read_warbler

In Tearing Haste

2012-01-26T08:47:00.007Z

I was watching an old episode of Have I Got News For You last night - for those who're not from the UK this is a sort of satirical panel game based on the week's news, the two teams are led by the wonderful Ian Hislop who does such brilliant documentaries and is the editor of Private Eye, and the excellent comedian, Paul Merton. A picture of the poster which has had a resurgence of popularity: KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON came up, and it was mentioned that it had been on one wall of Churchill's wartime bunker. Quick as a flash Paul Merton quipped, 'And on the walls of Hitler's bunker was a poster that said, 'You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps''. All of which goes to illustrate nothing other than perhaps the weird things we Brits laugh at (and I'm really *not* trying to turn this into a 'joke of the day' kind of blog...) but it made me think about the book I've just finished, In Tearing Haste - Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor edited by Charlotte Mosley, and how the war had such an impact on both their lives.

It hadn't occurred to me that both these two are of my parents' generation, both almost the exact age of my parents, uncles, aunts, who fought and lived through the war. Unlike most though, Patrick Leigh Fermor was a decorated war hero, having been involved in the kidnapping of a German General on the island of Crete in 1944, after having lived there undercover as a shepherd for 18 months. He was a remarkable man (he died last year) having walked from England to Constantinople during the years of 1933 to 1935 and written two books about it, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water, two of the most loved travel books of all time.

He met Deborah Devonshire at one of her husband, Andrew's, family homes, Lismore in Ireland. He was invited to stay and he and Debo consequently became lifelong friends. He was also great friends with two of her five sisters (the famous Mitford sisters), Nancy and Diana, and wrote to them too I gather. It makes you feel a bit sad that the age of letter writing has more or less died out and made way for the age of e.mails. Not quite as romantic.

It's hard to know exactly what to say about this book. It's basically a book of fascinating letters between two very dear friends, some of them brief and hurried - thus the title of the book - and some of them very detailed indeed. Debo describes life at Chatsworth, the doings of mutual friends she's met up with, some of the grand events or dinners she has to attend, the people she met, and so forth. Patrick is living in Greece with his wife, Joan, and describes the idyllic spot on the coast where they built a house. He also does quite a lot of travelling around Europe and for fans of his travel books the letters that go deeply into those trips are absolute gems. His writing is glorious, especially when detailing the mountain climbs he does with small groups, usually including Debo's husband, Andrew... places like the Pyrenees, the mountains of northern Greece, the Balkans.

I was particularly enamoured of a section where Patrick describes life on a film set. He was in the Alps with the filming of the book, Ill Met By Moonlight by W. Stanley Moss, about the group's exploits on Crete during the war. PLF was played by Dirk Bogarde who was nervous about meeting a real life person he was going to portray, but PLF describes the actor as 'Charming - slim, handsome, nice speaking-voice and manner, a super-gent.' But life on a film set did not appeal to Patrick and he bailed out of what he called the 'madhouse' after seven days. I'd have liked a bit more about that to be honest.

Towards the end of the book sadness starts to creep in as Debo and Paddy's family and close friends start to die off or become very ill. Debo in particular finds her friends' and family's serious illnesses distressing and no wonder. Patrick lost his wife, Joan, within a few weeks of the death of Debo's sister, Diana, and the awfullness for both of them is clear. Patrick describes how he is lingering in England after the funeral, dreading going back to the house he shared with Joan in Greece for over 50 years. It's very sad.

At the time the book was written both Debo and Patrick were still alive but Patrick sadly died in 2011 aged 96. I can only imagine how devastated Debo must have been to lose a lifelong friend, probably one of the only ones left of her generation.

Of course reading a book like this leaves you with a reading list. Debo famously hated books and read nothing if she could help it, but Patrick did read and there are all kinds of fascinating books mentioned; I'd like to read Ill Met by Moonlight now. Letters of Ann Fleming - by Mark Amory (she was Ian Fleming's wife) and A Crowd is Not Company by Robert Kee about his time in a POW camp in Germany during the war. And that's only three, there are many others mentioned in this amazing book of letters. And I absolutely 'must' get to PLF's Between the Woods and the Water... I've read A Time of Gifts and loved it. I also want to read his other books but In Tearing Haste is not a bad place to start if you've never read anything by him as it really does give you a flavour of his extraordinary writing. I'm also eager to read more books of letters so if anyone has any recs they would be gratefully received.

Off to library in a moment and hoping to find something else connected with these amazing people.
~~~oOo~~~

New Books!

2012-01-24T12:29:00.002Z

My current read is going quite slowly, partly because I also started something else and abandoned it after 100 pages, but also because it's a book to savour. It's In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor, edited by Charlotte Mosley. It's one of those books that you can sit down, read a few letters over a cup a tea and a biscuit, go and sort the laundry, tidy up after your husband, come back, read a few more letters. I love it. PLF travelled a lot and some of his European trips he wrote to Debo about. Wonderful descriptions of the Balkans, the mountains of Greece and Spain and so on. And Debo is so funny. She wrote to Paddy:

THE INTERNATIONAL PRIMATE PROTECTION LEAGUE

'This came, usual thing asking for money. Poor Archbishops, I thought, feeling the pinch. But it turned out to be monkeys'.

I laughed so much, sitting up in bed, that the headboard kept knocking against the wall and I was afraid I would wake my husband up.

Anyway, more about this book when I've finished it.

Last year was a year in which I stinted myself where buying new books was concerned. Every time I saw or read about a book I wanted to read, I checked the library first to see if they had it. I probably saved myself a lot of money. All this is leading up to a confession of course. And that is, *coughcough*, that over December and January I went a bit mad. In my defense some were either gifts or charity shop buys. (Honest!) But altogether nine new books have come into the house over the last 6 to 8 weeks. These are they:

Thames - Peter Ackroyd. I have to say that I've covetted this book for several years. Seen it in book shops, wanted it and resisted. But I bought myself My Mutual Friend by Dickens a while back and it struck me that the two books would be compatible... so I caved in and bought Thames. And I love it of course. Such a beautiful book.

Passion and Principle by Sally Denton. A book about John and Jessie Fremont and American politics. A friend recced it as a good one to read for my US challenge so I sent for it along with Thames. Call them my Christmas presents to myself. It's another very beautiful book.

The House of Silk - Anthony Horowitz. The writer of Foyle's War and the Alex Rider books of course. I didn't know he'd written a new Holmes book until I saw it in Tescos. In the trolly it went.

The Glitter and the Gold - Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan. American heiress, Consuelo Vanderbilt, married the Duke of Marlborough in 1895 and came to live in England. This is the story of her life... real-life Downton Abbey sort of thing I gather. Christmas gift from my eldest daughter.

The New Springtime by Robert Silverberg. The sequel to At Winter's End which I reviewed recently. Amazon Marketplace came up with a nice hardback copy of this.

Classic Ghost Stories compiled by Vic Parker. Nabbed from a charity shop, beautifully illustrated. Good find.

A Short Residence in Sweden - Mary Wollstonecraft and Memoirs of the Author of 'The Rights of Woman' by William Godwin. Random charity shop grab, thought it looked interesting.

The Langhorne Sisters - James Fox. Possibly the American equivalent of the Mitfords, I'm told. Another charity shop purchase for my American books challenge.

And last but not least:

I was talking with my lovely brother about Cornish books and saying that my copy of Frenchman's Creek is a bit tatty and I ought to get another. Next thing I know this arrived in the post from him. Thrilled to bits! I shall be rereading this soon as I read it several times as a teenager and not once since. So it'll be interesting to see what I think of it now I'm in my er... fifties (just over a year and I won't even be able to say that!)

Anyway. Pleased as Punch with my lovely haul of books and plan to ease off a bit now until I've read some of them. Happy reading!
~~~oOo~~~

At Winter's End

2012-01-20T11:22:00.010Z

I completed my first science fiction read of the year this week while I was offline for several days (our router died). It's for Carl's Sc-fi Experience, a casual reading experience which lasts until the end of February, wherein the reader can read one book or twenty - it's up to him or her. My first book was At Winter's End by the classic sci-fi writer, Robert Silverberg.

A group of people live in a cocoon, deep inside a mountain. They've been there for 700,000 years, controlling their population by introducing a death-time, ie. when a person reaches the age of 35 they are sent outside to die. *Outside* there is an ice age brought on by the fall of 'death stars' onto the planet Earth. But the long winter is coming to an end. The female chief of the clan, Koshmar, is going to be the one to lead her tribe of 60 out of the caves and into the sunlight. What will they find?

Koshmar has the Chronicler, Thaggoran, to help her, and Torlyri, the offering-woman. And then there's Hresh, 8 years old and the boy who asks questions... a born Chronicler if ever there was one. They have a handful of warriors to protect them too, but still this will be the hardest thing they ever do.

Once outside they walk... and walk. They are beset by various problems. Some of the creatures they come across are dangerous and they lose some of their friends, including the Chronicler, Thaggoran. This is a devastating loss as he is the one guiding them with his knowledge of the chronicles. It falls to Hresh to take his place and become 'the old man' of the tribe at 8 years old.

It's written in the chronicles that the tribe's future will start with finding the ruins of the city of Vengiboneeza, the ancient capital that belonged to the sapphire-eyed people, one of the six sentient peoples of the Old World. Their journey is long and hazardous and as they travel Hresh has to grow up very quickly and find the answers to many questions. But it's in the city of Vengiboneeza that Hresh will really come of age and find the answer to all of his unanswered questions.

I didn't realise this was an Earth-based sci-fi story until the river close to where the cocoon was situated was described, its previous names mentioned, and one of them was the Mississippi. I'd previously thought it was an alien planet yarn, I've no idea why... the cover of the book looks very alien perhaps.

Anyway, regardless of that, I found this book reminding me of why I love classic sci-fi writers so much. Actually this book is not that old - it was written in 1988 - it just *feels* much older, as though it could have been written in the 50s or 60s. And that's not down to the plot because that's quite modern in feel... the chief of the clan being a female, the sexuality described (not explicit but definitely all kinds of sexuality included) and so on. I think it's the quality of the writing that made it feel older. It's beautifully written, *intelligently* written... it wasn't a book I could whip through quickly at all.

I think perhaps the world building felt like it was from an older decade too. Silverberg spent a lot of time inventing new species, the six sentient species of the old world were interesting and imaginative, though I didn't feel that all of them worked: the plant people didn't sound feasible to me. That didn't matter as the story wasn't about them, it was about how the world had changed since they had died out and how the new 'people' were going to establish a new civilisation. I loved the old city of Vengiboneeza... and found Hresh's explorations of it and his slightly shocking discoveries fascinating. The characters felt real to me, with many foibles and twists to their personalities, none of them perfect. *Maybe* Hresh was a very old 8 year old but that didn't bother me overly.

All in all I absolutely loved this book and have already sent for its sequel, The New Springtime. It reminded me of why I love science fiction so much... because it takes me to places I could never imagine where I never really know what will happen next. And I wonder if sci-fi fans are born not made? From a very early age, 4 or 5, I can remember being fascinated by talk of space exploration and other planets. Star Trek, when it arrived in the UK in 1969 (I was 16) felt like the answer to a prayer and as natural to me as breathing. Others have no interest in sci-fi whatsoever and think those of us who do are a very weird bunch indeed. LOL! Each to his (or her) own.

I'm hoping to read a couple more books for the sci-fi experience... the one I'm told I really must get to from my pile (by Susan from You Can Never Have Too Many Books) is Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. But there're a couple of others too. I may end up carrying on my sci-fi reading way past the end date of the 'experience'.
~~~oOo~~~

Wait For Me!

2012-01-12T10:00:00.008Z

Part of my book plan for 2012 was to try to read a few more non-fiction books. It seemed last year as though I *was* reading more but as usual when I added them up come December the number came to around about a dozen, eleven to be exact, and I don't seem to be able to go beyond that number. I know one a month (they're actually not spread evenly in that way) doesn't sound bad but I would much rather it was around 20 to 25. Whether that'll ever happen, who knows, as crime books really do have me by the throat these days, with fantasy and sci fi aiding and abetting... but I can but try. To that end I randomly grabbed Wait For Me! by Deborah Devonshire from the library last week. When I got home I did as I always do, logged onto the library site to check that all books are there and what the dates are (am I anal or what?) and found that the book was already reserved by someone else. Wanting to read it and being in the position to do so, I started it right away.

Okay, well Deborah Devonshire as most people know, is the youngest of the very famous Mitford sisters. When Deborah, or 'Debo' as she's known, was born in 1920 her eldest sister, Nancy, who became a famous author, was sixteen. The family already had five girls and only one boy.

Blank. There is no entry in my mother's engagement book for 31 March 1920. The next few days are also blank. The first entry in April, in large letters, is KITCHEN CHIMNEY SWEPT'. My parents dearest wish was for a large family of boys; a sixth girl was not worth recording.

Her father was David Freeman Mitford, Lord Redesdale, her mother, Sydney Bowles. David was a second son of a minor aristocrat, not expected to take the title, but as often happens, the heir died in his twenties and David did take the title. The family nevertheless were not that wealthy and with seven children they had to move house frequently in order to be able to pay the bills. All that said, Debo had a happy childhood - horses were her passion - and she was never happier than when spending time in the stables or hunting.

At twenty one Debo married Andrew Cavendish who, like her father, was a second son, not much thought of by his parents (how often did this seem to happen?) The war came and the young men went off to war. As with many families at that time Debo lost her brother, Andrew lost his elder brother, and many close friends were also killed. Andrew thus succeeded to the title, he and Debo were now the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. Eventually they moved into Chatsworth House, one the biggest and most impressive of the 'stately homes of England', but unoccupied by the family, and set about turning its fortunes around.

I thought when I picked this up that it might serve as an introduction to the world of the Mitford sisters; and so it proved. I've been reading reviews of books other bloggers have read about them for a couple of years now, always thinking that I would like to read about them too but not really knowing where to start. I bought Mary S. Lovell's The Mitford Girls in fact, but it looks intimidating and I wanted an easier read first: Wait For Me! was perfect.

Debo talks in a very easy manner about her whole family, how she perhaps thinks they're rather different to the way the world perceives them to be. I found her to be very modest, forgiving, tolerant, possibly the most ordinary of the lot if you can say that about a Duchess who hob-nobs with the great and the good. For they knew everyone and were indeed related in some manner to most of them! Winston Churchill and Harold MacMillan, were relations. Andrew's older brother, Billy, married Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy before he was tragically killed in the war and ever after they were thought of as 'family' by Jack Kennedy - which of course they were, if only for a couple of months. Kathleen herself died just a few years later in a plane accident.

There is a fair bit of tragedy in this book. Debo lost three babies hours or days after they were born, but luckily managed to rear three. The deaths during the war affected her badly and then there was the awful story of Unity who fell in love with Hitler and tried to shoot herself in the head when war was declared. She was never the same again. And Diana marrying the British fascist, Oswald Mosely, and the two of them being interned during the war. Her sisters' eccentricities are well covered but not dwelled upon in a vindictive way. Debo comes over as a loving, supportive sister and not in any way judgemental, rather trying to sort out in her own mind why they were as they were and did what they did.

I really did love this book. Truthfully, this is not a very good review as the book was so packed it's impossible to mention everything. The Chatsworth details were fascinating for instance, more so as I've been there and it's a wonderful place. It made me smile to hear that Debo is an Elvis fan and loved her visit to Graceland... and I laughed out loud when she said how shocked people were at a subsequent do in America when she told them about it. Her very self-deprecating sense of humour really shines in this book.

For me it was the perfect introduction to the sisters and I'm now ready to tackle the Lovell book, and have already started in fact. I've also done a quick list of a few more I would like to try: A Life of Contrasts by Diana Mosely, Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford, The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters by Charlotte Mosely, In Tearing Haste: Letters between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor, The Bookshop at No. 10 Curzon Stree by J.S. Smith.

This book has also made me curious about the Kennedy family so I'm on the lookout for something to read about them, which would also qualify for my American states challenge of course. Any recs from anyone?

I hope this review will make others pick this one up. It's such an interesting, historical, uplifting story and I'm sure plenty would enjoy it. Deborah Devonshire is now the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire and no longer living in Chatsworth House but in a nearby village in an Old Vicarage. In her nineties I gather she's still working hard for the estate. Good Luck to her.
~~~oOo~~~

Sci Fi experience and a few thoughts

2012-01-09T09:55:00.007Z

I decided a couple of weeks ago that I would do Carl's Sci Fi Experience again this year. I did it last year and knocked three books off my tbr pile. As knocking books off my tbr pile is one of my main reading aims for this year, it seems only sensible to do it again this year. (Well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. ;-)) I'm a bit late posting but better late than never at all.

The 'experience' runs from January 1st. through to February 29th.

The “rules” of the experience are simple: there are none. Remember, this isn’t a challenge. If you would like to join us in reading and discussing any science fiction reading or television viewing or movie watching you do over that time period, please do.

Carl wants people to:

a) Continue their love affair with science fiction
b) Return to science fiction after an absence, or
c) Experience for the first time just how exhilarating science fiction can be.

All of which I think is excellent. Here are the books I would like to read from:

Darkship Thieves - Sarah Hoyt
The Exile Waiting - Vonda McIntyre
Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
At Winter's End - Robert Silverberg
World Before - Karen Traviss

I also want to do a reread of one my favourite sci fi books, Grass by Sheri Tepper.

Partly this is because my daughter read it recently and liked it a lot, but also because I was talking about Tepper's books with an online friend and I realised that there are two other books which follow Grass, one of which I own, and I would like to read those this year.

So that's that. Truthfully, I want to be as casual about this as Carl implies. If I read one book off the pile, that's fine. If I find I want to read several, that would be great too. We'll see.

~~~oOo~~~

And talking of rereading, Kay at Purple Sage and Scorpions has an excellent post here about doing just that.

I have to admit I'm not a huge rereader. I tend to want to move on to pastures new and have usually felt that there are so many new books to get through that I simply don't have *time* for heaps of rereading. I'm rethinking that, or trying to. What I have to instill into my thick skull is that I'm 58 now and no matter how hard I try I will *never* be able to read everything. So I might as well relax and read what I fancy, and if that includes rereading something I've previously loved then really that is okay and actually a good thing.

I did reread several books this year, one was The Magic Apple Tree by Susan Hill. I read it first about 15 years ago and fell in love with the author's wonderful way of describing the passing of the seasons in an Oxfordshire village. I wondered if I would love it as much a second time around. The truth is, I loved it even more. And that goes too for another of Hill's books, Howard's End is on the Landing. Her love of books shone through and I plan yet another read of this lovely book very soon. I also loved my reread of The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. And Magic by Angie Sage. And this year I plan to do some more rereading. Dickens, Anne McCaffrey, Mark Twain, C.S. Lewis are all in my sites.

So, I am getting there with this rereading thing. I just need to learn a little more patience. Train myself to stop thinking of numbers of books read, because I know I'm not competing against other people with these numbers - I simply can't as I'm a slowish reader and would never win any competitions in that department. Fact is, I'm competing against myself... which is too ridiculous for words! But I'm making progress. I'm currently reading an autobiography, Wait For Me! by Deborah Devonshire. Deborah, or 'Debo' as she's known, is the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire and is the youngest of the famous (or infamous) Mitford sisters. The book is utterly fascinating but I found myself thinking that I must hurry up and get it read. And then I thought, 'Why?' Well one reason is that someone else has actually reserved it, but I don't have to have it back before the 23rd. That's over two weeks away, so I'm going to sit back and enjoy the peace and quiet (my daughter and her son went home yesterday - she's doing very well), and the warm fire, and my book, (and maybe a shortbread biscuit or two) and STOP THINKING ABOUT COUNTING BOOKS!

~~~oOo~~~

Bookish thoughts on 2011 and 2012

2012-01-04T10:59:00.001Z

I think 2011 was an odd year for many people, in some cases downright unpleasant and I really hope that those folk will fare better in 2012. We had our ups and downs, mostly okay until it became apparent that our daughter was going to need spinal surgery and then it was just a waiting game through the autumn until it finally happened at the end of December. Thank you to everyone who sent good wishes while it was happening. It means so much to me and to *her* and she's asked me to say thank you on her behalf as well. She's doing really well now. The first week was a bit tricky as it always is after an operation but she turned a corner four or five days ago and is now well on the road to recovery. Funny... she's always liked reading but being a single, working parent, time was always an issue. Now it isn't, she's been devouring books like there's no tomorrow and it's no exaggeration to say that they're helped get her through this thoroughly unpleasant experience. She's been reading all sorts, from Jeffrey Eugenides' latest to the Twilight series and many things in between such as Kelly Armstrong, Laurie R. King and The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (we're waiting for the library to be open tomorrow to pick up the sequel for her.) I've just sent her off with Grass by Sheri Tepper, probably my favourite sci-fi yarn, and will be interested to hear what she thinks.

Anyway, on to boks I read in 2011. They numbered 83 altogether. That's about as many as I've ever read in one year and as many as I *could* read I think. It would be pointless me going for 100 as I'm certain I wouldn't get there! I'm a bit of an eclectic reader so the 83 covers all kinds of books - much more crime than I ever used to read, some fantasy, sci-fi, horror, general fiction, classics, and all of 11 non-fiction which is exactly the same as last year and really not good enough in my opinion.

