in 2025
(Happy Ever After series 6)

Mirren has already found a rare book once before. Admiring it at the British Museum, she meets a Scottish laird looking for a precious book in the crumbling castle left to him by his grandfather and gets hired by him to help in his search.

I found this one as a new entry on OverDrive and hoped for another quick fun seasonal read.
Instead, it was really close to becoming a DNF. Although I finished it rather quickly, I was annoyed with it all the time - the characters, the style (how often can you use the word "vast"?), the editing, and that it wasn't very Christmassy. I guess I hoped it would become better and then I was too far in to DNF.

8. "The Library Book" by different authors, first published in 2012

The book is a collection of 23 stories by writers about libraries or including libraries, depending on their being fiction or nonfiction.

This was a recommendation on OverDrive.
I was torn. There were some excellent essays, there were some quotes that really could have come straight from my heart (mostly due to nostalgia), but there were also some that were simply boring or repetitive (for example the everlasting "print or electronic" discussion, ok, so I prefer a printed book, but these days I read e-books as well because it makes access easier for me, isn't it important people read at all?).
Some have aged well, some not so much if you watch the development in the last few years (I'm talking book bans for example).
Of course I'm aware that most stories refer to public libraries in the UK and the danger of a lot of them being shut down at that point (I don't know how the numbers mentioned have changed since then).

9. "Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon" by Matthew Norman, first published in 2025

Grace - who has two children - and Henry have both lost their spouses.
Almost a year later, with the holidays approaching, their mothers try to bring them together. They are not ready yet, though, and become "grief partners" instead, bonding over a holiday movie marathon ... and some mice.

I found this one as a new entry on OverDrive and really enjoyed it.

10. "The Brits in Hollywood: Tales from the Hollywood Raj" by Sheridan Morley, first published in 2006
(updated edition, originally published as "Tales from the Hollywood Raj" in 1983)

Many British actors and actresses - mostly men, though -  went to Hollywood (even before it was called that) to make films there. Most of them had a theatrical background. Some stayed, such as Ronald Colman or Cary Grant, some went back home, some chose to go back and forth.
A nickname for them in the Golden Age of Hollywood was "The Hollywood Raj" (hinting at the "British Raj", the time of the British Crown's rule in India).

I heard about Dean Street Press from Liz from Adventures in Reading, Running, and Working from Home. When checking out their website, I found a few titles that looked interesting to me, among them film-related books by Sheridan Morley (this was not a Dean Street Press edition, though).
The book listed a lot of names of peoples and films not all of which I knew, but it was still an interesting read.

11. "Der Hyazinthen-Mörder" = "Singing in the Shrouds" by Ngaio Marsh, first published in 1958
(Roderick Alleyn 20)

A serial killer strangles women and leaves them behind with their necklaces torn and flowers strewn over their bodies.
His third victim is found near a cruise ship. Suspecting "The Flower Killer" on board because of a torn boarding card in the victim's hand, Alleyn joyns the cruise to investigate undercover.

This is still part of my vintage crime project for which I keep getting books by Marsh and Allingham (just four of the Marshs missing now!)

12. "From the Alps to the Dales: 100 Years of Bettys" by Annie Gray, first published in 2019 😸

Founded by a Swiss baker and confectioner in 1919, Bettys is a Yorkshire based family company famous not for only for their Yorkshire tea rooms, but also their products among which tea and coffee lie in the responsibility of their sister company Taylors of Harrogate.
The book tells their history from 1919 to 2019.

I have read all of Annie Gray's books that I own so far to the cats, but haven't convinced them yet to become food historians themselves as they are more interested in what's on their plates now.

13. "The Case of the Silken Petticoat" by Christopher Bush, first published in 1953
(Ludovic Travers 43)

Private detective Ludovic Travers is witness when a young woman storms into Café Rond and kicks well-known critic Clement Foorde in the shin over a review he wrote on Robert Ashman's book "The Silken Petticoat".
Some time later, Ashman is found drowned in a river and he's not the only body in this mystery which Travers has to solve.

I had never heard of Christopher Bush before - as far as I remember - when Liz from Adventures in Reading, Running, and Working from Home reviewed one of his books for a 1952 challenge. I found a few of his books on The Internet Archive and started randomly with this one.

14. "A Child's Christmas in Wales" by Dylan Thomas, first published in 1954 (as a book, it was a recording first) 😸

The Welsh poet's story is a beautifully told nostalgic memory of the Christmas of a young boy, the family gathering, playing in the snow, going carolling.

I hadn't known the story yet, it was mentioned in an article but it certainly evoked memories of past Christmases of my own. Reading it might become a Christmas ritual.

15. "The Women on Platform Two" by Laura Anthony, first published in 2025

Saoirse doesn't want to have children, her fiancé Miles does. After a negative pregnancy test and an ensuing discussion, Saoirse leaves to do some thinking and ends up on a train where she meets an old lady, Maura, who tells her the story of her best friend Bernie and herself in the Republic of Ireland of the 70s when contraception was still forbidden.
(TW: Domestic violence/suicide)

I think I found this one as a new entry on OverDrive.
While knowing about all contraceptives being forbidden in Ireland around that time, I hadn't heard about "The Contraceptive Train" before when 47 women's rights activities took a train to Belfast to buy contraceptives there which were illegal to bring back into the Republic.

16. "The Carlyles at Home" by Thea Holme, first published in 1965

"Home" was 5 Cheyne Row in Chelsea, London where the Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher Thomas Carlyle lived from 1834 to his death in 1881.
With him lived his wife Jane until her death in 1866. She was an avid writer of letters which allow us a look into the Carlyles' life from her point of view.

I found the book through a review by Liz from Adventures in Reading, Running, and Working from Home (whose ears are probably ringing by now).
While it was very interesting to read, for example how difficult it can be to find reliable servants (there's a lot of that), I went to hug my appliances and my cats afterwards. We three are lucky in many regards to live now instead of back then (because we are a spoiled lot).

17. "The Three Investigators in The Mystery of the Moaning Cave" by William Arden (the books were published attributed to Alfred Hitchcock), first published in 1968 😸
(The Three Investigators 10)

What makes a cave moan and why has it started again after 50 years? Is the legend about "The Old One" true and what about the rebel El Diablo, can he still be alive?
This time Jupiter, Pete, and Bob are on a case trying to help out the Daltons who own the ranch next to Devil Mountain.

I read this series a long time ago and am going through it again bit by bit after writing a blog post about it. This book is the tenth in the series.