Monday 3 June 2013

Books for May

This last week has been a bit crazy... painters here painting the outside of the house and likely to be here at least another week, maybe two. Also it was half-term and our lovely grand-daughter spent a few days here with us, always a pleasure to have her. But no blog posts done and I was behind before so I'm now 4 books behind and will never catch up so I will do a run-down of the books I read last month and a longer mention of those I haven't had time to review.

Books read in May:

25. Moon Over Soho - Ben Aaronovitch

26. Casting Spells - Barbara Bretton

27. Whispers Underground Ben Aaronovitch

28. Unseen Academicals - Terry Pratchett

29. Postcard Killers - James Patterson and Liza Marklund

30. Gunpowder Plot - Carola Dunn

31. The Various - Steve Augarde

32. The Lovers - John Connolly. Book 8 in the author's Charlie Parker series. This one is about Parker's background and childhood and tells us a lot more about him, explaining quite a few things. Absolutely terrific, read it in a day and a bit... couldn't put it down.

33. Miss Buncle's Book - D.E. Stevenson. A departure from my usual thing... written in the 1930s I think. This recounts how Miss Buncle is hard up for cash and decides to write a book. It's a fictional account of life in a village but based on the village where she lives. Of course when the book is published the villagers recognise themselves and the hunt is on to find out who the author is. This was an absolutely delightful read and I plan to read more of this author's work asap.

34. Cop to Corpse - Peter Lovesey. This is one of the author's Peter Diamond series and not the first... one of the latest in fact, breaking one of my usual rules about starting new series at the beginning. It didn't seem to matter, I enjoyed the book a lot as it's set in Bath, a city I love, and the crime element was excellent. I suspect though that it wouldn't harm me to go the beginning and read from there, though I did pick up another new one in the library the other day.

35. A Morning for Flamingos - James Lee Burke. Book 4 in the author's Dave Robicheaux series. Mafia bosses and hoodlums abound in this book, plus the usual beautiful descriptions of the Louisiana coastline. A good crime tale. Like this series very much indeed.

May is my birthday month and I decided to try and have a good reading month. I think 11 books pretty much achieved that aim. Enjoyed them *all* which is quite good for so many books, there wasn't a duff one amongst them. A favourite? Probably Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett but The Lovers by John Connolly was a close second and Miss Buncle's Book was also terrific and also Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London books were also superb... see... ALL good really.


And as I have no pics to illustrate this post, here're several photos of my garden in Spring:



Primroses of varying shades... over now but lovely back in April.



Lots of apple blossom, forecasters predict a good apple crop this year because of the cold Spring. It certainly looks like it but we shall see.



Bluebells under the apple tree, the photo I'm currently using on my Facebook page.

~~~oOo~~~

5 comments:

DesLily said...

ohhh my! I love your garden!!!

and 11 Books! gads woman!! I thought I did great at 7 LOL LOL.. this sister rivalry has got to stop! I always loose! lol lol

Gosh that's nearly 2 books a week! I could only do something like that is most were just picture books! lol
Great reading Sis!!!!

Margaret @ BooksPlease said...

Belated Birthday wishes, Cath! You did have a great reading month - and I wish I could have said that I enjoyed all the books I read in May too.

It sounds like I should read John Connolly's books. The only one of his I own is The Lost Things - have you read that? It's been sitting on my bookshelves for some years now!!

Apart from Carola Dunn I haven't read any of these authors, although I have two by Peter Lovesey that I haven't read. Oh well, I'll get round to them one day - I hope.

Peggy Ann said...

Cath, your garden is divine! Happy Birthday! Nice list of books too. My grands are coming in a week and a couple days! Can't wait. They will be here for 3 weeks or so. Won't get much blogging or reading done then I suspect. Miss Buncle is a book I've always wanted to read and have not come across. Someday!

Penny O'Neill said...

Your photos are wonderful, Cath; so nice to see your garden - and you May books as well. A good list for your birthday month of May.

Cath said...

Pat: The garden is nice but big and a lot of work... and we're behind this year because of the cold spring and being ill in May. Oh well, it's not going anywhere, just growing lots of very healthy weeds while we deal with it. LOL

11 books is ridiculous isn't it? I've no idea how I managed it, me being a slow reader. It might just be an all-time record as I don't remember ever reading more than 10 in one month.

You did do great to read 7! When I read 7 in one month I'm always very happy.

Thanks, Margaret.

Yes, I've read JC's young adult novel, The Book of Lost Things. It was OK but I didn't love it. I do however love his Charlie Parker series. They're very adult in a creepy sort of way. I would say he's probably my favourite current author.

Peter Lovesey is an excellent crime writer, I think you would like his books.

Peggy-Ann: Thank you and thank you. It's a biggish garden and because it was a cold spring and we were ill in May we're way behind with tidying it. But hopefully we will get there eventually.

Not a lot gets done when the grandkids are visiting, I know. But that's ok, they're not children for long so we have to enjoy them while they are.

Perhaps your library might have a copy of Miss Buncle.

Penny: Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed them. I like to put some kind of pictures in my posts so the garden ones had to do this time. I have holiday pics from May that I must post too.