A favourite book? Well. I'm not sure I can choose a favourite exactly so I'll go for a top ten:

1. Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope
2. Track of the Cat - Nevada Bar
3. Body Double - Tess Gerritsen
4. The Wine of Angels - Phil Rickman
5. City of Pearl - Karen Traviss
6. Dark Fire - C.J. Sansom
7. The House at Sea's End - Elly Griffiths
8. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley
9. The Little House on the Prairie - Laura Ingalls Wilder
10. These is My Words - Nancy Turner

And if I really *really* had to choose a favourite? Nope... I can't... but the top three would be, These is My Words, Barchester Towers and Track of the Cat.

Favourite non-fictions:

1. I Can't Stay Long - Laurie Lee (Beautiful essays)
2. The Magic Apple Tree - Susan Hill (A year in an Oxford village)
3. Garlic and Sapphires - Ruth Reichl (Food critic experiences)

Last year I took part in and finished four separate challenges and also Carls' Sci-fi experience. Very pleased with my results on those. I discovered, or was introduced to (you culprits know who you are!), several new series including the Anna Pigeon books by Nevada Barr, the Merrily Watkins series by Phil Rickman and the Flavia de Luce books by Alan Bradley. I also managed to finish three series, or will when my first read of this year is complete.

So, it was quite a good reading year and yet... I don't feel all that thrilled by it. I feel like I concentrated too much on rushing from one book to another without stopping to consider and also... not really learning very much. So I plan to slow down a bit in 2012... savour what I read a bit more, read more classics (Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Trollope etc.) and especially try to read more non-fiction so that I learn something. Of course, reading around the USA will help with that and the last couple of months of 2011 when I started that personal challenge were actually pure joy. And so, if I find at the end of 2012 that, instead of reading 80+ books, I've read maybe 50 - 60 I will not be at all disappointed. I know that sounds a bit mad but reading is not a competition to see who can read the most books and I really need to absorb that fact and act on it. The other thing I *really* need to act on is to stop borrowing so much from the library and to read from my own tbr pile. I have a feeling that's going to be a bit more tricky.

Happy New Year to all and I hope everyone has the kind of reading year they wish to have. Can't wait to read all your thoughts and ramblings as I'm not sure I don't prefer those to proper reviews. LOL. Happy reading!
~~~oOo~~~

Family stuff

2011-12-20T23:06:00.003Z

Just a very quick update. Some lovely people have shown concern about my daughter's health issues and impending spinal surgery. Well, her operation was this morning. Naturally it was a bit of a twitchy morning for my husband and myself but we kept ourselves busy with Christmas cooking. It wasn't helped by the fact that my husband had not been able to find out what time the surgery was scheduled for when he dropped her off at 7am. Then at 1pm she called on her mobile phone to say the op had been done at 9am. She sounded a bit groggy, naturally, but so pleased to have the procedure behind her. We pick her up tomorrow and are all looking forward to a quiet but lovely Christmas. Thanks to those who sent good wishes, prayers, and positive vibes. *Very* much appreciated.

Tea and Books reading challenge

2011-12-15T11:12:00.008Z

Well, ever a glutton for punishment, I've found a second book challenge for 2012. As with the WW1 challenge, I saw it first on Margaret's blog at Booksplease and it's the Tea and Books Reading Challenge. It's being hosted by The Book Garden and the details are as follows:

This challenge was inspired by C.S. Lewis' famous words, "You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me."

You better settle in with a large cup of tea, because in this challenge you will only get to read ... wait for it ... books with more than 700 pages. I'm deadly serious. We all have a few of those tomes on our shelves and somehow the amount of pages often prevents us from finally picking them up. You may choose novels only, no short story collections or anthologies, and in case you're trying a short cut by picking large print editions of a book, well I'm sorry, those do not qualify for this challenge! Let's battle those tomes that have been collecting dust on our shelves, so no re-reads, please!

2 Books - Chamomile Lover

4 Books - Berry Tea Devotee

6 Books - Earl Grey Aficionado (this will be the one I'll try)

8 or more Books - Sencha Connoisseur

To sign up, please read the general rules below! Then post about the challenge on your blog, including the button above, and don't forget to link back to the Tea & Books Reading Challenge page on my blog!

The challenge will take place between January 1st and December 31st 2012.

~~~~~

Okay. So, the level I'm going to aim for is 'Berry tea devotee' which is four books. Partly because I like berry tea *g* but also four seems just about attainable. This is the pool of books I want to choose from:

Drood by Dan Simmons
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clark
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
No Name by Wilkie Collins
Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb

The thing that surprised me was how many books are not quite 700 pages long. I had several others to add - The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, a biography of Gerald Durrell for instance, but when I checked they were 'only' 650 - 690 pages. Very frustrating.

Several other books I might choose from are:

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Bradley
The Kingdom of Shadows by Barbara Erskine
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
and
The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope *if* I manage to read the intervening three Barsetshire books before the end of next year... which I would actually rather like to do.

This challenge will suit perfectly my reading plans for next year which are to read a few longer, more absorbing, books than I have this year *and* to get more books off my tbr pile. Looking forward to starting.
~~~oOo~~~

Challenge wrap-ups

2011-12-14T09:32:00.010Z

Getting various posts out of the way while I can and this one involves two challenge wrap-ups. Aside from Carl's challenges I did two others this year, a Foodie reading challenge and What's in a Name. I've completed both! Little bit surprised by that. LOL.

Anyway, first up The Foodie's Reading Challenge which was hosted by Margot at Joyfully Retired

I did 'Bon Vivant' the aim of which was to read 4 to 6 fiction or non-fiction books that are: 'centered around food and/or drinks. That could be a cookbook, a food biography or memoir, a non-fiction book focused around a specific food, wine, chef or restaurant. Also allowed is a fictional story in which food plays a major role'.

I read four books:

1. Eating for England - Nigel Slater
2. Garlic and Sapphires - Ruth Reichl
3. Thyme Out - Katie Fforde
4. Wicked Appetite - Janet Evanovich

I planned to read more but it just didn't happen and really I'm quite happy with simply finishing the challenge. I enjoyed it very much and thank you to Margot for hosting.

Lastly I finished the What's In A Name Challenge that was hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

For this, various books had to be read which had certain words in their titles. This is what I read:

A book with a number in its title:
Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

A book with jewellry or a gem in its title:
The City of Pearl by Karen Traviss

A book with size in its title:
The Small Hand by Susan Hill

A book with travel or movement in its title:
Murder on the Flying Scotsman by Carola Dunn

A book with Evil in its title:
Wicked Appetite by Janet Evanovich

A book with a life stage in its title:
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith

I enjoyed all six of those but my favourite would probably have to be The City of Pearl by Karen Traviss. It was great fun doing this challenge and my thanks to Beth Fish Reads for hosting.
~~~oOo~~~

Murder on the Flying Scotsman

2011-12-12T13:16:00.005Z

Just a quick review for this, my 6th and final book for my What's In A Name challenge for 2011, which was hosted by Beth Fish Reads. The book is Murder on the Flying Scotsman by Carola Dunn and covers the category, 'A book with travel or movement in its title'.

Daisy Dalrymple is off on her travels once again, to yet another stately home for an article for the magazine she works for. But first of all she has to get there and her method of travel is to go via The Flying Scotsman. Annoyed that she hasn't been able to procure a book for the journey but pleased she shelled out the extra for first class travel, Daisy is expecting a quiet, uneventful journey north. That is until a young girl turns up and Daisy realises that it's Belinda, the nine year old daughter of her boyfriend, Chief Inspector Alex Fletcher. Belinda has run away in protest at her grandmother's restrictions and, because she knew Daisy was catching this train, had decided to stow away and travel with her.

Next thing you know an old school-friend of Daisy's has appeared and tells her whole family is on the train, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and so on, because they've been summoned to Scotland by their miserly great uncle, presently on his death bed. He's about to leave all his money to his twin brother and the family hope to persuade him to leave it to them.

It's a very tangled web! A web which becomes even more tangled when the old man's twin brother, who is on the train and has been subject to all kinds of verbal attacks and persuassions, is found murdered. The whole family, plus Daisy and Belinda, who found the body, are forced to disembark at Berwick upon Tweed and take up residence in a local hotel. Daisy's boyfriend, Alex Fletcher, arrives to head the investigation and is shocked to find his daughter embroiled in the proceedings. It seems practically every member of the family had reason to want the old man dead, be it money or something else. Daisy and Alex have their work cut out, not only to solve this crime but also to protect Beinda who clearly knows more than she's letting on.

Well now, this is book 4 in Carola Dunn's very successful series about the wonderful Daisy Dalrymple. I've enjoyed them all so far and this one was every bit as much fun as the previous three. I can't decide whether Daisy is perhaps a trifle too modern for the age she lived in but suspect there were quite a few girls like her who, after the end of the first world war where many husbands and fiances died, no longer had any option but to find a job. Her and her mother were turned out of their home when a cousin inherited it. She's fairly sure he would've allowed her to live there still and her mother would have had her to live with her, but Daisy wants to be independent and who can blame her. I love her determination and optimistic outlook and also her lack of snobbery. There were still plenty of restrictions applied to women of course. You had to be extremely careful of your reputation and silly little things put it at risk, like being seen in public without a hat, getting your hair cut short and so on. These books, while on the surface fun and fluffy, are quite informative if you read between the lines to what is really going on, and one thing that is very clear - in the 1920s it was still very much a man's world.

Looking forward to reading more in this series next year. Just *one* of the many series I seem to be hooked on right now.
~~~oOo~~~

A Superior Death

2011-12-08T13:52:00.016Z

I'm fitting all my December reading into the beginning part of the month it seems. I was halfway through two books at the start of the month and those I've finished. Midwinter of the Spirit by Phil Rickman, book two of his Merrily Watkins series, was absolutely excellent. My reread of The Magic Apple Tree by Susan Hill was wonderful... I'll probably do a separate post about that if I can find a moment. So, my first complete book of December was A Superior Death by Nevada Barr.

Before I start I should say that this is not the cover of the book I read. My library catalogue only had the one copy and it was large print. I couldn't find that cover on the net so this picture will have to do. I also discovered that Devon library services don't charge for reserving large print books, so that made me feel guilty and a fraud because I wasn't reserving large print because I need it (although...) I just wanted to read the book! And it is a bit odd reading large print books... but actually quite nice as there's no strain involved whatsoever. I could get to like it.

So, this is book two of Nevada Barr's 'Anna Pigeon' series of crime thriller type stories. Anna, a national park ranger, has moved on from the Guadalupe Mountain NP after solving a murder down there. She is now on Lake Superior, on Isle Royale NP to be exact, which is towards the north shore of the lake, quite close to the Canadian border but officially part of Michigan.

The summer season is just beginning for Anna. Two divers who've been diving the old wreck of the merchant ship, Kamloops, talk to Anna about the six bodies that are down there... Anna thinks they're mistaken as there should only be five, but it turns out they're correct. There is an extra floating body down there, dressed in an antique service uniform. She is also approached by two seasonals, young husband and wife, Damien and Tinker, who think one of the other rangers, a difficult, surly individual, has murdered his wife and eaten her to dispose of the body!

The body in the wreck turns out to be that of Denny Castle, one of a trio of divers who do trips for tourists. His partners, twins Hawk and Holly, immediately come under suspicion but others had both motive and opportunity. Denny had just married but was possibly having an affair with the missing ranger's wife. How do all these facts tie in? Very much a novice diver, Anna's investigations take her to the bottom of Lake Superior where she'd really rather not be. And it turns out that it's not just the dangers of cold water, deep diving that threaten her life.

Excellent, excellent, excellent. Yet another edge of your seat read from Nevada Barr. Down in Texas Anna was falling off mountains for excitement. Up here on Lake Superior she's down in the depths of the lake, where it's dark and dangerous and there are issues with how long she can be down there before she'll have problems with the bends when coming up. She also has no idea who she can trust amongst her colleagues and, although she loves the 'loner' outdoors lifestyle, does feel the need for human companionship from time to time. I love the fact that she is very human with plenty of foibles, but also quite a strong character who never gives up on an investigation when others think there's nothing to investigate.

Nevada Barr has chosen yet another unique setting for this second book in her series. I had no idea there was an island in Lake Superior. And a national park at that. This is NASA's view of it:

Isle Royale is to the left of centre, very close to the Canadian border and the province of Ontario. Three American states have a coastline on Lake Superior, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. I didn't know that either... I would have guessed a couple of them but was surprised that there were three:

Being a map person I have to include a map of all of the Great Lakes:

The only one I've seen is Lake Erie - we stayed at Port Clinton and visited The Bass Islands. Very, very beautiful. Another time we visited the Finger Lakes in New York state and I now realise how close I came to seeing Lake Ontario without realising it. Rats.

I digress... here is Isle Royale from the air:

And so beautiful from the ground too:

I forgot to check where all the photos came from so I must apologise for that. Hopefully they were all from tourist sites and nothing personal.

It seems this new challenge of mine is leading me to all kinds of interesting places. I definitely plan to read more about this corner of the USA - I was bowled over by its beauty and am now wondering about its history. It seems to be all lakes, rivers and forests (how wonderful!) so that has to mean some interesting historical stuff. I certainly hope to find out at some stage.

Back to the books - I can't recommend this series highly enough and this was an excellent read. The next Anna Pigeon book is already on order as the library has no copy of it whatsoever. It's Ill Wind and takes place in the Mesa Verde NP in Colorado. I honestly cannot *wait*.
~~~oOo~~~

War Through the Generations challenge 2012

2011-12-07T11:21:00.006Z

I decided not to do too many official challenges in 2012. I always do Carl's challenges of course, and will have my ongoing American states one too. But I do like to have at least one other official one on the go, so I've chosen a war one and it's the War Through the Generations: World War 1.

War Through the Generation’s 2012 reading challenge will be World War I. The challenge will run from January 1, 2012, through December 31, 2012.

Rules:

This year you have options when reading your fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, etc. with the WWI as the primary or secondary theme.

Books can take place before, during, or after the war, so long as the conflicts that led to the war or the war itself are important to the story. Books from other challenges count so long as they meet the above criteria.

Dip: Read 1-3 books in any genre with WWI as a primary or secondary theme.

Wade: Read 4-10 books in any genre with WWI as a primary or secondary theme.

Swim: Read 11 or more books in any genre with WWI as a primary or secondary theme.

I've picked out a pool of books to read from:

Mr. Punch's History of the Great War
Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, The Ghost Road - Pat Barker
The Patriot's Progress - Henry Williamson
Memoirs of an Infantry Officer - Siegfried Sassoon
People Who Say Goodbye - P.Y. Betts
Testament of Youth - Vera Brittain
The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry edited by Jon Silkin

I'm signing up for 'Dip' as I reckon I ought to be able to read three of these books in a year. And if I read more, well that would be lovely, but I'm not putting pressure on myself by promising.

I think this should be a really interesting and informative challenge for 2012 and am looking forward to starting.
~~~oOo~~~

Books read in November

2011-12-01T09:14:00.002Z

November has been a rather good reading month for me. I think it was more fun than usual due to me embarking on a mammoth personal challenge of reading my way around the USA. Of the seven books I read last month four were for this challenge and somehow this fact meant that everything made a lot more sense than usual and I hope this continues.

Anyway, books read in November:

70. The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag - Alan Bradley
71. The Little House on the Prairie - Laura Ingalls Wilder
72. Syren - Angie Sage
73. The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett (a reread)
74. Track of the Cat - Nevada Barr
75. On the Banks of Plum Creek - Laura Ingalls Wilder
76. These is My Words - Nancy Turner

Every one of these was an excellent read but there were two stand-outs: Track of the Cat and These is My Words. I also thoroughly enjoyed the two Laura Ingalls Wilder titles and am so glad I have several more of these to read this winter. Can't wait.

And now it's December and I'm wondering where on earth this year went. Either I'm getting old or time is speeding up! Anyway, I'm not sure how much time I'll have to read this coming month. I start out assuming that December will be a normal month and of course it never is! Christmas looms and time is swallowed up with preparations for that. Add to that that my daughter will have her operation on the 20th. and will then be staying with us, along with our grandson of course, over the holiday season and I don't foresee much in the way of reading time apart from last thing at night. But that's okay, I can start again in the new year, all fresh and raring to go.
~~~oOo~~~

These is My Words

2011-11-28T10:12:00.008Z

I finished this book on Thursday but was so busy over Friday and the weekend that my review of These is My Words by Nancy Turner had to wait until today. This is another book that was recommended to me - a couple of years ago - by Kay at My Randon Acts of Reading and that has been languishing on my tbr mountain ever since. But I always think there's a 'time' to read every single book and this one's time had definitely arrived.

Sarah Agnes Prine is a teenage girl (around 16 or 17) who lives on a ranch in 1880s Arizona. She has four brothers but wants more than anything to have a sister -

It is good to have these brothers here but it's not the same as having a girl you can talk to and play with, and besides, they can be an ornery bunch and tease me no end. I am purely outnumbered.

The family own a spread near Phoenix, but up sticks suddenly at the father's whim and begin a journey to Texas because he thinks the living might be easier over there. Sarah is the keeper of a diary and charts the family's progress.

Almost immediately tragedy strikes and continues to strike. Indians attack. The Prines join forces with a couple of other families and the Indians continue to attack. There are deaths, rape, sickness, Sarah's mother suffers a breakdown and so forth. Sarah has to grow up very fast indeed. Luckily it seems she's the best shot in the family and she is the one who saves them more than once.

Arriving at their destination what's left of the family decide that Texas is not the place for them after all. They join a wagon train that is heading back to Arizona territory and Sarah meets, for the first time, Captain Jack Elliot, the army officer who is escorting the train. She's not impressed, finding him too rough and ready and too much inclined to speak his mind. The trip is long and arduous and, once again, Sarah's shooting skills are required. She gains the admiration of the captain but is scared of the effect he's having on her.

Eventually the family arrive back in Arizona and decide to settle near Tuscon where the army has a base and where Captain Elliot is stationed. They stake a claim and start building a ranch to raise horses but, although they are now settled at last, their trials and tribulations are very far from over.

The main thing to say about this book really is how much Sarah Prine's character shines. It practically jumps off the page at you and you just can't help loving her. She judges herself harshly. She feels she is not devout enough and not 'good' like her sister-in-law, Savannah, because she has uncharitable thoughts about people and often acts rashly. But the fact is, of all the family, it's Sarah who is the strong one. Time and time again the family rely on her quick wittedness in an emergency and she never fails them. She is intelligent, strong, and a staunch ally. Throughout the book various events test her to the limit but always she comes through.

I probably should stress that this book is a work of fiction... because... in fact it does read uncannily like a non-fiction diary. I have yet to read any of the several diaries of pioneers I have on my Kindle, but it will be interesting to compare the two when I eventually get to it. What may be missing is the romantic element. Somewhere on the net I actually saw this book described as a 'romance'. I laughed. Not sure how anyone could get it quite so wrong. There is romance, yes, but Mills and Boon/Harlequin this definitely is *not*. It's hard hitting, *tragic* in places... quite a few places in fact... and underlines what a tough life these people had forging a life for themselves in an alien environment, which had a native population that didn't want them there. (And you can understand *that* too.) But underlying the tragedy is a tale of great courage and hardship written with honesty and a great deal of humour. I adored Sarah... and Jack Elliot too. What a pair.

