Yes! I’ll definitely check out your review after I finish L&R. Your thoughts are always great. Thx

No, it was how McLain represented her. I explain it better in my review from last week. Maybe check it out after you read the book?

Hi Catherine, hmm. That makes me curious : was it the person (Gellhorn) that didn’t interest you as much as Markham? I don’t know much about Gellhorn going into McLain’s story — as I did Markham — whose books I had read beforehand. So I’m going in more clueless about her. I will see … Markham’s aviation & her bush pilot days still amaze me. I liked her way with animals too.

Hi Ti: You need to take it easy this weekend. Lupus must be rough; does any medication work? I have knee injuries from all the tennis I played as a kid and up to now. I’ve had a couple surgeries over the years. So I need to play in moderation now & ice etc. Getting older is not fun. hmm.

That opening shot you shared is just gorgeous.

As I type this I am totally wiped out but after Friday I should be good. I’m starting to be concerned about age and I’ve never been concerned about it before but with all the goes on and all that I have seemingly wrong with me, I just feel as if I recover from things all that well anymore.

Thanks Susie, Victoria is quite a neat place — and not too far from Seattle! It has the same foliage there, I noticed. Ha, I had to laugh about your My Ex Life episode — it does sound quite out of the blue. Perhaps the novel might appeal to you … or maybe not! You could’ve written this one, ha!

Hi Amy: It’s okay — I too think what Paula McLain does in her books — novelizing real people is risky. It’s doesn’t work for all readers or all of the time. I was sort of against it but then thought Circling the Sun was fine. I sort of treat it like an additional thing and realize it is often speculative about the people. For Martha Gellhorn and Beryl Markham — I can read their books in addition to McLain’s so I feel I get their perspective too. Hemingway apparently sounds like a terrible person but also a wonderful writer. Hmm. This complexity makes people still wonder…. about him.

Thank you for including books here that I’ve heard almost nothing about. I’m off to check out My Ex Life and The Optimistic Decade. (My Ex Life sounds a little like my own. After 15 years of rarely talking to my ex-husband, he showed up at my door one day wanting to be friends….it was weird!)