I don't want to ruin every book you're going to read from now, but have you noticed they all have the word

[Cify]

Detritus.... in therm?

And now I've noticed it I can't stop seeing the word in everything I read.

And yet I've never heard a single friend complaining about the detritus in their kitchen.

Please tell me I'm not alone? Do you notice certain words or phrases (that people don't actually say in real life) being used over and over again in novels?

I think there should be a whole section of British Literature with sensible love affairs in drizzly climates. There could be many descriptions of hair running to frizz and the need to throw on a cashmere cardi.

In fact I think it rains all the time in the British part of The Muse - all very repressed-whereas in the other bit it's a very long, hot summer

Hotel du Lac is an almost entire novel set in drizzle wearing a cardigan.

And doesn’t it feel like it? I hated Hotel du Lac!

Brookner captures claustrophobic boredom in a damp cardigan rather well though.

Yes she succeeded in making me feel claustrophobic and bored, if that was the idea She sets the scene elaborately, unfortunately it was the scene for an awful lot of nonsense. It was the longest short book I’ve ever read, destroyed my summer holiday 2016 and I’ll never forgive her.

did you burn it?

Sounds like your summer of 2016 was indeed a (very) long, hot summer then?!

The Way I Found Her by Rose Tremain, which is super, is a bit of a Go-Between rip off with a long hot summer, in Paris, and the characters are British so they relish this sense of another world.

No I’m not a fascist, just not all that keen (And it was on Kindle)

Haven't RTFT yet. But Alexandra Potter always has her characters musing. Every time they think something, it's;

" 'the sky is blue', I muse, looking at the sky"

Gah! Stop bloody musing.

Other than that I love her books

Sweat slicked x2 in chapter 1, and padded in chapter 2. Not sure I can continue with the book I just downloaded.

Grips are always "vice" or "vise" like and moons are almost always gibbous.

You might like this.

boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=542130

The book I just finished featured:

1. detritus
2. padding (it was a legit use)
3. ‘a Mumsnet look’

Have you noticed that in the Harry Potter books Hermione says everything 'shrilly'?

Maybe I'm overreacting, but I have just abandoned my audiobook because the word 'padded' was used twice - TWICE - in the space of two minutes. I'm not listening to any more of the damned thing and am off to find my thesaurus and check for alternative verbs. Just to prove to myself they exist.

I spotted this thread early on and was going to contribute 'padded', but found that other posters had saved me the bother!

I read a book recently where everyone chuckled. "He said with a chuckle". "He chuckled" etc. Actually it was mostly the men that chuckled. Made them seem a bit ridiculous really. Stop bloody chuckling! It was a very crap book though.

Dean Koontz uses redolent. A lot. "The air was redolent with..." I can't unsee it now. I don't think I have ever spoken that word

Nine pages! Have we had breathing yet? We all do it, nothing to see here, pass on please.

“Tang” is much more common in writing than speaking. Sometimes used in combination with “redolent” actually!

3) ‘a Mumsnet look’

???!!! Do tell us what was the book, and a fuller quote.

Someone just got out the shower and slipped on a linen dress and applied a bit of mascara. I don't know when they dried themselves.

Someone else just noticed all their trousers were too big as they'd accidentally lost weight

Bah

Well, a linen dress (actually, I bet it was a 'simple linen shift') is basically made of tea towel.

Someone may have mentioned this, but ever noticed how many hollows the heroines of romantic fiction have? Hollow of their stomach, hollow of their neck, blusher brushed into the hollows of their cheeks...

“A couple of Boden Catalogue women a few feet away give them a Mumsnet look. Linda spots it, snarls a ‘What?’ in their direction and they recoil.”

The Darkest Secret, Alex Marwood. I believe the Boden ladies are, effectively, hoicking their judgy pants - and Linda deserves it far, far more than they realise.

Ohhh, I though a 'Mumsnet look' was what we call in this house 'woman looking'. That's when DH asks for a seldom-used kitchen implement. I say "It's in the drawer to the left of the hob". DH says that he's already looked and it's not there. I walk (pad?) into the kitchen, open the drawer, move a couple of things around, pull out said item and hand it to him.

I thought this thread might be the right audience for this, if you haven't seen it:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-43639004