I've just discovered that Nancy Turner has written two more books about Sarah Prine, Sarah's Quilt and The Star Garden. I honestly can't wait to get my hands on them. These is My Words will make my top ten list at the end of the year, no question. Wonderful, wonderful book.
~~~oOo~~~

Track of the Cat & On the Banks of Plum Creek

2011-11-19T13:24:00.004Z

A two-book post today, both of which qualify for my American states challenge. First up Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr.

Anna Pigeon is a park ranger with the National Park Service in the USA. Her current post is in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park on the borders of western Texas and New Mexico. Anna is out patroling one day when she comes upon a body in a very inaccessible part of the park. The body is another female park ranger and it looks like she's been mauled to death by a cougar. Anna's boss seems happy to accept this verdict and later a big cat is 'dispatched'. Anna is furious at this premature killing and begins to investigate more closely. She finds that the cat prints that were around the body are all wrong and other things are also not right, why would the dead woman have gone so far without water for instance?

The problem is, no one wants to hear that this could have been murder. They all think Anna's mistaken and ought to give it up. But it's clear, after a while, that the culprit, if there is one, is probably another park ranger. Unknowingly, Anna is putting herself into extreme danger, especially when she's out alone in the mountains...

Oh wow. I finished this book some days ago and still can't get it out of my head. It had everything. Firstly, the sense of place was amazing. The author describes the mountains, the terrain, the atmosphere, the heat, wonderfully. You're there with Anna. Well I was. Stunning, just stunning. It made me want to visit the area, except that I'm probably too decrepit (bad knees and arthritis) to enjoy it the way it should be enjoyed, ie. by getting out and walking. As I said in my previous post, I didn't know about this national park, in fact I know little about Texas as a whole other than it used to belong to Mexico. I need to put that right...

Leaving aside the sense of place - which to be honest is reason *enough* to read this book - everything else about the story was just right too. Anna is a thoroughly interesting main character. She lost her husband a while ago (I didn't catch how long) and is clearly still grieving. She has a boyfriend but he senses that Anna is still in love with her dead husband. Anna herself drinks a little too much but it's not hard to understand why. I liked her relationship with her sister in New York and hope we actually get to meet her in a future book.

The plot was also excellent. Truthfully, I would have to say, 'thrilling' and I don't use that word lightly, in fact I never use it. Things happen to Anna that had me on the edge of my seat. Not only that, the way one person dies literally had me sitting in my chair with my hand over my mouth. Oh, God. I had my suspicions who the murderer was but really I didn't know the who or the why for certain until the end. And I never mind knowing who did it anyway because, for me personally, the how and the why is often far more interesting.

To sum up: wonderful. Thank you so much to the people who recced this series - LizF and Kay I think; I'm going to be eternally grateful as I read my way through the 15 or so books. In fact, book 2 is on reserve at the library right now. They only have three or four so I'll be buying the rest... I thought I could get them for my Kindle but annoyingly Amazon only has that first book available in that mode. Never mind, I will *have* to read them so how I get hold of them is irrelevant.

Next up, On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Ma and Pa Ingalls and the three girls, Laura, Mary and Carrie are on the move again. The danger from Native Indians in Kansas was too much so they head away from there to Minnesota. The place where they decide to settle is called Plum Creek and is once again prairie-land. At first they live in a dug-out under a hill but Pa, borrowing against the prospect of a good wheat crop next summer, builds a lovely log-cabin.

This time they are only a couple of miles from a town and Laura gets a shock when she's told that her and Mary can go to school. A shock because although Mary can read and add up, she can't. Most of the children at school are friendly but Laura despises Nellie, the arrogant daughter of the store-keeper who is spoilt rotten and scornful of Laura's humble 'country' background.

Things take a turn for the worse when Pa has to leave home to go east to find work. Ma is left with the children in the midst of a terrible winter and they most cope or perish.

You can see Plum Creek on the Walnut Grove website here: Plum Creek. It looks idyllic, and would be now, but life was a great deal more dangerous and less predictable back then than it is for us now. We think of these books as cosy - well I did - but the harsh realities of life are actually more to the fore in this book than in the previous two. Things take a real turn for the worse when something very unpredictable happens to the Ingalls' wheat crop. They have debts and there is nothing for it but for the father to go and find work. And he has to walk several hundred miles in worn-out shoes because he's given the three dollars for new ones to the minister for the church bell fund! Life is incredibly hard. Laura and Mary have to stop going to school for fear they'll wear out their shoes and anyway, Ma can't be left alone with young Carrie, she needs help.

There are of course compensations. There is a very strong sense of community and neighbours are always there if help is needed. There's a lovely scene towards the end where it's Christmas and the church is full of gifts from a surprising source. And family is all. Laura adores her father to distraction and even though she finds it hard to be quite as selfless as Mary, family is definitely the most important part of her life.

I can't believe how much I'm loving this series of children's books. Although they're not as hard hitting as maybe adult books on the same theme, there is real hardship and Laura Ingalls Wilder in no way shrank from telling it like it was, whether her audience were children or not. If you've never read this series you really, really should.
~~~oOo~~~

Bookish meanderings

2011-11-14T10:05:00.018Z

I usually only read one book at a time, possibly two if my main book is a bit too creepy or is perhaps a crime book that scares me half to death. (I would cite Tess Gerritsen's books as being typical of this category, love them as I do they do not make for a comfortable bedtime read.) Occasionally though, I get so swept away that I end up reading three. And that's the case at the moment. I started These is My Words by Nancy Turner last week for my American states challenge. It's superb but rather gruelling in places. Luckily its narrator, Sarah Prine, is wonderful and at times very funny, because otherwise it might even be unbearable.

So, as light relief from that I started Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr. This series about a park ranger was recommended by several people when I asked for titles for the challenge. Because it was so popular I bought the first book for my Kindle and am already halfway through as it's a bit unputdownable. Love it. And this is the whole point of my challenge. I had never heard of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, in Texas. I feel ashamed to admit it. Look how beautiful it is:

Photos from the NPS. gov. site linked to above.

Now I have heard of it and read about it, albeit in a fictional book but... that said... the descriptions of the park are stunning and make me want to find out more. Which, in a nutshell, is why I'm taking on this Behemoth of a challenge. Some people must think I'm a penny short of a shilling to even try it but here I am, just a week or ten days in and I already know more that I did when I started. Who knew, for instance, that the 'ponderosa' was a pine tree? I didn't. I thought it was just the name of the ranch in Bonanza! But These is My Words informed me otherwise. It seems too that there may be two national parks of that name... I wonder if Anna Pigeon gets to either of them? Can't wait to find out.

And my third book arrived on Saturday, On the Banks of Plum Creek, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I wondered how long I would be able to resist starting and the answer was precisely one day. I'm about 20 pages in and have I learnt anything yet? Well, yes as a matter of fact. Minnesota has prairie. How could I not have known that? I thought it was all forests and lakes! My ignorance it seems, is unending.

Okay... I'll give it a rest now and talk about something else.

So far this month I've read four books and only reviewed one. So I'll say a little about what else I've read.

I started the month with The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley. This is the second book in the author's 'Flavia de Luce' series. In this story Flavia finds herself involved with a travelling duo of puppeteers who suddenly turn up in Buckshaw. They can't pay for their van to be repaired so the vicar suggests they put on a performance in the village hall. Of course, it's not long before someone turns up dead and, as in the last book, Flavia has a lot more success in solving the crime than the local police. *Huge* fun. Love this series to bits and have book three on my library pile at the moment.

Next up, Syren by Angie Sage:

After their last adventures in The House of Foryx, Septimus returns to The Trading Post (the descriptions of this imaginary coastline were stunning) on Spit Fyre the dragon to pick up Jenna, Beetle, Nicko and Snorri. He finds them ensconced on Jenna's father's beautiful ship and only Jenna and Beetle will return with him on the dragon. A storm takes them off course and they crash land on an island. Spit Fyre is badly injured so they can't leave until he recovers. Is the island uninhabited? No, it's not. Septimus, as usual, finds trouble where he has not actually looked for it. This is such a great series. Very readable, a lot of humour and with characters who act like normal people. The books are aimed at 10 to 14 year olds I would say but are also a good, fun read for adults.

And lastly, The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett:

I snuck in a quick reread of this little book after reading Danielle at A Work in Progress's review of it here. And it was every bit as much fun as I remembered. The Queen chases one of her corgis into the mobile library, parked outside the palace, and ends up borrowing a book because she doesn't like not to. (So English.) It's by Ivy Compton Burnett and she finds it hard going but goes back for something else. A lad who works in the kitchen, Norman, helps her with titles and the queen is suddenly addicted to reading, which doesn't go down well with everyone... Such a joy this little book. Alan Bennett's unique brand of humour is understated and wonderful:

As it was, with this one she soon became engrossed and, passing her bedroom that night clutching his hot-water bottle, the duke heard her laugh out loud. He put his head round the door. 'All right, old girl?'

'Of course, I'm reading.'

'Again?' And he went off shaking his head.

Joyous. Anyone looking for a nice little Christmas pressie for someone bookish could do a lot worse.

And, last but not least I have to give a virtual pat on the back for the book title that made me laugh the most. It was amongst the recs for my American challenge and the pat goes to Kay at My Random Acts of reading. Book one of the Alafair Tucker series she recommended by Donis Casey is called, The Old Buzzard had it Coming. I'm still tittering.
~~~oOo~~~

My American states challenge - post 2

2011-11-10T10:38:00.028Z

I had an excellent response to my request for books for my new, open-ended, challenge to read my way around the United States. With all the books I have lined up I could be doing this for a lot longer than two or three years: think ten!!! LOL. Several people thought that such a challenge would also apply very nicely to this country, the UK, and I was delighted to hear that Margaret at BooksPlease has actually decided to try it. Do check out her post, here.

I thought I'd use this post to list a few of the suggestions I've had and to stick up a few photos of the books I own that I think might be suitable to read. I tried to take one of all of them on the shelf first:

Not all that successful but it gives an idea of how many I already own - almost forty - that I can make a start on. Add to that around a dozen sundry titles downloaded to my Kindle and I'm starting with fifty it seems.

Anyway, photographing them in two piles seemed to be the way to go so this the non-fiction:

Quite a mixed bag there: Dickens, Mark Twain, Steinbeck, travel narratives, maps, essays and so on. Most of these are multi-stated but a few are specific such as This House of Sky by Ivan Doig (Montana) and True North by George Erickson which I think is mainly Alaska but may include some of the Yukon in Canada as well. Audubon might seem like an odd choice but this gorgeous little book is full of his paintings of North American birds with little accompanying essays and poems. Just beautiful.

Next up, the fiction. How many of these will turn out to be suitable, I don't know. The thing is, I want to read fiction that actually tells me something about the state it's set in, that furthers my knowledge. If it's set somewhere that could be anywhere, then it's no good. So we shall see.

States I have covered here include Arizona, Montana, Texas, New York state, Pennsylvania, California, Wyoming, Georgia, and several are multi-stated again. Authors I have downloaded to my Kindle include, Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, Nevada Barr.

And here is a list of titles that people have come up with:

From a friend in Ohio:

Allan Eckert's series including Tecumseh
My Antonia and O'Pioneers – Willa Cather
Centennial - James Mitchener
Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass
Thoreau's Walden
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Glass Menagerie by Tenneesse Williams
The Little House series – Laura Ingalls Wilder
Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Harlem - Jonathan Gill
Go Tell It on the Mountain - James Baldwin
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
Jack London - The Call of the Wild
Profiles in Courage - John F Kennedy
Winesburg, OH - Sherwood Anderson
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
Cloudsplitter - Russell Banks
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
Dream West by David Nevin
The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
Early August - Louis Bromfield
Carl Sandburg - Lincoln the War Years
The Jungle - Upton Sinclair The Jungle
All the President's Men - Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
My Generation - Tom Brokaw
Once Upon a Town - the Story of the North Platte Canteen - Bob Greene
On the Road - Charles Kurault (or Charles Kurault's America)
Thomas Payne - Common Sense
the US Declaration of Independence and Constitution
The Federalist Papers - Alexander Hamilton
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Mississippi)
The Alex McKnight books by Steve Hamilton (Michigan)

From Carl (Blogger):

On the Way to Other Country – C.W. Gusewelle (Missouri)

From LizF (Blogger):

The Anna Pigeon series by Nevada Barr (multi-state)

From Yvonne at Fiction Books(Blogger):

The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd (South Carolina?)

From Thomas at My Porch (Blogger):

Mainstreet – Sinclair Lewis (Minnesota)
Echo House – Ward Just (Washington DC)
O Pioneers – Willa Cather (Nebraska)
My Antonia – Willa Cather (Nebraska)
Patron Saint of Liars – Ann Patchett (Kentucky)
Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather (New Mexico)
Bill Bryson’s non-fiction about the USA

From Lifeonthecutoff (Blogger):

The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Wisconsin, Kansas and more)
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Chicago, Ill.)

From Nicola at Vintage Reads (Blogger):

My Antonia by Willa Cather (Nebraska)

From Val at Erasmus Cat and Lifeonthecutoff (Blogger):

Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart

From Pat at Here There and Everywhere (Blogger):

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America by Bill Bryson

From Carol (Blogger):

The Deborah Knott series by Margaret Maron

From Nan at Letters from a Hill Farm (Blogger):

Murder Casts a Shadow by Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl. (Hawaii)

From Kay at My Random Acts of Reading (Blogger):

The Deborah Knott series by Margaret Maron (North Carolina)
The Kate Shugak series by Dana Stabenow (Alaska)
The Lena Jones series by Betty Webb (Arizona)
The Anna Pigeon books by Nevada Barr (multi-state)
The Alafair Tucker series by Donis Casey (Oklahoma)
The Coffeehouse series by Cleo Coyle (NYC)
The John Creepak series by Chris Grabenstein (New Jersey)
The V.I. Warshawski series by Sara Paretsky (Chicago)
Sandra Dallas for books set in Colorado esp. Tallgrass.
The Joanna Brady series by J.A. Jance (Arizona)

From Margaret at BooksPlease:

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

From Nulaanne (Blogger) - all Washington State:

Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen (history)
The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald (biography)
Moon Called by Patrica Briggs (fantasy)
Greywalker by Kat Richardson (fantasy)
The Highest Tide By Jim Lynch (fiction)
Crimson Vengeance by Sheri Lewis Wohl (Vampire fiction)

From Margot at Joyfully Retired:

Falling to Pieces – Vannetta Chapman (Indiana & Amish mystery)

LJ suggestions:

Anything by Louis L’Amour.
Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Moosepath League books by Van Reid (Maine)
Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith (Virginia)
The Country of Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett (Maine)
The Anna Pigeon books by Nevada Barr

Mine:

The Hum and the Shiver – Alex Bledsoe (fantasy, Great Smoky Mountains)
Bill Bryson's autobiography

So there we go. I hope I didn't miss anyone! But an excellent choice of all kinds of books to be going on with. But... I suspect there are many states not spoken for here and even those that are I still welcome more suggestions. So if you have any, please leave them in the comments. And thanks to everyone who has already done so.
~~~oOo~~~

Little House on the Prairie

2011-11-06T08:41:00.010Z

There can't be many people who've not heard of Laura Ingalls Wilder's book, Little House on the Prairie. Its fame may be due in part to the television series of the same name staring the chap who was in Bonanza... was it Michael Landon? Played Little Joe I fancy (gosh that ages me). I think I saw a few of those, but I'm pretty sure I never read the Little House series as a child, for what reason I don't know. They must have been in the library in Penzance but I probably had no idea how good they were. Librarians didn't tend to recommend books to children back in the 60s and my family wouldn't have known about them. So I missed out and it's a shame; as an adult I honestly don't think you experience the same kind of magic when reading as children do and I know for certain I would have adored this series of books as much as, say, C.S. Lewis's Narnia books which completely swept me away.

The story follows on from The Little House in the Big Woods, set around 1870. Pa decides there are too many people in the forests of Wisconsin.

Quite often Laura heard the ringing thud of an axe which was not Pa's axe, or the echo of a shot which did not come from his gun. The path that went by the little house had become a road. Almost every day Laura and Mary stopped their playing and stared in surprise at a wagon slowly creaking by on that road.

Animals kept away from the area and Pa liked a country where animals did not have to be afraid of humans. So they pack up and off they go - west. Pa has heard that the government is encouraging settlers onto the prairie and that the Indians who already live there will be pushed further west again. They travel for months in a covered wagon and come to a good spot at last, close to the Verdigris river, about forty miles from Independence, Kansas.

Of course, they have nothing and have to start from scratch. Pa has to build a house for them to live in, keep them fed by hunting, and Ma has to cook, look after the children and try to help Pa with the building.

Laura finds it a strange land, this place of endless grass and silence where the wind blows so hard they sometimes fear for their lives. And there are many frightening things. The possibility of illness, 'fever 'n' ague' as they call it, which they don't realise is caused by mosquitos along the river, the close proximity of the local Osage Indians, and wolves. They have brushes with all these things and more but find friendship and neighbourliness among the other settlers. Pa thinks it's a 'good place'.

I *think* it was Susan Hill in her book, Howards End is on the Landing, who said that if you want to know how to build a log cabin or your own bed look no further than Laura Ingalls Wilder. And she's spot on! All the details of how to do it are right here in these lovely little books. There are even illustrations (by Garth Williams) to guide you. Not only that there are minute details of exactly how they lived, what they ate, the utensils they had... cups were rare for instance so Laura and Mary had to share one mug.

But there's much more to these books than that kind of practicality. The prairie is a huge presence throughout the whole book. I've never seen it for myself but consider I now have a good idea of how the region looks and feels. And you can't help but admire the bravery and guts of these people who took off into the unknown like that, even though we now know they pushed the native population out. It's quite interesting looking at the rights and wrongs of that from the distance of so many years and hearing what the settlers actually tended to think. I didn't find myself judging but just reading the historical aspect with a lot of interest: somehow I find it easy to detach myself and I'm not sure how or why.

The book has some very intense scenes for a children's book. Laura wakes one night to the sound of a wolf howling in her ear. The house is surrounded by a pack of fifty wolves and all that stands between the family and the pack is a patchwork quilt slung up over the doorway. The decriptions and intensity of this scene are incredible. Likewise the day an Osage Indian turns up while Pa is away hunting, walks into the house and indicates he wants to be fed. The fear of Ma and the girls is tangible. And then there's a scene where the Indians move out and the family watch as hundreds of them pass the house on horseback. I read this with my mouth open!

I honestly did not expect to be quite as bowled over by this wonderful little book. My eldest daughter loved them as child and I can see why now. Every Christmas and birthday there would be a request for more and being the bookaholic I was I fed her appetite quite happily. These are her books and I should really pass them back to her for my grand-daughter - I did give her my copy of The Little House in the Big Woods but don't know if she's read it yet. If my daughter wants them I'll have to get my own, in fact I've had to send for the next book, On the Banks of Plum Creek, as we either never had that one or it got read so often it fell to pieces! I know I'll want to reread these at some stage and also I think I'll feel the need to read Laura Ingalls Wilder's diaries and letters.

So, a good start to my bookish travels around the United States and I've written it down in my little book (I'm such a nerd) under 'Kansas'. Hopefully the next book will come *soon*.
~~~oOo~~~

My own USA challenge

2011-11-03T09:31:00.011Z

A couple of days ago I came across a book challenge that I thought would suit me down to the ground. The idea is to read 50 books, one for each of the 50 American states, in a year, and you can read about it here. My first thought was to go ahead and do it and then I had a second one (I do occasionally). How on earth was I really going to devote about two thirds of my reading space next year to just one challenge? Even in a perfect world that's just not going to happen... A third thought was obviously required.

The third thought went like this: why don't I do this challenge on my own? Make it last over several years, maybe even five, and really explore the topic properly. It's no secret that I love the USA. We've been three times and hope to go again within the next couple of years (real life keeps getting in the way though). And there's *so* much of the country that I'm longing to see. So far we've stayed mainly to the east, only getting as far west as Memphis. It's not far enough, I truly want to see The Rockies before I pop my clogs... and many other places as well: too many to mention and the sad truth is that I likely will not get to them all - this could be a good way of 'seeing' some of these places while still sitting comfortably in my armchair.

I think doing a personal challenge like this would really inspire me for our next trip. Plus *educate* me. There's much to learn about this wonderful country and, for me, books are the way to do it (although TV docs are fantastic too.) I plan, not just to read one book for each state, but several. Fiction will hopefully include something historical and something modern. Non-fiction might be history, travel, or something modern. I honestly don't know for sure... I suspect I'll go where my nose takes me and what an adventure!!! I thought I 'should' start in January 2012, but phooey to that! It's a personal thing so I'm going to start right away, in fact have already started with a children's book, The Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder of course.

This belonged to my eldest daughter, she had four or five in the series which she read and read and read and are still here now on the bookshelf in our grand-daughter's room. I read The Little House in the Big Woods a couple of years ago and have been wanting to read the rest for ages. Here's my opportunity. In The Little House, Ma and Pa and the three girls up sticks and move to Kansas from Wisconsin. I'm already fascinated by this amazing trip they undertook *without* the safety nets which we're used to in the modern age. So Kansas will be my first stop on this epic literary travel around the United States.

I will also probably read a few 'general' books about all of the states. On my shelves I have Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck, my beautiful Atlas of North American Exploration, Colonial American Travel Narratives, Roughing It by Mark Twain, River Horse by William Least Heat-Moon, American Nomads by Richard Grant, and Stephen Fry's America. The possiblities are endless (and it's seems I already have half of them on my bookshelves, LOL.)

Here's a final map, my favourite as it happens as I'm keen on physical maps that show the lie of the land, the obstacles that people faced when exploring, and that make me wonder at their sheer audacity and bravery. (I don't think this can really be understated.)

The last thing to add is that I would love some help with titles. If you have a favourite book set in a particular state, or several, to recommend, please do. If you know which is the best book about Lewis and Clark, please say. *Or* if you just want to say that you think I'm completely barmy to take this on, feel welcome to say that too. Except that I already know it... and for some reason I'm not put off... just really, really excited.

Happy reading!

~~~oOo~~~

R.I.P. VI wrap up

2011-11-01T10:02:00.005Z

Well, the 1st. of November is here and, bizarrely, it could easily be a summer's day if you disregarded the reds and yellows of the leaves on the trees and the dead leaves all over the lawn. It's clearly autumn but we have bright blue skies and mild temps and the fuchsia outside my window is still in flower, even though we have had a couple of frosts. Of course, one of the sad things that the 1st. November means is the end of R.I.P. VI which as always has been hosted by Carl.

It seems to whizz by in no time... bit like the years now that I'm getting older I think. Anyway, my self allotted task this year was to complete:

... which was to:

Read four books, any length, that you feel fit (my very broad definitions) of R.I.P. literature. It could be Stephen King or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Fleming or Edgar Allan Poe…or anyone in between.

