Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?

I'm so glad everyone loves MMA by Dorothy L S. The poignant difficulties of actually making a living, and the freedom for the clever writers and artists, rings so true. Gaudy Night is also a rich cake of a book that never fails to satisfy. You need it at the end of the long story of Harriet and Peter, and you need it to be drawn out.

Anyone can have the harmony if they will leave us the counterpoint - is still one of the most romantic ideas I can think of for a marriage.

Rule is absolutely swoonworthy!

Oh goodness yes, the fight! And his secretary noticing the handkerchief tied round his arm!

swoon

Strap and jewel work, repeated Miss Thane, committing it to memory...

Rule and Horry are ridiculously adorable. So glad he managed to get used to the eyebrows.

Also the fight at the Inn is damn sexy

Have started to reread after this thread... laughing already! So many quotable bits in the first chapter alone.

'It would be absurd to pretend that either of us can feel for the other any of those passions which are ordinarily to be looked for in betrothed couples but -

Oh yes, it would! agreed Eustacie'

😂

I love the part in The Talisman Ring when Sarah is sneaking out of the inn and gets caught by the Bow Street Runners. She pretends it was a tryst with Sir Tristram and he has to play along.

Why shouldn't she hit Lethbridge with a poker? You don't like him. I don't like him.

I've never tried to talk to an eel. Isn't it a waste of time?

Love @merryhouse’s quotes! I have a massive soft spot for Sherry and Lady Sherry - as he grows up by looking after her - but the true hero of that book is Gil.

I also adore MMA. I can’t think of another book that nails office daily life so well. I spent all my earliest working years gossiping just like they do in the typists’ room. Still do, but the level of scandal has fallen off a bit now that people wfh more and we aren’t shut up together 9-5 Mon-Fri.

oh, and

I did it with BEES!

I hope you haven't tried champagne? it isn't that.

If it had escaped your notice, my dear Matthew, that his appalling brogue overcame him only when it had been made abundantly plain that his family held him in contempt, then I can only say that it did not escape mine.

I shouldn't make the smallest attempt to pull you back from that cliff edge.

You have your own armour, do you not, Frederick?

Miss Thane found that she had underrated her opponent.

I own, I would rather not have featured in your mind as the man with mumps

But it was Restorative pork jelly!

Don't you recognise a Bow Street Runner when you see one?

Ridicklus gudgeon!

I am quite in the way of running off to France with Rupert

I am not sure of my cue. Do I say Amen, or retire cursing? -
His eyes mocked, but the smile in them was not unpleasant.

Just reading Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals. The very down to earth Glenda has learnt long words such as 'lady's boudoir' by her illicit reading of historical romances - but isn't sure what it means 😂

Another LPW devotee here. I could read Busman's Honeymoon once a month and never ever get tired of it.

I also bloody love the Christmas scene in Appassionata by Jilly Cooper, when it all goes wrong but is amazing anyway.

And from Pratchett, Granny in the maze of mirrors.

And he didn't believe in a Headless Horseman 😮

I think it would have to be P&P for me too and whilst I love the scene you’ve mentioned, the one that really makes me snort with laughter every time is ‘There are few people in England I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.’ Partly it’s because it reminds me of my Mum 🙊

I love Murder Must Advertise.

I liked the legal details such as the info that "made WITH pears" means something different to "made OF pears".

The TV version is worth a watch. The camera work is shonky (zoom in on the catapult as It Is Significant, the boats on the Thames through the window of Charles' office are painted and the scenery rattles every time someone shuts a door), but it's still very charming.

My favourite scene from any novel is the opening one from The Yiddish Policemen's Union. So intriguing with all the hints of something strange and counterfactual going on. So noir!

I must re-read it soon.

How funny but those are the exact same two moments that stick out for me from Dahl's stories and I am fairly sure I only read the brain one once. (The leg of lamb one is quite famous I think)
I loved how the eye would narrow as she taunted him, it feels very mumsnet.

Love The Talisman Ring as well, and Sir Tristram - 'I wish you would get it out of your head that you are living in a romantic novel'

Or words to that effect 😂 must reread, he is very fanciable. Especially not wanting conversation at breakfast.

Lowering the tone a bit but two of roald Dahl's short stories

1. when someone kills their husband with a frozen leg of lamb. Then there is lovely scene where she cooks for the police (because it would be a shame to waste it) and they keep saying "the murder weapon must be here somewhere

2. an abusive husband that wants to keep his brain alive after death. So after he dies he is just a brain in a fish tank with an eye. His wife just keeps taunting him with obviously doing all the things he prevented her doing. Every day she blows smoke rings into his tank