He/him. Living and working in Melbourne Australia. Aging, with a lifelong interest in reading but not many books actually consumed these days. Would love to recapture the voraciousness of my youth.
Mastodon: @gerg@hachyderm.io
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8% complete! gnewt58 has read 2 of 24 books.
This is a beautiful homage to rural life and the mid 20th century residents of the Apennines, as much as it is a war story. Newby evokes the spirit of the farms, homes, woodlands and peaks until you can feel the smoke smarting in your eyes, and draws the inhabitants with equal skill. Highly recommended
gnewt58
boosted
[on the history of “ginger”] • In the early eighteenth century horse dealers discovered that inserting ginger into a horse's backside made him sprightly and hold his tail well. According to Francis Grose's CLASSICAL DICTIONARY OF THE VULGAR TONGUE (1785), the original term was to feague a horse. (Grose adds that, before ginger was thought of, an eel was reputedly used for the same purpose.) Not surprisingly, to feague was eventually replaced by a new coinage, to ginger, which appeared in print in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. This verb, often with the particularly appropriate addition of up, was soon figuratively extended to mean 'to liven up', and in this sense is now a common colloquialism.
— Dictionary of English down the Ages by Linda Flavell, Roger Flavell (Page 69 - 70)
I have so many questions.
Priest had such a vivid imagination. This is shaping up as a great read...
Content warning Slight plot reveals
Originally published in 1933, this book is set at a murder-themed country house party that goes wrong (or is it right) when one of the guests is found dead. The characters are variously painted as vain, weak, alcoholic, stupid or selfish but all are willing to commit perjury to protect one of their own. A deserving victim for whom justice is not done, and a neat ending twist made this an entertaining read.
Murder Against the Grain won the Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger Award in 1967.
> …
First in a long and well respected series but a little dated, which given my recent reading history is an odd thing for me to say. I'm unlikely to follow the sleuthing banker any further...
Murder Against the Grain won the Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger Award in 1967.
> …
Slowly bringing my reading towards the 21st century...
Murder Against the Grain won the Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger Award in 1967.
> When a million-dollar bank robbery …
>>He could feel it in the blackness, a difference in atmosphere, a sense of …
A tale of muddy moors, muddy towns, muddy people living lonely depressing lives (and deaths). A grim alternative picture to the Yorkshire of "All Creatures Great and Small"
>>He could feel it in the blackness, a difference in atmosphere, a sense of …
A tale of muddy moors, muddy towns, muddy people living lonely depressing lives (and deaths). A grim alternative picture to the Yorkshire of "All Creatures Great and Small"
>>He could feel it in the blackness, a difference in atmosphere, a sense of evil, of things hidden.
>Amy …