I went past the four books way back in September in fact and eventually ended up completing nine books.

1. Bone Crossed - Patricia Briggs
2. The Gates - John Connolly
3. The Blood Detective - Dan Waddell
4. Eclipse - Stephanie Meyer
5. The Small Hand - Susan Hill
6. The Wine of Angels - Phil Rickman
7. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
8. Wicked Appetite - Janet Evanovich
9. The Mephisto Club - Tess Gerritsen

Five of those were off my tbr pile and four from the library. Which might not seem too bad but of those five only three were from the pile I originally put aside! I either need to stop putting books aside for challenges or be a bit more focussed.

No matter, the main thing is I enjoyed the books I ended up reading. I usually say it's hard to pick a favourite but this year it isn't. Two books stood out as excellent, atmospheric and thoroughly enjoyable and those two are, The Wine of Angels by Phil Rickman and The Mephisto Club by Tess Gerritsen. These are my two 'star reads' of this year's R.I.P. challenge.

I also managed to read a small clutch of short stories this year, less than I would have liked but there is always next year.

It's all been great fun and I would like to thank Carl for, as always, being such a good host.
~~~oOo~~~

Short stories for R.I.P. VI

2011-10-31T09:48:00.002Z

What I, rather stupidly, didn't anticipate when R.I.P. VI started and I said that I fancied doing some short story weekends, was exactly how busy my weekends are at the moment, what with Real Life and its little problems. So, I did one at the beginning of the challenge and have not found time to do another until now, right at the end of it! Oh well... better late than never, as they say, hopefully I can do better next year. In the meantime I've read a small handful this weekend:

I started off with a story Susan Hill recommended in her book, Howards End is on the Landing; it's called Mr. Jones, it's by Edith Wharton, and can be read online here and/or uploaded to your e.reader if you have one (which is what I did).

Lady Jane Lynke inherits 'Bells', an old property in Sussex, and, while staying with friend in Kent, decides to visit it anonymously.

It was a lustrous motionless day. Autumn bloom lay on the Sussex downs, on the heavy trees of the weald, on streams moving indolently, far off across the marshes. Farther still, Dungeness, a fitful streak, floated on an immaterial sky which was perhaps, after all, only sky.

She comes upon the house...

In a dip of the land, the long low house, its ripe brick masonry overhanging a moat deeply sunk about its roots, resembled an aged cedar spreading immemorial red branches. Lady Jane held her breath and gazed.

It's love at first sight but, because she doesn't tell the maid who answers the door who she is, she can't gain admittance because 'Mr. Jones says that no one is allowed to visit the house'.

Eventually she does of course get in, and subsequently moves in too. But there's an odd thing - although the housekeeper and maid talk about 'Mr. Jones', he's nowhere to be found. The excuse is that he's old and frail and not well, but this continues on for weeks. Not only that, certain parts of the house appear off limits, keys lost etc. Lady Jane and her writer guest start to investigate and their investigations involve a plaque in the church, a portrait of a woman, and a locked room where the family archives are kept...

How can anyone resist writing like this? Truthfully, it's not a story to read if you want to be scared out of your wits, it being only slightly creepy. Really, it's one to read if you love beautiful writing and a very strong sense of place. Sadly, I've never been to the Sussex Weald, but writers such as Kipling wrote so beautifully about the area that I feel as though I have. Edith Wharton must have been there herself as the timeless atmosphere feels perfect to me. Well worth half an hour of your time.

Next, I read a story recommended by Susan at You Can Never Have Too Many Books. It's The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman, which can be read online if you click on the link or as I did once again, transferred to your e.reader.

A man goes in search of a guide to take him to a cave on the Misty Isle: he wants someone in particular, one Calum MacInnes. MacInnes is reluctant to take him to this mythical cave. It is said that inside a man can collect as much gold as he can carry and MacInnes is one of the few men to have actually done this. But the man is insistant and they go, but is MacInnes to be trusted? The long, arduous journey will reveal all...

I love it when I read a story thinking it's one thing... and it turns out it's something else altogether. Clever, clever writing, that. I'm not overwhelmingly a fan of Gaiman's writing. Some of his books and stories I love - The Graveyard Book for instance - and some I'm so-so about. This though is pretty skilful stuff and I liked it a lot. There's an almost lyrical feel to the prose and a very strong sense of time and place. And also a very clever twist. Another one that's well worth half an hour.

And last, but not least, I reread a story that was sent to me some months ago by the author, Julia Kavan: Dreaming Not Sleeping.

Hard to describe this one as it's about dreams and, rather cleverly, written like a dream. The reader isn't sure what's going on at first. Then it becomes clear that a woman is having strange dreams and that, subsequently, her husband is concerned about the depth of these dreams and the state she's in when she awakes... the fact that she clearly doesn't want to wake from them. Is she becoming obsessed?

I'm not saying any more. This is a beautifully written, atmospheric, creepy little story.

It was a kiss that brought me here. Soft and gentle. It ripped away my breath and tore away my soul. Now I can't find my way back. I don't want to find my way back. I hope you understand.

It's quite short, but I think it works at this length as many of the best short stories often do. A small word of warning, this is quite an erotic piece of work. I was fine with it but it might not be everyone's cup of tea. The story is available for purchase here on AmazonUK. I have to say that if Julia ever writes a full length novel I would be very interested in reading it.
~~~oOo~~~

Wicked Appetite & The Mephisto Club

2011-10-26T15:15:00.009+01:00

Two books to do quick reviews of today: Wicked Appetite by Janet Evanovich and The Mephisto Club by Tess Gerritsen. Both are for various challenges. Wicked Appetite covers no less than *three* - Carl's R.I.P. VI challenge, The Foodie's Reading challenge which is being hosted by Margot at Joyfully Retired, and it also covers the 'Evil in the title' category of the What's in a Name challenge which is being hosted by Beth Fish Reads. So that's the one I will start with.

I'm going to be lazy with this one and use the Amazon blurb to describe it.

Life is pleasantly predictable for Lizzy, until a tall, black-haired, dark eyed man shows up. His name is Gerwulf Grimoire, also known as Wulf. And he wants what Lizzy has: knowledge. Almost simultaneously comes another man, a different man, but this one just as dangerous. His name is Diesel. And he wants several things Lizzy has, only one of them being knowledge.

Unbeknownst to Lizzy, she has the ability to find 'empowered objects'. A collection of stones that represent the seven deadly sins have made their way to Marblehead. If the stones are grouped together, they have the power to unleash hell on earth. Wulf wants them. Diesel wants to stop him. And Lizzy is the key to all of it.

Can Lizzy stay one step ahead of two men who both want her...both body and soul?

Janet Evanovich is of course best known for her Stephanie Plum series of crime books. I believe it's a series of comedy style stories about a bounty hunter; I've not read any but my husband has enjoyed quite a few of them in the past. In fact this was his library book which I nabbed after he'd read it as I thought it sounded like a lot of fun. I *think* there might be a connection between these and the Stephanie Plum books to be honest as one of the synopses of one of those books I happened upon mentioned a 'Diesel', so it seems like there might be a crossing over of characters there.

Anyway, this was a lot of fun. I enjoyed all the baking that went on, Lizzy is an expert at making cup-cakes, in fact she's almost supernaturally good at them... and it's quite crucial to the plot. There's a lot of humour, mainly provided by a pet monkey anmed Carl, and a friend of Lizzy's called Glo who has bought a book of spells and begins practising them with disastrous consequences. But I also loved Diesel's very dry humour.

There's not a lot else to say about this one really. It was a very light, fun, read, perfect for bedtime reading... I assume it's part one of a new series but am not certain about that, or whether I'll read any more. Maybe.

Next up, The Mephisto Club by Tess Gerritsen. This one just qualifies for Carl's R.I.P. VI challenge - my 9th. and probably final book for this challenge.

'I HAVE SINNED' is scrawled in Latin in blood at the scene of a young woman's brutal murder. It's a chilling Christmas greeting for Boston medical examiner Maura Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli, who swiftly link the victim to controversial celebrity psychiatrist Joyce O'Donnell - Jane's professional nemesis and member of a sinister cabal called the Mephisto Club.

In Italy a young American woman is on the run. Someone is after her and she can't afford to stay more than a few months in any one city. Some years ago Lily Saul's family made the mistake of taking in a nephew after his father had died. They had no idea what they were admitting into their home.

A policewoman is killed outside the meeting place of The Mephisto Club and yet more ancient symbols written on the door and, later, on Maura Isles front door too.

The body found at Christmas was mutillated and the hands removed. It's soon discovered that one of the hands does not belong to the body, so where is the second victim? Jane and Maura travel to upstate New York to view the body of a woman with a hand missing, in a deserted house in the country. What is the link between these two women?

The case is so complicated that the police realise they have a very clever adversary on the loose. And that in order to solve this crime they need the help of the group of people who not only understand the ancient symbols, but possibly the devil himself - The Mephisto Club.

Can these books possibly get any better? Surely not. They're all excellent but, like everything else, I do have my favourites, and those *two* would be Body Double, which is book 4, and this one, book 6, The Mephisto Club.

To be honest, I didn't know, before I started it, that it would be suitable for R.I.P VI. But then the rather weird supernatural background became apparent with its hints at satanic rituals and I knew it was perfect. I love all this centuries old bible-based, historical or not, stuff. Tess Gerritsen weaves her plot around all kinds of amazing ideas and I lapped it up. I won't go into what kind of ideas as that would involve major spoilers but it is fascinating stuff. Whether there will be more with this background I don't know. There is certainly scope for it and I can but hope!
~~~oOo~~~

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

2011-10-17T11:01:00.004+01:00

The evenings are certainly drawing in now and the weather here in the UK is turning pretty chilly. They're talking about sleet and snow this week, in the highlands of Scotland, and I suspect it's going to be cold enough for light frosts down here in the SW. Autumn is well and truly with us and Carl's R.I.P. VI challenge is entering its final weeks. How sad! I think I'll probably carry on reading my spooky books to be honest as I've had such a ball with them all. I finished my 7th. book yesterday and it was Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.

Jacob Portman's grandfather has just died in suspicious circumstances. *Very* suspicious circumstances. It seems that Jacob was the only one able to see the monstrous thing lurking in the undergrowth when he found the body, but did he really see it? And what do the nightmares he's started to have mean? Slowly his parents and his psychiatrist manage to convince him that the cause of all this weirdness is a mental breakdown and Jacob eventually starts to recover.

The trouble is, Jacob can't quite forget all the tales his grandfather told him about his childhood. How he was the only one of his family to escape Poland when the Nazis invaded and how he ended up on an island off the the coast of Wales under the care of a certain Miss Peregrine. It seems she ran a home for rather odd children and his grandfather had shown him photos of some of them. One seemed to have levitated, another was lifting a huge rock and in another all you could see was clothes, the indication being that the child was invisible. Jacob is sure the photos are fakes, but are they?

Jacob manages to convince his father, a keen ornithologist, that a holiday (they live in California) on the Welsh island, birdwatching, is a good idea and off the two of them go. They settle into the local pub and Jacob sets off the next day to find the home. It's on the other side of the island and, to his dismay, what Jacob finds is a wreck of a house. It seems it was destroyed by WW2 bombs and all but his grandfather killed, but Jacob is sure he's being watched. Who could it be? The truth, when Jacob eventually gets to the bottom of the mystery, could hardly be more astonishing... or more dangerous.

I think this one might go down as my weirdest book of the year. The photos I mentioned are actually in the book and are, apparently, *real*. The author used them to illustrate his book, I assume with permission. It all makes for rather an odd book which might not be to everyone's taste, but I quite enjoyed it.

The unusual plot is what has made this one popular I think. Although some things are guessable, the way things are arrived at is not, in my opinion, and I found myself both intrigued and admiring of the author's imagination. It's quite some achievement to keep someone as jaundiced as me guessing, especially in the supernatural genre as I've read quite a lot.

There's also quite a nice sense of place. There are several such islands off the coast of Wales, none of which I've been to but have observed from the mainland, and it feels like the author had it fairly spot on. I don't know whether he based his island on any one of them, I suspect it's an amalgam but, whatever, it works.

It's always hard for an American author to write a book set in the UK, and vice versa; it usually shows. In this one I thought the author did a good job though I was thrown quite badly when Miss Peregrine used the word 'knob-head'. That's not a term that would have been around in her time, plus... it's not a word a woman of her generation would use... at least I don't personally think so. I don't even use it now, in the 21st. century. So that threw me, but overall I thought that aspect was pretty well done.

If you like your supernatural fiction to have scary monster type characters then this is the book for you. The sense of menace is always present and you never quite know what's going to happen next. I'm assuming, from the end, that this is going to be a series. I'm quite pleased about that as I'd like to see what happens to the children and am very intrigued by the 'monsters'. A good read and I can understand why it's so popular at the moment.
~~~oOo~~~

The Wine of Angels

2011-10-11T10:00:00.006+01:00

I'm still finding that there are several blogs I can't comment on without having to be 'anonymous'. Is anyone else still having problems? because this has been going on for months and months now and is pretty irritating.

Anyway. Enough of minor annoyances. I've just finished my 6th. book for Carl's R.I.P VI... the best of the lot so far... and that is The Wine of Angels by Phil Rickman.

Ledwardine is a fictitious village in Herefordshire, an English county on the Welsh borders. It's had no vicar for a little while and Merrily Watkins is brought in as the 'priest in charge'. Right from the start there are traumatic events. An elderly man commits suicide in the large apple orchard that almost surrounds the village, during a kind of pagan night-time ceremony, witnessed by a large crowd. And, aside from that, things just don't feel right in the village. Lucy Devenish, a local shop owner and expert on folklore in the county, hints at all kinds of rum goings on and starts to involve Merrily's fifteen year old daughter, Jane.

One night, Jane goes out drinking with Colette, a local restaurant owner's daughter. Not realising the strength of the local cidar, Jane gets drunk and, pursued by local yobs, the two girls end up in that same apple orchard. Things become confused and Colette disappears. Being a bit of a trollope, people think she's just disappeared off with some lad, but has she?

It doesn't help that Merrily hates the vicarage. It's a huge place that doesn't feel at all welcoming and her and Jane find themselves rattling around in its large rooms and corridors. Not only that, Merrily is having waking nightmares and starts to wonder if the place is haunted.

More problems arise when a local playwright and his young boyfriend want to stage a play in the church. It's based on the story of a young seventeenth century priest of the parish who was accused of witchcraft and put to death. The boyfriend, an actor, feels the priest might have been gay and this was the reason he was hounded to death. The play is clearly controversial and the village is divided, some supporting, some violently against, led by the sort of squire figure, John Bull-Davies whose ancestor was involved with the trial.

From not being able to believe her luck at being transferred from inner Liverpool to the rural idyll of Ledwardine, Merrily now regrets her move. She not only finds herself between a rock and a hard place as regards the play... she also has no idea what's going on with her own daughter who clearly has a lot of secrets she does not want to share. If Merrily is to keep this job she has sort the mess out before someone else disappears in mysterious circumstances, or even dies...

Well, this was a bit of doorstop of a book (600 pages) which has kept me royally entertained for a week. My eldest daughter pressed it on me, saying that I must read it as it was excellent. And so it was!

I would describe it as a 'busy' novel. A lot going on in respect of plot lines - things going on in people's lives... much more than I've been able to describe here to be honest. And it's all very cleverly interwoven. Things affecting one person inter-connect with someone else so it's a bit like a jig-saw puzzle where all the pieces need putting togther to see the whole.

It's a while since I've been this involved in a book and I think that's down to the main character, Merrily, and her daughter, Jane. They seemed very real to me, especially the difficult relationship that can exist between mothers and their teenage daughters. How does a modern teenager feel, for instance, when her mother finds God and becomes a Church of England vicar? Jane is especially embarrassed to see her mother praying in front of the window and in one bit they sit to eat dinner and Jane says to herself over and over, 'Please don't say grace, please don't say grace...' It's thought provoking and very very honest.

There's also a very real sense of place. Herefordshire is a very pretty county and you can sense the history as you travel around. There are still many villages just like Ledwardine with their black and white timbered houses and apple orchards. In this story orchard is a character in itself, creepy, atmospheric, stifling almost, and the centre of much that is weird and strange.

If the book has a fault it's that some of the village characters are a trifle clichéd. There's an overbearing squire figure, a crazy 'folklore' expert who's an older woman, the playwright is gay because of course all artistic people are... and so on. It didn't worry me particularly because I do realise that clichéd characters are written because they are often like that in real life and to pretend otherwise is to deny the reality of things.

All in all, this is the best book I've read in ages, and I've read a few good ones recently. I'm delighted that it's book one of a series of eleven and can see that I'm going to get completely hooked on Merrily Watkins and her adventures in Herefordshire!
~~~oOo~~~

Books read in September & Sweetness

2011-10-03T11:24:00.007+01:00

I'm going to do this as a combined post so that I can catch up on myself a bit. First, a quick run-down of what I read in September, and then secondly a quick review of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley.

September was pretty much an average reading month for me, six books read... well actually five and half... as one of them, Barchester Towers, is a book I started back in August and have been reading slowly. So this is what I read:

58. Bone Crossed - Patricia Briggs
59. The Gates - John Connolly
60. Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope
61. Blood Detective - Dan Waddell
62, Eclipse - Stephanie Meyer
63. The Small Hand - Susan Hill

Every single one of these was a thoroughly good read, but if I had to choose a favourite it would probably be Barchester Towers. It was just so beautifully written, characters that were very memorable and superbly drawn such as Obadiah Slope, and an excellent storyline. And honestly, it was so much fun and a joy to read. My next book in the Barchester series is Dr. Thorne which I have on my Kindle but I'm wondering how long I'll be able to resist getting myself a nice hard copy.

So six books read, five of those for Carl's R.I.P. VI challenge, so I'm very pleased with that acheivement. If I don't manage to read anything else for the challenge, five will complete it quite nicely. Although I *am* hoping to read several more... I have the Miss Peregrine book everyone's talking about, from the library, and a couple of others that will fit in very well. It all depends on real life circumstances really.

Next up, a quick review... my first book for October is The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley.

The story here is based around the De Luce family who live in a crumbling country pile by the name of Buckshaw. Flavia de Luce is eleven or there abouts and very keen on chemistry, a child prodigy you would probably say. She lives with her father, and two older sisters that she doesn't get on with. In fact at the beginning of the tale she's tied up and gagged and left by them in a wardrobe. Their father lives there but is not there in spirit. His wife died some years ago and he has become a bit of a recluse, interested only in his stamp collection.

When Flavia finds a dead body in the cucumber patch early one morning, after witnessing a strange meeting between her father and the dead man the night before, she sets about investigating the crime. Is it connected to the dead bird with a stamp impaled on its beak that turned up on the doorstep a few days ago? The answer is almost definitely yes. But where does her father's stamp collection fit in? And why is the local librarian obsessed with Flavia's father's school days and clique of friends? The local police seem clueless but Flavia is not. Methodically sorting out the clues and using her skills as a chemist to aid the investigation, Flavia finds herself not only one step ahead of the police but ultimately in some considerable danger herself.

I think I might be the last person in the world to read this book. Since I first read about it on various blogs two more books have been written in the series! And I'm very pleased about that as I enjoyed this one immensely.

Flavia is such a wonderful character, full of curiosity, intelligence and enthusiasm. I have to say I'm not too sure that an eleven year old would have quite that grasp of the English language but it's all so charming that it's quite easy to suspend disbelief. You find yourself not only rooting for her all the way through the book but also feeling a lot of sympathy as her family is really quite dysfunctional. The father has no interest in his three daughters and Flavia's sisters are appalling in their disinterest and spitefulness.

The plot itself is huge fun, I loved following the clues and, as a lapsed stamp collector, found all the philately details fascinating. Humour abounds as Flavia flies around the countryside on her trusty bike, Gladys, telling the reader her thoughts on everything imaginable but especially chemistry. Truthfully, it was one of those books I found myself reading with a smile on my face and that's not to be sneezed at as an accomplishment of the author, Alan Bradley.

Wonderful. Loved it and have already reserved book two, The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag, from the library.
~~~oOo~~~

The Small Hand

2011-09-29T09:49:00.005+01:00

This next book covers not one but *two* challenges. It's my book five for Carl's R.I.P. VI challenge, and covers a book with 'size' in the title for the What's In A Name challenge which is being hosted by Beth Fish Reads. The book is The Small Hand by Susan Hill.

Adam Snow is an antiquarian book dealer, dealing in the high end of the book market. His business takes him all over the world, and indeed the UK, and one evening he's on his way back to London from Sussex, having decided to take the scenic route, when he gets lost. He finds himself on a bit of a dirt track which leads to a large house. The sign says 'Garden closed' and, assuming that he'll be able to get directions at the house, Adam enters the garden. It doesn't take him long to realise that the house has fallen into disrepair and the garden likewise, but he pushes on to explore his surroundings a bit more.

'I stood in the dim green-lit clearing and above my head a silver paring of moon cradled the evening star. The birds had fallen silent. There was not the slightest stirring of the air.

And as I stood I felt a small hand creep into my right one, as if a child had come up beside me in the dimness and taken hold of it...'

