What are you reading? (2026)

Not About Food
41

I am in awe of her spirit and dignity.

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42

My most recent read: Toni at Random by Dana A. Williams, about Toni Morrison’s career as a book editor at Random House.

Currently doing one of my occasional rereads of Persuasion.

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43

Yet another excellent essay.

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44

I’m working my way through Helene Tursten’s Swedish mysteries. I discovered her from reading An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good, and An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed, both of which I loved.

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45

I must recommend that to Mrs H. She is a big fan of elderly ladies taking no shit.

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46

Guilty by Definition by Susie Dent is an entertaining mystery set in Oxford, UK around the offices of the Clarendon English Dictionary (stand in for the OED). A main character’s sister died in 2010, and suddenly in 2023 the office is receiving elaborately encoded letters that might have clues about her death. Postcards received by many of the characters seem to be related to the letters. The scenes are woven into observations about lexicography and philology, and the city of Oxford itself. As a first novel it drags sometimes, but picks up quickly.

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47

Then she’ll love these. I’d read the Up to No Good One first though. Lots of no-shit-taking!

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48

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Almost finished with this, a whodunnit set in a TV news room.

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49

Late to the party!

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My son use to read his Alex Rider books

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50

All his mysteries are excellent. Magpie Murder series and Hawthorne and Horowitz (the author is a character in his own book). I think there is a new one this spring.

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51

I really enjoyed that mystery. Also recommend the Sally Smith Gabriel Ward series.

52

The Robert Taylor show introduced us to Mr. Johnson. On the page, Walt’s narration is comfortingly spot on.

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53

I’ve just finished Ruby Tandoh’s “All Consuming - why we eat the way we eat now”. Folk may remember her as a finalist in the 2013 series of Great British Bake-Off.

If it doesnt appeal, but the book title intrigues you, let me give you a one word summary of “why we eat the way we eat now”. Wait for it…

TIKTOK

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54

I can proudly declare that I’ve never made a TikTok recipe, and have zero plans to do so.

May just be my silly personal resistance to recipes in general, but TikTok is more for my amusement than any dietary considerations.

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55

Thanks for taking one for the team!

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56

Food for thought.

57

I recently finished the book “Take Your Breath Away” By Linwood Barclay. It’s a novel about a man whose wife mysteriously disappeared six years earlier. He sells their house, changes his last name and moves to a nearby town to start over again. After a six year absence his wife is spotted near their old house, which has since been torn down, and wants to know what happened to their house. She is also seen at a nearby grocery store and outside the hospital where her dying mother is residing. (I won’t say any more since it would be a spoiler.) I’m partial to mysteries but I must admit this book was a page turner and I spent the entire duration of the novel trying to figure out whodunit. I look forward to reading more Linwood Barclay books.

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58

For the moms here & all other women.

59

But….but…but what about the women who blame their own moms? (ducking) Just blame society.

60

I will assume that you haven’t actually read the essay, as it is about how it’s always just mothers who are blamed for how they raise their sons, not the fathers, or the patriarchal structure informing family dynamics.

You should read it.