And thus begin some rather strange events. Adam finds that the small hand is now a presence in his life. At first comforting, it suddenly because less so. It seems the hand is trying to force him to jump into water. On a trip to a monastry in France to look over a Shakespeare folio, and lost in the mountains, the hand tries to force him to jump over a precipice.

There is a definite mystery here. Or is Adam having a break-down like his brother, Hugo, some years ago? Slowly Adam unravels some strange facts about the house and its previous owners who renovated the garden and made it world-famous. But will he able to get to the heart of the mysterious events before he is literally killed by a ghost?

Well, this one got some mixed reviews on Amazon and, I seem to recall, mixed reviews in the blogasphere too. Personally, I really liked it. But then I'm a real sucker for a beautifully told ghost story that harks back to another time. Because, although this story is set in the present day, it actually feels almost Edwardian. The style of writing, the bookish, academic sort of background, and the way in which the garden and house are depicted, are all reminiscent of ghost stories written at the turn of the last century. And I particularly liked the section set in the French monastry... so peaceful and calming that I actually wanted to go there.

I can't say the ending was much of a surprise. And for those who like their ghost stories to scare them out of their wits this will not fit the bill. It's atmospheric and creepy, and just the sort of excellent writing you would expect from the author of one of my favourite ever ghost yarns, The Woman in Black, and the Simon Serrailler crime series. I confess I am quite a fan of her writing and, for me anyway, this ghost story more than lived up to my expectations. It's physically a beautiful little book which I'll definitely be adding to my permanent collection of supernatural tales.
~~~oOo~~~

Eclipse

2011-09-23T10:52:00.005+01:00

I seem to be on a roll with Carl's R.I.P. VI challenge at the moment, making the most of some quiet time, even though I'm very busy intermittently. I've just finished my fourth book for it, Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer.

This is book three of the author's 'Twilight' series and I'll keep this fairly brief I think, partly to avoid spoilers for the first two books, but also I imagine most people who want to read this series probably already have and the rest have no interest whatsoever! Less than no interest in some cases. LOL.

Bella is about to graduate from High school. Her and Edward, a vampire, are still an item but things are complicated by her close friend, Jacob, who is part of a Native American werewolf pack. Bella finds herself torn between the two of them but the uneasy truce which exists between Edward's vampire family and the werewolf pack is close to breaking point.

It's suddenly noticed that Seattle is experiencing a string of grisly murders, too many for the normal run of things. Edward thinks it must be a coven of newly made vampires, running out of control. One night Bella discovers that her room has been searched and items of clothing taken. Are these occurrences linked? Bella knows that the vampire, Victoria is still after her, could she be behind the murders?

Bella's friend Jacob is violently opposed to Bella's plans for the rest of her life, which of course intimately involve Edward. She will eventually have to decide between the two of them, but neither are making it easy. Far from it, they seem determined to make her life as complicated as they can. On the other hand both are sworn to protect her and it looks increasingly like their services may well be required in the very near future.

Well, this series doesn't get the best press. All kinds of accusations of poor writing, clichéd plotting, unrealistic morals and goodness knows what else are bandied about. I must be a lot less picky than most as I actually quite like the books. They're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I dislike the way Bella's life is completely ruled by the two men in her life. Her every thought and action revolves around them and that's unhealthy, imo. Girls these days have many options, that of being a girlfriend being just one thing to be included in a well rounded life. That said, her situation is rather unique...

But really, I don't think these books are read by anyone because of their literary merit. They're escapism pure and simple. My youngest daughter is reading them at the moment while she waits for her surgery and they fit the bill very nicely. She's loving the whole series and escaping from a reality that isn't too great just now, so I'm actually very grateful to Stephenie Meyer!

I enjoyed this third book anyway. It was an easy, well paced read, a bit silly but then there's no harm in that as I can tell the difference between a well written, excellent book and one that's just written for escapism. And honestly? I think the vast majority of people can too. Looking forward to reading the fourth and final installment to see what Bella actually does...
~~~oOo~~~

The Blood Detective

2011-09-19T08:59:00.004+01:00

Autumn is well and truly with us now and thankfully things are quieter at the moment so I'm able to catch up a bit on my reading. I finished Barchester Towers *at last* (loved it but more on that at a later date) and have read another book for Carl's R.I.P. VI challenge. It was my third book and was The Blood Detective by Dan Waddell.

The mutilated body of a man is found in a London churchyard. His hands are missing and then DCI Grant Foster also discovers some numbers and a letter scratched onto the body. The police team have no idea what this means until DS Heather Jenkins suggests it might be the index number required when certificates are ordered for tracing your family history. Her mother traced hers recently and it reminds her of that. They contact the researcher her mother used, Nigel Barnes, and he and the team set about investigating at various archives.

Another murder is committed with the same thing scratched onto the body and then it's discovered that a tramp who died before all this started was also a victim of what appears to be a serial killer. But what is it all about? Through some patient research Barnes discovers a link with five murders back in 1879. Are these copy-cat killings? There has to be a reason that someone is doing this. And the most pressing question, who will be the next to die? Can the team solve the riddle in time to save the lives of two more potential victims?

Reading this book was quite like watching an episode of the family history TV series, Who Do You Think You Are?, which is appropriate as Dan Waddell wrote a book of that title, presumably connected to the TV programme. I'm a great fan of the programme so that was fine by me, I found everything about the plot fascinating and and couldn't put the book down.

At first I wasn't sure if it was suitable for R.I.P. but then the connection with some very macabre killings in Victorian times appeared and I realised it very much was. Most of the book takes part in the present day but there are occasional flash-backs which are atmospheric and creepy and very well done. The author clearly knows London very well and as he almost takes you on a tour of the city's streets, not only as they are now as but they once were.

I loved all the family history stuff. Some might find all the details of the research a little tedious but to me it was fascinating. I had no idea that some of these archives are so popular and busy and that arguments break out over books of records. Genealogy is obviously a really popular pastime now!

Character-wise I suppose I found the book 'so-so'. Maybe the author could have delved a little deeper. We're given some background information about the various investigating officers and Nigel Barnes but it was a trifle sketchy. But then this is a book about a series of horrifying murders and as such it's appropriate really that the author concentrated on that. Plus there is another book - and maybe more after that, I don't know - so presumably we'll find out more as the books progress.

I own the second book, Blood Atonement, and will certainly be reading that at some stage. Book one was an easy, quick read, well plotted - I didn't guess the culprit until near the end when it became obvious - and is what one would term 'a real pageturner'... perfect for R.I.P.
~~~oOo~~~

The Gates

2011-09-13T15:21:00.005+01:00

I seem to be having a slow reading month, I suppose for obvious reasons, but only to have read two books by the middle of the month is slow even by my 'not very quick' reading standards. Oh well, it's not a race to see who can read the most books in a year... if it was I would surely lose anyway! LOL. *And* the two books I have read were both for Carl's R.I.P. VI challenge so that's progress in itself because it means I'm already halfway through the challenge, although I do actually hope to read more than four books for it.

Anyway, my second book for Carls' R.I.P. VI challenge is The Gates by John Connolly.

Samuel Johnson is eleven years old and lives with his mum and beloved dog, Boswell. Until recently his dad lived there too, but he left them to go and live with a younger woman.

Samuel has decided, for one reason or another, to start his trick or treating several nights before the 31st. October. He knocks on the door of number 666 Crowley Avenue, the home of a couple called Abernathy, and gets told to hop it. Only Samuel doesn't hop it: he hangs around. What he sees through the window of the basement of the house, involving the Abernathys and their friends, the Renfields, scares him half to death. He needs desperately to tell someone but when he tries to tell, first his father on the phone, and then his mother, that the Abernathys have been taken over by demons and the gates of hell will soon be opened to release the devil into the world, no one takes any notice and when they do they think Samuel's been playing too many computer games.

Things start to happen... a demon is sent to occupy the space under his bed and then a dark shadow nearly destroys him and Boswell one night... and Samuel realises that Mrs. Abernathy - the chief demon - knows that he was a witness to what happened in the basement. So far, Samuel has dealt with these attempts on his life efficiently but he knows he needs help. He happens to see something on the news about the Large Hadron Collider and realises that there might be a connection between his problem and one that the scientists in charge of that are having, so Samuel drops them an e.mail. In the meantime he has two good school friends to help him deal with the demons but the reality is that Mrs. Abernathy will stop at nothing to destroy Samuel...

John Connolly is probably best known for two things, his Charlie Parker series of crime/mystery books, which I haven't read but my husband loves, and a book that was really popular a couple of RIPs ago, entitled The Book of Lost Things which I have read. I've also read his Nocturnes... a book of weird tales that are among the best I've ever read. I had no idea what to expect from this which he states is 'A strange novel for strange young people'. Well it's obviously perfect for strange grandmas too, as I really enjoyed it.

And I mean 'enjoyed' as the book quite simply, is great fun. Although this is definitely a book that features hellish things, the emphasis is really on humour of the Terry Pratchett variety. There are humorous foot-notes and lovely comments about the absurdity of life and grown-ups. And problems are solved bizarrely such as Samuel's friend, Tom, using his cricketing skills to bat flying demons to death. Or Samuel discussing the situation with the demon under his bed, who isn't very good at his job, and them deciding that Samuel is just not scared of him so he may as well go...

There are references or little nods all through the book to other authors and works, Samuel's name, for instance, and his dog is called Boswell; Samuel goes to Montague Rhodes James Secondary school; there's a Reverend Ussher and so on. It's fun spotting the references. There's also quite a lot of science info along the way, I learnt quite a lot about the Hadron Collider, all interesting to me but maybe not to everyone.

What else? I think I've said most of it... the characterisation is good, the demon 'Nurd' is probably my favourite of the lot, the demons are fun rather than terrifying and the plot fair whips along. I love the cover of this edition which states the title, The Gates, and underneath says... 'of hell are about to open... mind the gap'. (London underground reference... well *I* laughed.)

And it turns out this is book one of a series. And what did I find in the library this morning? Book two, just out, which I'll definitely be reading for the challenge in a few weeks.
~~~oOo~~~

R.I.P. short stories

2011-09-11T16:23:00.009+01:00

One of the most pleasurable part of Carl's RIP challenges for me is the short story option.

I feel some of the best ghost writing of all was written in short story form and it's staggering how many famous authors dabbled in the genre even though supernatural writing may not have been their usual fare. It's also staggering how very very good they were at it and how beautiful the writing was even on the rare occasion that the story might not have been that great.

Anyway, I probably have a busy weekend coming up so my short story weekend is a bit premature, but I wanted to take part, so I'm reading yesterday and today but will probably not post until Sunday or Monday.

These are several of the books I've been reading from:

The first story I read was from Collected Ghost Stories by M.R. James and is entitled A School Story.

Two men sit by a roaring fire discussing ghost stories that might have revolved around private schools. I particularly like this as an illustration of the way school boys scare the living daylights out of each other:

'Then there was the man who heard a noise in the passage at night, opened his door, and saw someone crawling towards him on all fours with his eye hanging out on his cheek. There was besides, let me think - Yes! the room where a man was found dead in bed with a horshoe mark on his forehead, and the floor under the bed was covered with marks of horseshoes also; I don't know why. Also there was the lady who, on locking her bedroom door in a strange house, heard a thin voice among the bed-curtains say, "Now we're shut in for the night." None of those had any explanation or sequel. I wonder if they go on still those stories.'

I particularly like that last one! Of course, as is the way with the raconteur type of ghost story, one of the men goes on to tell of the one and only strange happening at his school. It involves a teacher who arrives to teach Latin, boys who unknowingly write strange Latin sentences when set exercises, which scare the teacher for reasons unknown, and what then happens to said teacher. I don't think this was one of James' best ghost yarns but it was nicely written and absorbing all the same. You can actually listen to it here on YouTube if the fancy takes you:

The next one I read was another by M.R. James, An Episode of Cathedral History.

A Mr. Lake is employed to examine and report on the Cathedral of Southminster's archives. He stays with the head verger, a Mr. Worby and said verger, as usual in front of good fire, recalls an event in the cathedral when he was a young lad. It seems the Dean was greatly into the new gothic style and decided to rip up the choir stalls and pulpit area. A tomb is revealed and then strange things start to happen at night in the cathedral close... A very good story this one. James uses the word 'cathedraly' to describe the verger's house and I think it's also a perfect word to describe the story. It reminded me of Trollope's Barchester stories to be honest. Beautifully written and nicely creepy.

My next story was one by E.F. Benson, Sea Mist from the anthology, Desirable Residences. Benson is probably best known for his Mapp and Lucia books, but he was also a darn good writer of excellent ghost stories.

This one concerns a John Verrall who owns a grocery shop in a seaside town, but is also a town worthy... councillor, alderman and now mayor. His wife, Caroline, is ten years older than him and they have no children. Their main hobby is to go walking along the marshes... the husband collecting butterflies and the wife studying the plantlife. One night Verrall gets home from one of these walks to report that his wife has gone missing. Eventually, in the ruins of an old castle, they find her body: she's fallen forty feet from some ruined steps and been killed. The story then follows what happens to the mayor. I'm not going into it as it's a beautifully told story where the reader becomes very involved and the suspense slowly builds. Just the kind of thing you would expect from a writer of Benson's quality. Excellent!

My fourth and final story for this weekend session was The Ghost of Massingham Mansions by Ernest Bramah, and comes from The Shadows of Sherlock Holmes edited by David Stuart Davies, a book of detective stories written at the time Holmes stories were being penned.

Bramah apparently wrote crime fiction around a blind detective by the name of Max Carrados. This story concerns Carrados and private detective friend, Carlyle, investigating a mysterious occurence at a local block of appartments. It seems an empty flat with no gas supply and the water cut off is showing gaslight late at night and the neighbours keep hearing baths being run. When the flat is approached by anyone investigating all activity ceases. Great fun this one with one of the most unusual outcomes I've ever come across. I gather Carrados usually solves crimes with his Butler, Parkinson, and that sounds unusual enough for me to look into these books at some stage.

I have loads of other stories I want to read including, Mr Jones by Edith Wharton and a freebie from Neil Gaiman that Susan of You Can Never Have too Many Books put me onto. I've downloaded both of these to my Kindle, so perhaps next weekend my short stories will all be Kindle reads.

Bone Crossed

2011-09-08T13:13:00.006+01:00

I finished my first book for Carl's R.I.P. VI challenge a few days ago but not had a chance to review it... things being rather stressful and busy here at the moment. But I have a free afternoon, almost, so thought I'd have a go at a brief review of Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs, which is book 4 in her Mercy Thompson series of books.

Mercy Thompson is a car mechanic, but she is also a 'walker'... a human who can turn into a coyote. Not only that she is mated - in name but not in fact - to Adam Hauptman who is the alpha male of the Tri-cities werewolf pack. Mercy has discovered that her kind have a talent for slaying vampires and were almost olbliterated by European vampires when they moved to the North American continent some centuries ago.

The problem for Mercy is that she has upset Marsilia, the queen of the local vampire seethe, by killing one of her own, a vampire who was constructing monsters for a pastime. One night her garage is vandalised and some weird crossed bones are painted on the doors. Realising it might be best to make herself scarce for a while, Mercy goes to visit Amber, a school friend, who has asked Mercy to check her house out as her son feels it's being haunted by a vindictive ghost. What may or may not complicate matters is that the area where Amber and her family live is ruled over by a lone vampire who is very powerful and very territorial... one, James Blackwood.

Arriving at the house Mercy is dismayed to find that the guest for dinner that evening is none other than James Blackwood. Is he in someway responsible for the haunting in Amber's house? When she wakes the next morning and finds she's been bitten by a vampire but can remember nothing of it, Mercy knows she has a problem.

Hard to think of anything to say that I've not already said about this wonderful series. Patricia Briggs is very good at writing engaging characters like Mercy, but also enigmatic ones such as Adam, her mate, or downright dangerous ones such as Blackwood. She injects suspense and humour and makes it seem effortless, though I'm sure it is not. I like the mix of various supernatural beings, werewolves, vampires, the fae... who I think are particularly interesting... and Mercy herself of course. Some of them have come out to the world at large and some have not and it's quite fascinating to see how the author deals with this as regards the plots of her books. I foresee much more trouble ahead. At least I hope so as I love reading about Mercy's adventures and want more! I have one more book to read in paperback and I think another is now out in hardback. Brilliant. Can't wait and will probably read the next one, Silver Borne, for this challenge in a week or two.
~~~oOo~~~

Book title meme

2011-09-08T09:02:00.007+01:00

I sat late last night having a bit of fun with this meme which I nabbed from Fleur Fisher reads. You have to use the titles of the books you've read this year to answer the questions.

*****

One time at band/summer camp, I played: Battles at Thrush Green (Miss Read)

Weekends at my house are: Lost in a Good Book (Jasper Fforde)

My neighbour is: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer)

My boss is: The Warden (Anthony Trollope)

My ex was: Crossing the Line (Karen Traviss)

My superhero secret identity is: Dark Fire (C.J. Sansom)

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry because: Our Spoons Came from Woolworths (Barbara Comyns)

I'd win a gold medal in: Eating for England (Nigel Slater)

I'd pay good money for: The House at Sea's End (Elly Griffiths)

If I were president, I would: do Flying Visits (Clive James)

When I don't have good books, I: Vanish (Tess Gerritsen)

Loud talkers at the movies should be: Bone Crossed (Patricia Briggs)

*****

I'm not sure what to say about my replies... as little as possible might be best.

Books for August

2011-09-06T09:18:00.003+01:00

Well, here we are, nearly a week into September and I haven't done a 'Books read in August' post yet. My excuse is that last weekend was rather stressful. Our youngest daughter is on the priority list for spinal surgery - she had a bad weekend and we had to step in to help. *But*, thank goodness, she's now on new nerve suppressant meds and coping much better. Fingers crossed that she gets a date for surgery soon.

Anyway... the books I read in August. An average month for me due, naturally, to being preoccupied with my daughter and grandson, but also having our grand-daughter to stay and harvesting from the garden. The harvesting has slowed down a bit (though I'm still making jam and cooking tomatoes!) as autumn is setting in here and it's very much cooler than it was a couple of weeks back. So, here're my August reads:

52. Miracle at Speedy Motors - Alexander McCall Smith
53. A Wild Life - Dick Pitman
54. Our Spoons Came from Woolworths - Barbara Comyns
55. Howards End is on the Landing - Susan Hill
56. The House at Sea's End - Elly Griffiths
57. Queste - Angie Sage

Every one of them was a good read. Hard to pick a favourite but it would probably have to be The House at Sea's End, Elly Griffiths' latest Ruth Galloway novel. It was just brilliant. Such a wonderful sense of place... the Norfolk coast... and having been there I know the author has it spot on. Fast pacey plot with a lot of development with Ruth and her personal life. Great stuff.

At the moment I'm almost finished with Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs, my first read for RIP VI. Loving it. And I'm also slowly working my way through Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope. When Bone Crossed is finished I'll probably read something else for RIP... the trouble is I'm spoilt for choice (see previous post) and I even picked up two library books for the challenge yesterday!! But in my defense, the weather here is perfect for curling up with a good book as it's pouring with rain and really rather autumnal. Happy Reading.
~~~oOo~~~

R.I.P. VI

2011-08-31T10:20:00.019+01:00

It's the 1st. September tomorrow which of course means that R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril is with us once again... more commonly known as RIP... and this year it's the sixth year of this challenge, so it's RIP VI!

What a stunning piece of artwork. I honestly think this is my favourite so far of all the images used for RIP. It's Flight by Melissa Nucera and I love it to bits. So atmospheric.

As always Carl is hosting and this is the site to visit if you're interested in joining in and here're are a few pointers:

The purpose of the R.I.P. Challenge is to enjoy books that could be classified as:

Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror.
Supernatural.

The emphasis is never on the word challenge, instead it is about coming together as a community and embracing the autumnal mood, whether the weather is cooperative where you live or not.

There are two simple goals for the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril VI Challenge:

1. Have fun reading.
2. Share that fun with others.

R.I.P. VI officially runs from September 1st through October 31st. But lets go ahead and break the rules. Lets start today!!!

Okay, well, as always there are several levels of participation and I'm going to do...

Read four books, any length, that you feel fit (my very broad definitions) of R.I.P. literature. It could be Stephen King or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Fleming or Edgar Allan Poe…or anyone in between.

And here are a few of the books I've put aside as a pool to choose from:

They include:

~~Bone Crossed~~ - Patricia Briggs
Silver Borne - Patricia Briggs
Drood - Dan Simmons
The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (a reread)
~~Eclipse~~ - Stephanie Meyer
~~The Small Hand~~ - Susan Hill
Nightlife - Rob Thurman
Wagner the Werewolf - George W.M. Reynolds
The Lair of the White Worm - Bram Stoker
The Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde
~~The Gates~~ - John Connolly
~~Blood Detective~~ - Dan Waddell
~~The Wine of Angels~~ - Phil Rickman
~~Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children~~ - Ransom Riggs
~~Wicked Appetite~~ - Janet Evanovich
~~The Mephisto Club~~ - Tess Gerritsen

There are also numerous short story collections which probably means I'll take part in a couple of the short story weekends:

A few authors I'd like to read for those are, M.R. James, E.F. Benson, Elizabeth Gaskell, Edith Wharton, Rhoda Broughton and so on... the list is endless and I have a few sitting waiting on my Kindle too.

And I have a little bit of a confession... although the challenge doesn't officially start until tomorrow I er... started my first book yesterday. It's Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs. Loving it.

Thanks to Carl, as always, for hosting this challenge once again and giving us all so much enjoyment.
~~~oOo~~~

Charity shop buys

2011-08-22T10:20:00.008+01:00

I seem to have been reading three books at once over the past couple of weeks and thus, no reviews. I did finish one last night, my reread of Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill. Delightful... even more so than the first read I think. I'm also pretty certain that I'll return to this one over and over without it getting at all boring. My two other reads... well I'm halfway through The House at Sea's End by Elly Griffiths, book 3 in her Ruth Galloway series, and it's excellent. And halfway through Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope which is also wonderful. I'm so pleased that his output was prolific as I feel I'm going to be quite a fan.

Anyway. On Friday I hit a couple of charity shops in Exeter with my daughter and grand-daughter. Haven't done this for ages so didn't feel too badly about picking these books up quite cheaply:

From the bottom:

Armchair Traveller edited by John Thorn and David Reuther. This is an anthology of travel stories and I was attracted to it by the variety of authors: Margaret Atwood, Peter Benchley, Noel Coward, Florence Nightingale, Evelyn Waugh, plus the usual kind of author you find in this kind of collection, such as Paul Theroux, Redmond O'Hanlon, Gerald Durrell, Bruce Chatwin etc. An unusal mix and I couldn't resist it. Not that I tried all that hard...

The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope. I could, and probably have (can't quite recall), put this on my Kindle but I couldn't resist this lovely paperback copy for £1. It's book six in the series and I'm only on book two but I like to be prepared. :-)

The Political Animal by Jeremy Paxman. I've read two of this other books, The English and On Royalty and like his style and humour so this was another no brainer.

The Mephisto Club by Tess Gerritsen. My next read in her Rizzoli and Isles series. I just grabbed it and cleaved it to my bosom. No more comment needed than that.

The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge. I can remember reading her Green Dolphin Country many years ago. I loved it but have never read anything else by her. I looked at the cover of this...

... and couldn't leave it behind. *Beautiful*

I also bought four Tamora Pierce books for my grand-daughter. At 20p each how much more of a bargain could you ask for?

So those are my ill-gotten gains for now. Very pleased with all of them and they cost me the princely sum of £4.60, so hardly any guilt involved at all. None if you think it goes to charity.

And lastly, my RIP pile seems to have taken on a life of its own. I swear I didn't put all of those 22 books there!

~~~oOo~~~

Two quick reviews

2011-08-10T15:19:00.005+01:00

I'm currently rereading Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill. I'm doing this mainly because I loved it so much the first time around but back then I whizzed through it without stopping. This time I'm reading it much more slowly, enjoying it more, and also jotting down recommended books as I go. A bit of a crazy thing to do really. I have a tbr pile the size of Mount Everest and hardly need to be making lists of books I haven't read, don't own, and will thus have to buy or borrow from the library if I do decide to read them. Like I said: mad.

Anyway, this is meant to be a bookblog and I haven't reviewed many books lately so here're a couple of quickie reviews of what I've read recently. First up - A Wild Life by Dick Pitman.

Dick Pitman left England in 1977 on a whim to go and work in what was then Rhodesia and is now, of course, Zimbabwe. He began by touring the national parks writing articles about them for papers and magazines. Completely seduced and bewitched by the wildlife and country he then went on to work for the country's national parks as a sort of PR man... getting the parks into the newspapers and so on. Resigning from there a few years later he went on to give more practical help with projects such as returning the black rhino and the cheetah to various parks in his capacity as a pilot or as someone who was fast becoming an expert on African wildlife.

This book turned out to be quite a little gem. Dick Pitman recalls his experiences in Zimbabwe with a great deal of self-deprecation and humour. His love of Africa shines off the page as he describes the area around the Zambesi river, the Matusadona, Lake Kariba, Mana Pools, and the Mavuradonha. Some of what he has to relate is rather sad - the failure of some of the plans to reintroduce animals when they are hunted and killed soon after release for instance. There is also a great deal of bureaucracy and fraud to be overcome as governmental changes come in and the country begins to slide towards bankrupty under the leadership of Mugabe. Throughout it all the author keeps faith with Zimbabwe and stays on, giving the reader a unique insight into this troubled country. Loved it to bits.

Next up: Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns.

Sophia and Charles fall in love in the 1930s and marry rather too quickly. His family are vehemently against the marriage and turn up on the doorstep to berate Sophia. And this is not Sophia's only problem. She has a job which keeps them both while Charles paints... not very successfully because he never sells anything. Then Sophie falls pregnant. Charles is appalled as he doesn't want to be a father and although Sophie wants the baby she knows she will lose her job and they will have no money to live. After the baby is born Charles relents a little but is still hardly the keenest of fathers. Sophie manages to get work modelling for artists but Charles refuses to try and find work himself. Things come to head when Sophia discovers that Charles has been looking into homes for children whose parents don't want them. Enraged and worried for her son's safety Sophie embarks on an affair...

Gosh. Well, this is a story that Sophie relates to her friend, after the event, so we know right at the beginning that it has a happy outcome. Otherwise it would be overwhelmingly sad to be honest. Not that life isn't sometimes tragic but some of the events in the story are really hard to take. It's beautifully written in the first person so we get to know Sophie very well. She's a fighter and a person who never gives up, never complains about her lot, just relates it all in a very matter of fact way which in a way makes it all the more horrifying. Her selfish and immature husband needed a jolly good smack to be honest and at one point in the book I silently cheered. This is very much a book of its time. Before there was any NHS the scenes in the hospital as Sophie gives birth will make any woman shudder. And these days there would be benefits to help women like Sophie and her son and rightly so. An excellent read, quite sad but ultimately uplifting and recommended if you enjoy Virago Modern Classics.
~~~oOo~~~

Saturday snapshot

2011-08-06T10:29:00.006+01:00

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books to participate in this meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don't post random photos that you find online.

Our first sunflower.

Nasturtiums have to be among my favourite flowers. Such varied and gorgeous colours and you can even eat them: both flowers and leaves are lovely in salads.
~~~oOo~~~

Library Loot

2011-08-03T14:19:00.009+01:00

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Marg at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader and Claire at The Captive Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

I haven't done one of these in a while so, as my pile is nearly all new, I thought I would participate. Here's my latest loot:

From the bottom:

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built - Alexander McCall Smith. Book 10 in the Mma Ramotswe series and next in line for me. Never get tired of these.

Two Wheels on my Wagon - Paul Howard. About a cycling race called The Tour Divide which runs 3,000 miles from the Canadian Rockies to Mexico. Having enjoyed one of Anne Mustoe's cycling travelogues last month, I went searching for others and found this.

Italian Neighbours - Tim Parks. The place I saw this mentioned was here in the comments on Danielle at A Work in Progress's post about Italian books. It sounded interesting when I looked it up so I reserved it from the library.

Out to Lunch in Provence - Mike Aalders. A random grab which I thought might do for my Foodie books challenge.

Excursion to Tindari - Andrea Camilleri. Book 5 of his Inspector Montalbano series. Lots of those still to go...

The Edwardians - Roy Hattersley. Huge, huge, huge, so I've no idea whether I will even get to this let alone finish it but I thought I would at least bring it home and try as it's an interesting subject. The author is an ex-British Labour MP, quite high up in The Cabinet at one time.

A Wild Life - Dick Pitman. Charts forty years of the British author's life in Zimbabwe working with wild-life. My current read and rather enjoyable. I've just finished one of the Mma Ramotswe books so this second book about Africa was a natural follow-on.

The Charming Quirks of Others - Alexander McCall Smith. Book 7 of the author's Isabel Dalhousie series set in Edinburgh of course.

So that's it. I have one book still on reserve which is another of Clive James's books of essays. I seem to be on a slight non-fiction kick at the moment with a definite leaning towards travelogues. I'm not sure why this is, perhaps it's because it's the summer and we have no overseas holidays planned for this year so I have itchy feet. I can't think that it can be bothering me that much as I really am a home-body. I think maybe I'm just a natural armchair traveller, obsessed with geography as I congitated on in my last post.
~~~oOo~~~

Books for July

2011-08-01T10:18:00.015+01:00

I sometimes wonder whether the vast majority of books I read reflect my fascination for Geography and History. Not that I'm an expert in either I hasten to add but, aside from English lit., they were my favourite subjects at school and have remained with me in the intervening years (I tend to wince when I think how many that actually amounts to). I soak up any TV documentaries that are historical or about far away lands that I haven't a hope of getting to... even when said shows are heavily disguised as, say, cookery shows. Rick Stein's Asian Odyssey from last year (or the year before) springs to mind... great cooking but even better scenes of various amazing Asian countries. He's been in Spain this year and even though I'm not that interested in that country I had to watch because it's somewhere I've never been and probably will not get to. And was it interesting? Of course - although I wasn't sure about the snail-fest that was attended by 12,000 people. I have a typical English person's squeamishness about eating molluscs but, you know... it's good to be aware of traditions that are different from yours and I'm sure it helps to be more accepting of different cultures. And on a side-note, let's hear it for the BBC who, despite all, are still making these kinds of programmes...

Anyway, enough rambling, I looked at the books I read this month to see if they do actually prove my theory about me and Geography and History.

43. Magyk - Angie Sage
44. Dark Fire - C.J. Sansom
45. The Deeping Secrets - Victor Watson
46. Flyte - Angie Sage
47. The Lost Art of Gratitude - Alexander McCall Smith
48. Vanish - Tess Gerritsen
49. Physik - Angie Sage
50. Amber, Furs and Cockleshell - Anne Mustoe
51. The Revolt of the Pendulum - Clive James

And the answer is - 'more or less'. History is covered by Dark Fire (16th. century setting) and The Deeping Secrets (WW2 setting). Geography by Amber, Furs and Cockleshells (non-fiction travelogue), The Lost Art of Gratitude (set in Scotland, a country I'm longing to go to and *will* probably get to some day) and Vanish (set in Boston). The three Angie Sage books are fantasy and cover both history and geography for me. Even though her world is imaginary it's rather medieval in feel and it's 'another land' to explore. The only exception to my theory is the book of essays by Clive James... but even then he often disccusses historial and geographical subjects. And his essay on crime books and their readers is worth borrowing the book from the library for, even if the rest of the book goes unread (his whole family is addicted to Donna Leon's Brunetti series, lol.)

So, there you go. I'm clearly a person driven by History and Geography. How about you? Have you noticed anything similar in your reading? I'm curious to know if this is just a weirdness in me or whether others have a similar bent towards other subjects.

Best read last month? Ooooh gosh. They were all very good to be honest *but* Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom probably had the edge - my review is here.

An honorary mention goes to Amber, Furs and Cockleshells by Anne Mustoe. This is her non-fiction account of three cycling trips she took, all of them following famous historical 'roads' which were, the Amber Route from the Baltic to the Adriatic, the Santa Fe trail from the Missouri river to New Mexico and the Pilgrims' Way of St. James from Le Puy in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. I've read one other by her, Lone Traveller, and loved it and this second book was every bit as good. My favourite of the trips was the Santa Fe Trail, probably because I love America so much. And the people of Kansas can pat themselves on the back because she said she's never come across such kindness as she found there. A brilliant book full of history, humour and the realities of long-distance cycling. Sadly, I discovered while I was reading the book that Anne died in 2009 in Syria. What a shock and what a sadness. A real loss to all who love her books.

And here's a photo to finish:

Which challenge do you reckon I can't wait for?
~~~oOo~~~

Caerphilly Castle

2011-07-25T14:56:00.019+01:00

Rather busy at the moment, what with harvesting fruit and veg from the garden every day, and tomorrow our grand-daughter arrives for a five day visit. I'm reading but not having much time to write about what I'm reading so blogging has to take a back seat for the duration. But it's a warm afternoon so rather than burn up in the garden I thought I'd nip in here and post a few more photos of our recent trip to Cardiff, in Wales. This is Caerphilly castle, built in the 1270s, and situated about 15 miles north of Cardiff.

Weapons of mass-destruction, medieval style...

~~~oOo~~~

Dark Fire

2011-07-14T14:35:00.014+01:00

I feel as though I've been on a bit of an unofficial blogging break this past few weeks, and I suppose it's true. Partly it's because of some real life issues going on, but also I seem to have wanted to read without the added responsibility of blogging. I should also say that what I've been reading have been continuations of various series and I tend to think it's a bit unnecessary to blog about every book in a series. 'Spoilers' tend to be an issue for a start.

Anyway, to end my blogging silence I thought I would review Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom. It *is* part of a series (book 2) but I also feel that it's a book which easily stands alone. It's also far too good not to be blogged about!

It's the summer of 1540 and it's one of the hottest on record. Matthew Shardlake is a lawyer, and a hunchback in a time when disfigurments are looked upon as something evil, God's retribution, or something similar.

After the events of Dissolution Matthew is living quietly, keeping his head down and avoiding, if possible, Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's first minister, a reformer, and heavily involved in the previous story.

Matthew is approached by Joseph Wentworth to help him with a case. His neice, Elizabeth, stands accused of murdering her young cousin, Ralph, by pushing him down a well. Joseph is convinced that Elizabeth is innocent but she won't plead and could thus find herself being 'pressed' to death. In fact she won't talk at all and no one knows why. Matthew suspects some trauma within the family and is about to start investigating when he's summoned by Cromwell.

Cromwell is falling out of favour with King Henry. Henry wants to divorce Anne of Cleeves and marry Catherine Howard which would bring the Howard family to the fore, specifically The Earl of Norfolk who, people suspect, would return the country to the papists. Cromwell has heard tell of a weapon, known as Greek or 'Dark' Fire, which might, if he could find it, put him back in favour with Henry. The weapon shoots fire over a wide range and is deadly but the formula for making it has been lost. Or has it? Cromwell has been approached by two brothers who say they have some and can also make more. The First Minister instructs the extremely reluctant Shardlake to find this Greek Fire and gives him one of his assistants, Jack Barak, to help.

The two men have exactly two weeks, not only to find this weapon but also to investigate the problem of Elizabeth Wentworth. Both cases turn out to be incredibly complex and very dangerous to boot. Shardlake's inquiries into Greek Fire make him the target of two assassins who seem always to be one step ahead and are killing anyone who might be able help. Not only that, can he really trust Barak? The man is a rough diamond and ruthless as they come and Matthew has no idea whether the man is strictly on his side. But time is against him and the formula must be found or the consequences will be dire, not just for Matthew but possibly for the whole country.

This is one of those books that I didn't want to end. That's a rare thing for me to say because usually I'm quite content when a story reaches its conclusion. Dark Fire however has so much going for it, is so rich in detail and so satisfyingly complex in its plotting that I was really sad when I reached the end.

Matthew Shardlake is a brilliant main character. Being disabled he is the butt of much spite and vindictiveness but he carries on regardless. He's vastly intelligent and intuitive and most of all 'honest' in a time when that was very rare. In Tudor times the rich were rich and planned to stay that way and the poor... well they had to fend for themselves and very few of the wealthy bothered to help them. Historical detail is the backbone of this series... it's almost as if they are historicals first and crime stories second. The reader is transported back to a 16th. century which is corrupt, foul smelling, unhealthy and most of all, dangerous. It took very little to end up in Newgate prison where your fate depended on how much money your relatives were prepared to shell out to bribe the gaolers.

Dark Fire is book two in C.J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake series. I actually think it's better than the first book, Dissolution, which at times confused me... I found it hard to tell one monk from another. This second book did not confuse me at all. The characters were clearly defined and I loved the addition of Jack Barak whom Shardlake is forced to work with despite serious misgivings. Their relationship, I felt, really added to the suspense and to the telling of what I felt was a very strong story. Truthfully, I can't praise this book highly enough. It is so *so* good - twists and turns galore, rich in historical detail, beautifully written, and good enough to keep even my husband happy. He generally avoids historical crime like the plague but makes an exception for this series. The only problem I can see is that the excellence of these books sort of ruins you for other less accomplished historical crime novels.

The next book in the series is Sovereign, set in York I believe. Needless to say, it's already on my tbr pile.
~~~oOo~~~

Gardens in Wales

2011-07-04T11:39:00.020+01:00

In my last post I promised (threatened) a few photos of my trip to Cardiff last week. As I'm not going to have any books to review for a few days (reading several at once) I thought I would put a few up today. And then I realised it was the 4th. of July. So... Happy Independence Day to all in the USA! Even if many will not be here to read the greeting...

Anyway. One of the places we revisted on our trip was The Museum of Welsh Life. 'Revisited' because last year we only saw half of it - it was huge and it was a very hot day, so we decided to return this year to see the other half... the other half being the gardens.

It turned out to be a very nice surprise because this is the view you get as you walk down the path.

Looking down on one of the three small lakes.

Formal gardens in the top part of the gardens.

Roses! The scent was wonderful.

I was fascinated by these fruit trees that had fallen over and then sprouted from the trunk. Never seen that before.

Bit of an Italian theme going on here I think.

Can't you just imagine sitting in this gorgeous spot with a good book?

I must admit I thought this was a fairy lurking in the undergrowth. On closer inspection, I don't actually think it is... LOL! Hmm.

The Museum of Welsh Life is well known for its outdoor reconstructions of houses through the ages, most of which are in the other half of the grounds. Just these two in the garden half, the first barn being used as a demo of roof thatching and the second a very old barn, beautifully constructed.

Full circle and nearly back at the beginning. We were very impressed with the beauty and tranquility of these gardens, they're well maintained with thoughtful planting and delightful aspects from many vantage points. Worth a visit if you're in the Cardiff area.
~~~oOo~~~

June books

2011-06-30T14:16:00.007+01:00

I'm just back from a few days in South Wales, armed and dangerous with loads of photos - the beautiful gardens at The Museum of Welsh Life, Caerphilly Castle, and the Welsh coastline - a few of which I'll try to post over the weekend.

In the meantime it's the end of the month and time for a run-down of what I've managed to read in June:

33. Cloudworld - David Cunningham
34. The Chatham School Affair - Thomas H. Cook
35. Body Double - Tess Gerritsen
36. Death at La Fenice - Donna Leon
37. Storm Front - Jim Butcher
38. The Warden - Anthony Trollope
39. Flying Visits - Clive James
40. Paradise Barn - Victor Watson
41. Voice of the Violin - Andrea Camilleri
42. Clockwork Angel - Cassandra Clare

Ten books this month. This sounds a lot for me, who averages five to seven books a month, but several of these were quick reads and some were the 'unputdownable' kind which you just have keep reading until you've finished... Tess Gerritsen for instance. Any rate, *all* were excellent books and June goes down as a very good reading month indeed.

My final two books for the the month were, firstly, Voice of the Violin by Andrea Camilleri:

This is book four of the author's Inspector Montalbano series, set on the island of Sicilly. Montalbano discovers the body of a woman, bound and suffocated on her bed. The suspects for the murder are many, including her husband, her lover, a slightly retarded admirer, a doctor, and even the victim's best friend whom Montalbano is attracted to. The inspector has his work cut out this time, not only to discover the perpetrator of this hideous crime but also defending himself against his superior officers, who lack confidence in him.

I decided to give up on this series a while ago because I didn't like Montalbano very much, but I changed my mind. I'm glad I did. This is the best so far... not confusing as a couple of them have been... but a good, solid, easy to follow plot that was fast paced and surprising. Not to mention peppered with the usual humour and excellent cuisine. I'll not be giving up on this series again.

And secondly, Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare:

Sixteen year old Tessa Gray arrives in Victorian London expecting to be met by her brother, Nathaniel: he's not there. Instead, two very strange women escort Tessa to their home where things very quickly turn bad. It seems Tessa has some latent talent, which the sisters need to bring out... and not in a kindly manner - Tessa is a prisoner. Eventually Tessa discovers that the talent she possesses is to 'change' into any person she wants. Her other discovery is that the sisters are preparing her to be the wife of 'The Magister', but who this person is, Tessa has no idea. She escapes and takes refuge with a band of Shawdowhunters whose mission in life is to uphold the laws of the magical world. But they all know that the Magister will come after her with every weapon he has... daemons, vampires, warlocks and even an army of clockwork automatons. And Tessa still does not know where her brother is...

Very enjoyable this, if you like YA horror yarns that keep you on your toes with their twists and turns. Characterisation is good, the young people all feel like real people with real reactions, jealousies and faults. There's a bit of a romantic aspect to the books, which I liked, and a very real mystery element. The magical elements mix very well with Victorian London and it's suitably seedy and at times frightening. It should be explained that this is book one of a new 'prequel' series to Cassandra Clare's 'Mortal Instruments' series, which I've not read. Book two is out in December and in the meantime I'll probably read that previous series which is connected but set in modern times. I gather it's very good so the wait until December should not be too arduous.

And now I can't decide what to read. I have Barchester Towers already started on my Kindle but I like to read a proper book alongside a Kindle read. My grand-daughter loaned me Magyk by Angie Sage to reread, as she wants me to read the rest of that series but I can't remember a lot of what happens in that first book, so I may reread that. Or Vanish by Tess Gerritsen, or I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett which I picked up in Cardiff. I also picked up two crime books by Karin Slaughter, people tell me she's an excellent crime writer. I don't know... decisions, decisions.
~~~oOo~~~

Three short reviews

2011-06-22T23:20:00.015+01:00

I've been reading up a storm this week but not had a chance to review anything. So, as I often do, I'm going to review three books briefly to get myself caught up.

First up, The Warden by Anthony Trollope.

Septimus Harding is precentor of the cathedral at Barchester, which means that he's responsible for the choir. He is also warden of the church-run almhouses, or 'hospital' as it's known, and lives in the lovely attached house with his youngest daughter, Eleanor. Eleanor is almost engaged to John Bold, a well known reformer who tends to take up causes which generally end up in court. Bold decides that his next 'cause' will be that of the elderly men who live in the hospital. The hospital is funded by a very old legacy and Bold feels the warden is making too much money from this will, money which ought to go to the inhabitants themselves. The warden, a gentle and unassuming man, wonders if he might be right in this but of course the church, mainly in the shape of the warden's son-in-law (eldest daughter's husband), Archdeacon Grantly, vehemently disagrees. Confusion and mayhem ensue while the matter is investigated.

This was my very first encounter with Anthony Trollope, apart from a volume of his travel memoirs I read a couple of years ago. I've no idea why I held off so long. Possibly I felt these church based novels might be a bit dry and, granted, the first couple of chapters do require a bit of concentration while the details are explained. After that though the story takes off and quickly becomes unputdownable. You can't help but feel for the unassuming warden as he's pulled this way and that while always trying to do the right thing. The reforming John Bold seems to be in it for self-advancement, and it's hard to understand how he could do this to the father of his prospective wife. And then there's Dr. Grantly, the archdeacon, who's a wonderful character, full of himself but with his heart in the right place. The tale is told with humour and honesty and the writing is just sublime. I loved it and have already downloaded the rest of the Barchester books to my Kindle and started on book two - Barchester Towers.

Next, Flying Visits by Clive James.

A few Brits, as advanced in age as me, will probably remember Australian journalist, Clive James, and the various shows of his that have been on TV in the UK... chat shows, review shows and so on. He was known mainly for his sharp wit and caustic observations. Before he became a TV personality, he was a newspaper journalist working for The Observer here in the UK. Flying Visits includes a succession of articles written by him for that newspaper between the years 1976 to 1983. Basically they recount his trips overseas visiting famous cities - New York, Tokyo, Rome, Salzburg, Paris, Washington, LA and many more. The highlight for me was his trip to China with Mrs. Thatcher and her entourage, told very amusingly and self-deprecatingly - there were times when I was in fits of laughter. The author is so well-known that it's very easy to read the entire book in his voice and I think that helps to 'get' his witty style and makes it funnier. I'm now after getting more of his work and plan to download a couple of volumes of his essays onto my Kindle, plus check the library.

James is now doing a weekly TV review column for the Saturday Telegraph and those can be sampled here. They're well worth a look.

Lastly, Paradise Barn by Victor Watson.

It's September 1940, WW2 is raging, and a dead body has been found, by the canal, in the small village of Great Deeping near Ely in Cambridgeshire. Two best friends, Mary and Abigail, begin to investigate but their fledgling investigations come to a temporary halt when Adam, an evacuee from London, arrives. Adam is an artist, Mary a quiet, thoughtful girl, while Abigail is bossy and exuberant. Between them they make a good team and the three soon find a missing flower press and famous stolen painting in Paradise Barn, one of their playing haunts. But what is the connection between these items and the dead man? Do two new paying guests in Mary's mother's guest house bear any relevance to the case? The children decide to keep their secrets until the case is solved but this unwittingly takes them into more danger than they can possibly imagine.

What a lovely book for young teenagers. I think this is a brilliant way to teach children about the war without them realising they're being taught. The children are very nicely drawn, all very different, character-wise, and their thoughts, fears, reactions are very well presented. The setting of a sleepy Cambridgeshire village is beautifully depicted... the drawing of it at the beginning reminded me of something from a Milly-Molly-Mandy book and to be honest, it had that olde worlde feeling to it. I liked it a lot and will recommend it to my grand-daughter to read as I think she would love it. There is a second book too, The Deeping Secrets, and I already have that on my library pile. The two books were recommended by Jen at Stories for Jennimen.
~~~oOo~~~

Once Upon a Time V wrap-up post

2011-06-20T10:21:00.012+01:00

The last three months seem to have absolutely flown by and all of a sudden Carl's Once Upon a Time V challenge is over - officially finishes today I think.

Out of all the options for the challenge the one I chose was:

This was to: read at least 5 books that fit somewhere within the Once Upon a Time criteria. They might all be fantasy, or folklore, or fairy tales, or mythology…or your five books might be a combination from the four genres.

I managed to cover that quite nicely with seven books read and those were:

1. Beauty - Robin McKinley
2. The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
3. Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde
4. The Door into Fire - Diane Duane
5. The Court of the Air - Stephen Hunt
6. The Islands of the Blessed - Nancy Farmer
7. Storm Front - Jim Butcher

I can say, without a word of a lie, that all of these books were excellent reads. I think I managed, somewhat inadvertently, to start several new series. This is balanced, hopefully, by the fact that I also managed to read four books off my tbr pile. I could have done a bit better in that respect but four is better than none at all. I also managed to actually finish a series (Nancy Farmer's Sea of Trolls) which could even be a first for me. LOL. Oddly, I don't really have a favourite among them. If pushed... and I mean really pushed... I might name The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt.

Despite its faults, it was a cracking read with world building that, to me, was amazing. And it was steampunk enough to introduce me to that branch of the fantasy genre and create a new fan.

So that's it, the Once Upon a Time challenge over for another year. I've loved participating and many thanks to Carl for hosting once again.
~~~oOo~~~

Saturday snapshot

2011-06-18T14:14:00.011+01:00

I've never done Saturday snapshot before but several people I follow seem to have done it today and as I was taking some photos in the garden this morning, here goes:

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books To participate in this meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don't post random photos that you find online.

This patch of ferns is part of a fern and hosta bed we're making at the side of the house. The side window of our sitting room looks out on this bed so when we sit and read or watch TV in that room, this is what we see. Or some of it. I'm rather in love with all the leaf shapes and different shades of green, the shadows etc., not all of which can be seen from these two photos. At the moment, the whole bed looks like this:

What I'm looking forward to is what it will look like in two years time.
~~~oOo~~~

Storm Front

2011-06-16T10:13:00.006+01:00

At last I've read Storm Front by Jim Butcher! So many people adore the Harry Dresden series, and I actually bought this first book about 2 years ago in order to see what the fuss was all about. And there it sat, on the shelf like many other 'must reads', mocking me. Well, no more, I've read it now and can hold my head up high. Not only that, it counts as my book 7 for Carl's Once Upon a Time 5 challenge and, likely as not, my last book for that book challenge.

Harry Dresden is a private detective, a *special* private detective... he happens to be the only wizard PI in Chicago. Mainly he covers his own cases, although business is poor, but he also helps Chicago P.D. out with cases that are unexplained or that clearly concern magic.

A woman comes to see Harry and asks her to help find her husband. It seems he's been dabbling in magic and has gone off somewhere: the woman is concerned he may have injured himself. Then Harry gets a call from Murphy, at the police department, to attend a crime scene. When he arrives at the hotel room he finds a man and woman in bed... dead and having clearly been attacked by something magical. The carnage is appalling.

The White Council, a sort of ruling body of wizards, is also after Harry, thinking he might be behind the murders. Morgan, another wizard, has been watching him for years hoping he might slip up and reveal his true personna. The fact that Harry is actually one of the good guys having not quite sunk in. Suddenly, Harry's life is not quiet any more. It's much busier and downright dangerous than he would actually like it to be. So dangerous in fact that Harry is certain his death will be the inevitable result of his own investigations.

I can well understand why this series is so popular. It's rather a nice mix of crime and magic and for me that's always a winner. Harry as a character is all kinds of shades of grey. A wizard and a good guy but also very human with foibles and full of uncertainties. His life is complicated and not many people are willing to give him a break. I got rather annoyed on his behalf about that, I must admit. People who should have trusted him didn't, although I suppose if they had given him the benefit of the doubt there wouldn't have been any story so...

A good start to a 'new to me' series. The plot fair galloped along, pacey and exciting, the narrative reminding me of 1930s style crime yarns with the downtrodden PI being manipulated by person or persons unknown - nothing being quite what it seems. I certainly plan to continue with the series but will get them from the library in future as there are rather a lot and I can't justify buying a stack of books I probably won't reread, much as I suspect I'm going to enjoy them.
~~~oOo~~~

Library Loot!

2011-06-13T10:51:00.007+01:00

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Marg at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader and Claire at The Captive Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

It's been a while since I did a library loot post and they're probably all different now to what they were in the last post and so... it's time.

The lefthand pile:

Notes from a Big Country - Bill Bryson. I think this is his newspaper columns from when he moved back to the USA temporarily. Whatever, his books are always a joy.

Clockwork Angel - Cassandra Clare. Recommended by my eldest daughter. I think it might be steampunk.

The Voice of the Violin - Andrea Camilleri. Book er... 3 or 4 I think... of Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series that I decided not to continue with but changed my mind. Story of my life.

Paradise Barn and The Deeping Secrets - Victor Watson. About a group of children during World War 2 and came highly recommended by Jenny at Stories for Jennimen.

The righthand pile:

The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde. Book 3 in his Thursday Next series that I've come to like over the last few months.

Red Bones - Ann Cleeves. Book 3 in her Jimmy Perez series... another brilliant crime series.

Vanish - Tess Gerritsen. I got it!!!! I was on the library doorstep almost as they opened and then couldn't find the d*** book. LOL. Turns out it was on the 'just returned' shelf. Anyway, book 5 of her Rizzoli and Isles series of course. I should've got my husband to take a photo of me cleaving it to my bosom...

Places in the Dark - Thomas H. Cook. Recced to me in my previous post by Danielle of A Work in Progress. I checked the library for it this morning and there it was, so I nabbed it.

The King's Speech - Mark Logue and Peter Conrad. I haven't even seen the film yet, but we have it on order so should be able to see it this week sometime. My younger daughter was reading this and said it was a terrific read, so I nabbed it from her.

So, my New Year decision to try not to borrow more than 4 or 5 library books at time has gone for a Burton really. It never did stand much chance and I probably knew it at the time. I reassure myself by telling myself that libraries are in danger everywhere at the moment and if we don't use them, we'll lose them. So I'm busy using mine. See? I feel better already.
~~~oOo~~~

Three crime and mystery books

2011-06-12T11:25:00.010+01:00

Well this past week has been a reasonably quiet one so I decided it would be nice to have a book binge - a crime and mystery book binge to be exact. I had three library books lined up, ready for the off, and started with The Chatham School Affair by Thomas H. Cook.

Henry Griswald, an elderly resident of the small town of Chatham, on Cape Cod, looks back to the year 1927. Then he was a teenage boy, son of the headmaster of a private school for the wealthy, in the town. In that year his father had hired a new art teacher, Elizabeth Channing. Her upbringing had been rather Bohemian, her father not sending her to school but instead taking her around Europe to educate her, and never settling anywhere. The father had written a book about this way of life. Henry, disenchanted with life in a small American town and thoroughly disliking his parents, is heavily influenced by the freedowm and lack of responsibility aspect of this lifestyle. What follows as he becomes involved with Miss Channing and her growing closeness to another teacher, Leland Reed, a war veteran and married man, is a catalogue of misunderstandings and tragedies and testament to the saying: never assume anything.

I'm not saying any more about this book as the twists and turns are what makes it such an enjoyable read and it's much better to know nothing before you start. The book itself meanders all over the place from present day, back to 1927 and then forward again, slowly drip feeding the reader little snippets of imformation. It's extremely well done. You know something awful will eventually be revealed, you think you know what it is, but the end surprised even me. Excellent, excellent read: loved it. I have Danielle at A Work in Progress to thank for this rec and I shall certainly be seeking out more books by this author.

Next: Body Double by Tess Gerritsen.

Pathologist Maura Isles has been at a conference in Paris and is arriving home from the airport. She's met in her street by the police: someone has been shot dead in their car. Detective Jane Rizzoli is reluctant to let her see the body but when she eventually does see it Maura has a profound shock. The dead woman is a mirror image of herself; eventually they even discover she has Maura's blood group and DNA. What's going on? Is there a connection between this and the kidnapping and killing epidemic that's going on in Maine? Maura's quest for answers takes her to a small coastal town in that state but also on a personal journey of her own to discover who she really is.

Oh gosh. Can this series get any better? I love, love, love Maura and Jane. Their stories are very different but I love the way Tess Gerritsen uses their personal lives as background to this series... intertwining them with the crime stories themselves. This makes the books very personal and the reader becomes very involved. The writing too is excellent, there are no frills just pacey plot and dialogue and no time wasted on extraneous details. And... you know...just the sheer cleverness of this particular book in the series (it's book 4) blew me away. It was literally fascinating what happens here... I devoured it in a day and a bit, just could not put it down. Book 5, Vanish, came back to our library on Saturday and I'm going to be on the doorstep first thing Monday morning to grab it before anyone else does. I have Elaine at Random Jottings of a Book and Opera Lover to thank for recommending this series and I am *so* grateful.

Lastly, Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon.

A world famous German conductor, Helmut Wellauer, is murdered, mid-performance, at the La Fenice opera house in Venice. It seems it was cyanide and it was in his coffee which he drank in the interval. Commissario of police, Guido Brunetti, is called to solve the murder. It sould be straightforward but it's anything but. Helmut turns out to have been thoroughly unlikeable, holding some extreme views, and not afraid to use information gathered against people. Thus he has many enemies. But who amongst the cast and staff had a strong a enough motive for murder? Well, practically everyone as it turns out...

Well, this is the first book in Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti series of crime books, set in Venice. I thought it was absolutely delightful. I haven't been to Venice but the sense of place seemed to me to be spot on. It appeared that this was not necessarily the Venice that the tourist sees and I found that extra fascinating. Brunetti is surrounded by cast of many, his wife, Paola, teenage children, Paola's parents that Guido seems not to understand at all. There's quite a lot of humour in his relations with others, particularly his extremely vain and useless boss. The crime itself, well I kind of had an idea who it was, but the 'why' was a surprise I must admit. A good start to a new series for me and I once again have Elaine at Random Jottings to thank for the rec.

Next... back to Carl's Once Upon a Time V challenge with Storm Front by Jim Butcher.
~~~oOo~~~

Cloud World

2011-06-05T10:31:00.006+01:00

Cloud World by David Cunningham was one of those random grabs from the library. I have to say, I was attracted by its cover, (it's by David Wyatt) which is really rather gorgeous and appeals to the ever present 'other worlds' fascination I've had since the age of five when I started school, was told to draw a picture, and drew aliens from another planet. I did think that this book might be YA fantasy and could be read for Carl's Once Upon a Time challenge, but as I started to read I quickly realised it is in fact YA science fiction.

Marcus is fourteen and lives in Heliopolis. His father is the king which naturally means that Marcus is heir to the throne. His life is rather a lonely one. His father is away a lot and the two people he's closest to are Asperia, his tutor, and Titus, head of the army, who is training Marcus in everything to do with combat.

The city of Heliopolis is one of a number of citadel city states that exist above the clouds. The cities look out on a sea of cloud that is so dense that no one knows what lies beneath it. Those who have tried to find out have never returned.

The king's return from a state visit is long overdue. Eventually a messenger arrives to say that his ship was destroyed and plummeted into the clouds. It is not known how this happened. Two ships are sent to investigate with Marcus and Titus aboard one of them. There's not much hope but perhaps someone can be lowered down far enough to spot wreckage. Various ropes and pulleys are assembled but Titus, oddly, leaves Marcus's ship for their companion ship. The cage is lowered when suddenly the other ship opens fire and a battle ensues. The ship Marcus is on is damaged badly enough that it plummets from the skies, through the cloud layer, and into the sea below.

Just a few of the crew, including Marcus, survive and are washed ashore onto an alien landscape. Marcus is devastated at the betrayal of his close friend, Titus, and also still grieving for the loss of his father. As heir to the throne the survivors are wary of Marcus, unsure how they'll survive themselves let alone keep a prince alive. Marcus has a lot to prove. He must try to blend in with the crew, be as useful as possible, but most of all they must explore this place they've come to... and find a way to get home and reclaim Heliopolis.

Quite a little gem this one. I was most taken by the world building, fascinated by the idea of these cities above the clouds, interacting, warring, the heirarchy that exists etc. The mystery element - that they have no idea how they got there, why the cities were built *or* what lies beneath the clouds, is extremely intriguing. I personally love the mix of science fiction and mystery and it's well done here. Possibly I would have liked more about the other cities and the technology, as it appears they were all different. I can see that if this had been an adult science fiction book a wonderfully complicated and long series might have ensued that was imaginative and challenging. I think I might have liked that but as a YA book it works well and is not a problem.

Characterisation in the book is fine... but not brilliant by any means. You don't get a huge sense of who these people are and what makes them tick. Some male authors don't seem to go in for making their main characters well rounded people: the mix of good and bad that we all are is often not well represented. And other characters that I can't go into for fear of spoilers are a little cliched in my opinion: too black and white. I'm not sure if authors are told to write this way for children or what, but it does seem a shame not to write people as they really are.

All that said, I still enjoyed this book very much. It's very imaginative and the final chapters, which obviously I can't describe, had me on the edge of my seat they were so full of suspense and excitment. This is a two book series so there is a sequel - Cloud World at War. Annoyingly, Devon libraries doesn't have a copy anywhere in the county. Did I enjoy this book enough to buy the sequel? Yes, I think I probably did... although I might try putting in a request to my library to actually get book 2 first.

~~~oOo~~~

May books and photos

2011-06-01T15:11:00.019+01:00

A busyish May followed a busyish April, so my reading was down a little last month. Or maybe I'm getting slower... who knows. It matters not one jot really because I enjoyed the five books I did read very much indeed.

28. The Court of the Air - Stephen Hunt
29. Twenties Girl - Sophie Kinsella
30. The Sinner - Tess Gerritsen
31. Islands of the Blessed - Nancy Farmer
32. Neither Here Nor There - Bill Bryson

I think I've reviewed three of them. The other two, The Sinner and Neither Here Nor There I haven't had time to do and am not going to stress over it. Both were excellent. The Sinner is book three in the Rizzoli and Isle series by Tess Gerritsen and I've said elsewhere what a good series this is. Book three was terrific and I gather the series gets even better. Neither Here Nor There tracks Bill Bryson's trip around Europe at the end of the 1990s. It was very, very good. Funny, honest, and informative and made me want to go to Italy. :-)

~~~oOo~~~

We took a day trip up to North Cornwall on Monday, with our grand-daughter who's been staying here for a few days. I snapped a few photos of Bude - they're not great but I thought I would share.

It was overcast, damp and blustery so we had picnic of hot Cornish pasties in the car and this is the view from close to where we were parked, at Widemouth Bay near Bude.

Looking the other way.

There were drifts of Thrift all over the place. Going over slightly now but still quite pretty to see.

And is this weird or what? This stuff looks like a spider's web but I don't think it is. A passing couple said they thought it was done by some kind of caterpillar and they might be right as I saw something similar on TV programme recently.

The weather started to clear and we moved closer to the town where they have this nice canal area leading to yet another beach.

I'm not sure why boats always look so scenic but they really do!

The beach and cliffs beyond... wonderful walks up there, all part of the South West coastal path of course.

Braver souls than me were in the water surfing, sail-boarding and so on. Some pointedly ignoring the life-guard's announcements to please move out of the danger zone. It all looked dangerous to me but then I'm famously lily-livered about these things.

And last but not at all least, this cute feller (or feller-ess) turned up on our drive last week:

It seems we have a family of hedgehogs in the garden as my husband saw a smaller one lower down on the drive a couple of days later. I sort of wish they'd stay in amongst the trees and undergrowth as I'd hate for one of them to get run over. Nice as it is to actually see them around. But what a cutie!

BBC trailer

2011-05-28T08:57:00.006+01:00

I'm going to be scarce until Wednesday as we have our grand-daughter coming to stay. I thought I would leave you with a minutes entertainment from the BBC... one of those trailers they're so brilliant at, advertising themselves. The song is iconic in the UK as being connected with the comedy duo of Morecambe and Wise and beloved I would say by anyone over 45.

The Islands of the Blessed

2011-05-23T14:17:00.009+01:00

I'm still continuing to read for Carl's Once Upon a Time V challenge despite the fact that I've read my five books. It has another month or so to run and I'm hoping to at least get another couple under my belt. This latest is The Island of the Blessed by Nancy Farmer, book three in her 'Sea of Trolls' trilogy, and my book six for the challenge.

After his previous adventures as The Bard's apprentice, with Vikings, trolls, elves, hobgoblins, and much else besides, Jack is now back living in his home village. He's still having magic lessons with The Bard and is surrounded by those he has met on those adventure, Thorgil the shield maiden in particular. She's her usual prickly self and somedays the two get on, others they don't. A new family to the area are the Tanners, mother and two daughters, slyly intent on causing as much trouble as they can.

Outside the village lives Brother Aiden, a monk, living in seclusion. He has, in his care, a bell named Fair Lamenting. It gives off a beautiful sound but must never be rung. Unfortunately it is and a draugr, the dead soul of a mermaid, is drawn to it and death is hot on her heels - possibly for them all.

The Bard and Jack must work out how to get rid of this presence but their course is not straightforward. First they must visit Brother Severus, an old acquaintance, to find out how he becane entangled with this mermaid and left her to die. Then they must travel to the island where it happened and thence on to Notland, the under-water kingdom of the Fin people, who hopefully will have the answer to their problems. But the path is hazardous and Jack and his friends will have many obstacles to overcome before their quest is fulfilled.

At last I have actually finished a fantasy series! The joy of it for me has been the journey, not just the physical one but the one Jack has undertaken from that of an ordinary young boy, not much appreciated by his parents (his younger sister was always the favourite) to several years later where he's a proper apprentice to The Bard, with all that entails. At the same time he's still a boy... with simmering resentments, a tendency to be rash, and growing feelings for Thorgil which he tries to hide, even to himself.

For me, characterisation is one of the strengths of these books. Nancy Farmer reflects the way people really are, neither all good nor all bad but a mix of both. The two main characters of Jack and Thorgil are very real but I also like The Bard, the albatross, Seafarer, and the Viking crew. The author doesn't try to gloss over the historial role of the Vikings either. Yes, they are friends to Jack and his travelling companions but their way of life is violent and cruel, they trade in slaves, and Jack's feelings toward his friends are ambivilent to say the least... even Thorgil who he knows is quite happy to kill in the name of honour or even just for sport.

All that said, I did really enjoy the travelling element to this series. It takes place in the very north eastern corner of England and the Scottish borders... and stretches from there to Norway. These places are real but of course but the legends, Norse Gods and mythical beasts etc., are not... but they feel real. The area is so wild that you can easily imagine a race of trolls in the mountains, a magical race of Pictish beings in Scotland, or a whole world of people living under the sea who collect riches just to experience the envy of others.

I've no idea why this wonderful trilogy is not more well known. I love it to bits for its sheer imagination and story telling. It cries out for a follow-up trilogy but I believe Nancy Farmer has to rely on her publishers being impressed enough with sales and she said that this last instalment has been largely ignored. What a travesty! These books are beautifully written, exciting, imaginative and even educational and it's a real shame that the story might not achieve its full potential.

A book meme

2011-05-22T23:03:00.008+01:00

I do actually have a book review to do tomorrow but I saw this meme on a blog on Live Journal and couldn't resist bringing it here to do.

1 - The best book you read last year: Moab is my Washpot by Stephen Fry

2 - A book you've read more than 3 times: There are very few books I've read three times but Sylvester by Georgette Heyer is one.

3 - Your favourite series: Just one, gosh er... I think it would have to be Harry Potter.

4 - A guilty pleasure book: Hard question as I don't really feel guilty about books I like. How about the Miss Read books?

5 - A book that made you laugh: My present read - Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson. His description of buying a loaf of bread in a bakers in Paris had me in tears of laughter.

6 - A book that made you cry: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Zoer

7 - Most underrated book: Nancy Farmer's 'Sea of Trolls' YA trilogy. Hardly anyone seems to have heard of them and yet they're excellent.

8 - Most overrated book: Maisie Dobbs. Sorry and all that, but I just don't get it.

9 - A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving: Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

10 - Favorite classic book: Pride and Prejudice

11 - A book you hated: I tend to stop reading when I dislike a book so I can't really think of one.

12 - A book you used to love but don’t anymore: Coming up blank with that too...

13 - Your favorite author: Terry Pratchett or Anne McCaffrey.

14 - Favorite male character: Masterharper Robinton from Anne McCaffrey's Pern books.

15 - Favorite female character: Ruth Galloway from Elly Griffiths' crime series of the same name.

16 - Your biggest fictional crush: Adam Hauptman from the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs.

17 - A Good Quick Read: Any of the Daisy Dalrymple books by Carola Dunn.

18 - A book that disappointed you: Frankenstein's Monster by Mary Shelley.

19 - Favorite book-to-movie conversion: Harry Potter

20 - Favorite romance: Either Sylvester or Frederica by Georgette Heyer.

21 - Favorite book from your childhood: Minnow on the Say by Philippa Pearce

22 - A book you can't wait for: Snuff by Terry Pratchett

23 - A book you've been meaning to read for ages: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

24 - A book that you wish more people would read: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

25 - Character you are most similar to: I think I'm a cross between Granny Weatherwax and Isabel Dalhousie. LOL!

26 - A book that changed your opinion about something: How tragic that I can't think of one!

27 - Most surprising plot twist or ending: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters has more plot twists than you can shake a stick at...

28 - Favorite book title: Thud!

29 - A book everyone hated but you liked: Well I only managed 50 or 60 pages of A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness but everyone else seems to love it.

30 - Your favorite book OF ALL TIME: I can't choose just *one* so I'll just pick *one* of my favourite books - Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris.

Twenties Girl

2011-05-15T14:13:00.007+01:00

I suddenly realised that I'd only read two books for my What's in a Name? challenge which is being hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Time to read another - not that there's any mad rush as I could probably wait and read them all in December, but I really don't want to do that, so, time for book three. This one comes under the heading of A Book with a Number in the Title and is Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella.

Lara Lington has a funeral to go to. She's reluctant, her whole family is to be honest; Great Aunt Sadie was 105 and not in contact with, or visited by anyone in the family in the old people's home she lived in. The funeral is thus very sparsely attended. The end of the ceremony is approaching when Lara suddenly hears a voice asking insistently where her necklace is. Shocked, Lara realises that she's the only one who can hear this voice. Looking around, she tracks the voice to a young woman dressed in the fashion of the 1920s, wandering around the church still asking for her necklace. Realising that Lara can hear her she tells her that *she* is Aunt Sadie and that Lara must stop the funeral until the necklace is found.

Not without some difficulty, Lara manages this but the few people present, including her parents and her uncle's family, think she has gone completely mad. This is mainly due to the fact that Lara broke up with her boyfriend, Josh, recently and won't let go. She's been texting and pestering him and her family think this is unnacceptable behaviour. Lara has further problems with the head-hunting business she started with her best friend, Natalie. Natalie has gone on holiday to Goa, fallen in love there and left Lara holding the fort, where things are not going too well.

Naturally, Lara cannot tell her family that the reason she stopped the funeral was because a 105 year old ghost told her to. Sadie is rather a demanding ghost and wants Lara to find the necklace, so the two set about investigating. Whilst doing so, Sadie sees a man she fancies, American, Ed Harrison, in an office and makes Lara gate-crash the meeting and ask Ed on date. Ed accepts because Sadie yells in his ear and tells him to. But Lara is still trying to get back with Josh, so how is this all going to work exactly?

Lara finds herself in increasingly bizarre situations as she tries to keep her business going, find the necklace and co-ordinate her love life. And then the two investigators discover who has the necklace. Lara realises that all is not as it seems and in order to get to the bottom of the whole business she must force the very reluctant Sadie to tell her something about her life. Which is when the mystery really begins...

I think this is the fourth book I've read by Sophie Kinsella and she's never failed to impress me (although I do seem to prefer her stand-alone books to the Shopaholic series). On the surface this is quite a fluffy, fun story with a lot of laughs. There's one scene where I was literally in stitches at one in the morning and could hardly force myself to stop reading and turn out the light. And, aside from being humorous, there is also a solid mystery element to this which keeps you guessing and is genuinely interesting and even quite rivetting as Sadie's past history is slowly revealed.

But, as with all of Sophie Kinsella's books, there is always an under-lying question she's asking of the reader. How do we treat our older relatives who are unable to look after themselves and have to reside in homes for the elderly? Do we treat them as individuals with something relevant or interesting to say, a history to relate? Do we visit them or do we hide them away, expecting paid health-care workers to look after them and not bother us younger ones with their existance? It's one hell of a question and one all of have to face at one time or another, either as caring - or uncaring - relatives or as the elderly person ourselves.

The author handles this question brilliantly, not bashing us around the head with guilty facts but gently leading us to question, via a very clever plot, how we value the elderly in a 21st. century where youth and high flying careers are worshipped but no one has time to smell the roses... or visit a lonely old lady in a nursing home.

I've loved all the books by Sophie Kinsella's that I've read so far, but this is by far my favourite. I loved the mystery element, the humour, the poignancy, the characters, the romance, the scattiness. It was so readable that I found it hard to stop reading when I had to and when I wasn't reading it was constantly thinking about it. Sophie Kinsella is quite simply one of the best writers of light, modern fiction around today, in my opinion. I can't wait to see what she writes next!
~~~oOo~~~

Recent book buys and gifts

2011-05-14T14:40:00.010+01:00

I haven't done a book porn post in ages so, as I seem to have acquired a few new ones recently, I thought it was time.

I had a birthday recently so first up here're the four I had for that event:

The top two were from my daughter - Darkship Thieves by Sarah A. Hoyt, which is a sci fi romance yarn, and West of the Moon by Katherine Langrish which I believe is her Troll saga trilogy in one book. The bottom two were from a dear friend - Light on Snow by Anita Shreve and The Book on the Bookshelf which is a book on the history of bookshelves and is beautifully illustrated and looks wonderful.

And from my husband:

A lovely slate blue/grey cover for my new Kindle.

And these I bought for myself in a weak moment. (Well, several weak moments actually.)

The bottom two books are as a result of reading this post by Kay at My Random Acts of Reading. I'm sure I don't need another series to start but the idea of a crime series set in Wyoming and the fact that they might be a bit cowboyish meant I had no hope of resisting the impulse to buy the first two. The Christmas Train by David Baldaci was grabbed from a charity shop. I like to read Christmassy books around Christmas and I gather he's a good author - my husband reads him - so that one jumped off the shelf and into my hands... funny how books do that. And Boneshaker by Cherie Priest did a similar thing in Waterstones in Exeter on Thursday, mainly because their library should have had it and didn't, so I got myself a little belated birthday present.

Added to this another dear friend gave me a Kindle token for my birthday and with that I got today, Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson, The Kingdom Beyond the Waves by Stephen Hunt and A Perfect Proposal by Katie Fforde.

So those were my book fixes for the last two or three weeks and ought to last me for a bit now. Maybe.
~~~oOo~~~

The Court of the Air

2011-05-10T15:15:00.006+01:00

I can't belive it's taken me two whole weeks to read The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt, but it has. Admittedly it is a bit of chunkster at over 580 pages - and I have been busy this last couple of weeks (actually, all through April and the first week of May). But that doesn't fully explain it and I suspect it's more to do with the fact that I found this one quite a challenging read. Anyway, whatever, it's my book five for Carl's Once Upon a Time challenge and means I've finished the challenge really, but, of course, I've no intention of stopping *now*...

Molly Templar lives in Middlesteel, the capital of the kingdom of Jackels. She's a workhouse girl in a world that resmbles Victorian England but also differs in many respects. The workhouse want to be rid of Molly as she's old enough to fend for herself, but she can't seem to hold down a job.

Oliver Brooks is, ostensibly, better off. He lives in a large house with his uncle and goes to school. But Oliver's movements are restricted as he's a registered boy. He is part Fey having spent 4 years in the Feymist, survived, and somehow kept his sanity. Except that he can't remember any of it.

Things are not right in the kingdom. Revolution is in the air and it's impossible to judge who is on whose side. The King is a sick man, but has no power anyway, having had his arms symbolically chopped off to stop him 'raising his arms against his own kingdom'. A kind of communist government is in charge now, or trying to be. Watching over all is a mysterious, almost mythical, group known as The Court of the Air who observe and spy from airships in the sky.

Molly's life is suddenly turned upside down when a masacre takes place at her new place of work - a brothel. She survives and runs for the workhouse only to find that everyone there is also dead. Realising that the killer was after her, she goes on the run.

Oliver's existance takes a similar turn, only this time it's his uncle and members of the household who are killed. He's rescued by Harry Stave, a mysterious spy type who helps Oliver escape and goes on the run with him.

Clearly someone or some group is after both Molly and Oliver, but why? What is this strange affinity Molly seems to have with machines? Is Oliver's feyblood the reason someone wants him dead? Both youngsters have a very long journey ahead and many shocking discoveries to make before any sense can be made of the bizarre and dangerous situation.

I have to say that that short synopsis doesn't really cover this book. It's been a long time since I read anything quite as complicated, plotwise... and also complicated in its world building. It was 'challenging', there's no other word for it. And I'll be honest I was at page 200 before I really decided that 'yes' I would carry on to the end. Oddly, I discovered that both my daughters had had this one from the library: my eldest had given up after about 100 pages, my youngest had finished it but found it wanting. I understand. It was almost *too* complicated. I sometimes wondered if pieces of history or places had been added just for the sake of keeping the reader on their toes.

I'm also going to say that I didn't think the characters of Molly and Oliver were fleshed out enough. They weren't two-dimensional exactly, but neither were they rounded individuals that I felt I really knew by the end of the book. I had more empathy with a race of people called steammen, who were machines with souls, and a very real and sympathetic race. Much more interesting I felt than the two main characters.

All that said, this really is a stunning book and I wish I could put my finger on why, as it's a far from a perfect piece of work. I think I was overwhelmed by the concept. Yes, the world building is confusing at times... I often struggled to remember who was loyal to whom, why someone was doing what they were doing - even what the heck was going on in some instances! But goodness me what a world Stephen Hunt has invented. It's dark, dangerous and mysterious... there are underground cities, closed cities - the city of the steammen in the mountains was amazing. And all of it powered by a very strange and imaginative technolgy of machines. And let's face it, it could easily be my own fault that I was, at times, confused. My memory isn't what it was and I sometimes find that if I can't read a book as fast as I would like I don't always remember the small detail.

There are four books in the 'Jackelian' series at the moment with book five coming out in July. I'll be getting book two, The Kingdom Beyond the Waves, for my Kindle because I'm so intrigued by this world that I want to read more. I gather book two is not actually about Molly and Oliver anyway but about a minor character, Professor Amelia Harsh, going on an expedition to find the lost city of Camlantis. I have to read it so The Court of the Air clearly made quite an impression on me. In point of fact I rather like it when I love a book despite its imperfections. :-) Lastly, I don't know whether this book could be described as 'steampunk'... if it is then I think I want to read more so if anyone has any suggestions for other titles, do leave a comment.

Fruit crumble and soup

2011-05-04T14:28:00.015+01:00

In my previous post on Monday I mentioned I was planning to make a fruit crumble. A couple of people asked for photos so Hubby and I (confirming his fears of my impending insanity) proceeded to take some pics of the dish as it was being put together. So here ya go:

You can use any fruit for a fruit crumble. Apple is common and rhubarb very popular. I enjoy mixing fruits so this one is raspberry and blueberry (sometimes I'll put tinned peaches with these two). Raspberries from the garden, frozen from last year, and two lots of blueberries - the smaller ones frozen from the garden from last year, and a few from the supermarket, which are much bigger and I cut in half to let the juice out. All this I sprinkle with a bit of sugar.

Here it is with the crumble topping spread over the top. Recipe is very simple. 6ozs flour with 4ozs butter or marge rubbed into it (I use a mix of both). Into the rubbed in mix stir 4ozs of sugar (demerera or golden castor is nice) and 2 ozs porridge oats. You can also mix in some powdered cinnamon or ginger if you like but my husband likes his crumble unadulterated, so I tend not to.

Pop it in the oven, about 175C for 20 - 25 mins. After which it should look like this:

And like this after us gannets have been at it:

And some days you wake up and just know you have to make soup. So I did.

The basis of this one is chicken stock raided from the freezer. I added that to a load of sweated carrots, onions, sweet potato, garlic, and celery. Then I added some cold new potatoes lurking in the fridge, some of my husband's frozen squash purée, some red lentils, various herbs such as sage, oregano, marjoram, chives and garlic chives, and a hunk of left-over smoked bacon joint. When I make soup like this from bits and bobs I don't always know what I'm going to end up with. LOL. This time I seem to have produced a really nice smokey flavoured ham and vegetable soup which we'll have for tea tonight.

And on my wanderings around the garden collecting my herbs these grabbed my attention:

Aliums are part of the onion family I believe. Whatever, I think they're stunning flowers.

Osteospermums. They close up at night but during the day with the sun shining on them they look like this. Not for nothing is May my favourite month of year.

April's books

2011-05-02T13:28:00.008+01:00

Rather a busy month for myself and my family, it's a wonder I managed to read anything really. Our few days in Cornwall was nice, so was our extended Easter, and various other comings and goings. I also feel a bit as though I'm suffering from Royal Wedding withdrawal but that too shall pass I'm sure. The calendar for May is mercifully empty and I have no complaints about that whatsoever! This week we need to get bedding plants out into the garden, the warm April made them grow very quickly but all of a sudden it's turned cold and showery so maybe that can wait a day or two. I did at least weed, dig and tidy the ground this morning so that's one thing off my list of today's 'things to do'. The other things were to write this post, make a raspberry and blueberry crumble... and READ. I'm almost half way through The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt. It's 580 pages long and I feel like I'm running a marathon with it - a couple of times I've felt like giving up but I think in the longrun I'll be glad I persevered. I hope so anyway.

So, without further ado, these are the books I read this month.

21. The Apprentice - Tess Gerritsen
22. The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
23. Affairs at Thrush Green - Miss Read
24. Thyme Out - Katie Fforde
25. Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde
26. Door into Fire - Diane Duane
27. Clerical Errors - D.M. Greenwood

Seven in all. Three for the Once Upon a Time challenge, a couple of crime yarns and a couple of sundry fiction. All of them good.

This month I want to read more for my challenges, get rid of my library pile so that I can go and raid Exeter city library for the four books they have that I want, maybe gain a few new books for my birthday... and a cover for my Kindle! Do other Kindle users own covers for them? I didn't think I would need one but as soon as I got a Kindle I realised I probably do. I'm nothing if not contrary.

Happy reading for the month of May - my favourite month.

~~~oOo~~~

The Door into Fire & Clerical Errors

2011-04-26T20:22:00.003+01:00

Two books to review quickly today. I didn't have heaps of time to read last week, due to visitors, Easter etc. but these two were light, easy reads that I was able to pick up and put down as and when I had a spare moment.

First up, The Door into Fire by Diane Duane, a fantasy story which is my book four for Carl's Once Upon a Time V challenge.

Herewiss is a prince of the Brightwood, a small part of the Middle Kingdoms. He is the first male in centuries to have the power of the flame, that is, it's within him but he's unable to find a focus to channel the power through and thus, completely unable to use it. His closest friend is Freelorn, who should have taken the throne of Arlen when his father died but had it snatched from him. His life consists of trying to find ways to get his rightful throne back and getting into various scrapes that Herewiss has to rescue him from with the basic magic that he does possess.

Herewiss is en route to another such rescue when he discovers that out in the desert area known as The Waste is a place of immense power with possible doorways into other worlds or dimensions. Herewiss saves a Fire elemental from certain death and together with Freelorn and his companions sets off to investigate this source of power in the hope that it might hold the key to both Herewiss's and Freelorn's problems.

Great fun this one. A book very much in the traditional vein of epic fantasy with plenty of magic, journeying to far lands and war looming; not to mention - naturally - a map at the beginning. (Gotta have me a map!) It's book one of Diane Duane's Tale of the Five series, the author being well known, I believe, for her Star Trek and 'Young Wizard' series. I liked it a lot. The relationship between Herewiss and the elemental, Sunspark, was the most fun as the latter tries to understand the weirdness that is humankind. There is mixed sexuality in this book too, an acceptance of bi-sexuality that might not be to the taste of all - but nothing that's explicit. Overall, a fun read. I own book two as well and will read that as and when. Depending on how I find that one, I may or may not continue on to the end of the series (there are three books.)

Next up, Clerical Errors by D.M. Greenwood - a crime yarn.

A jobless young Australian, Julia Smith, gets a position as a secretary in the cathedral offices in Medewich in East Anglia. She's not terribly well qualified and is, quite frankly, daunted by most of the staff, expecially one Canon Wheeler who is arrogant and a bully. Her first day could hardly have a worse start when she is second on the scene after the decapitated head of a local vicar, Paul Gray, is found in the cathedral by a cleaner.

Julia is taken under the wing of Deaconess Theodora Braithwaite and administrator, Ian Caretaker and together they try to solve the mystery. It seems secrets are everywhere and the police have come up against the wall of silence that is the Anglican church protecting its own. Canon Wheeler is a constant bullying presence but what kind of mysterious shenanigans was Paul Gray mixed up in? What is the significance of the stolen church candles? When a second murder occurs things become very dangerous for the group of friends and it's a race against time to solve the crime before one of them is killed.

This is the first book in the Theodora Braithwaite series of books by D.M. Greenwood. She's a little known author from East Anglia who wrote nine books in this series between 1991 and 1999 and nothing else. Apparently she did actually work in the diocese of Rochester so knows her stuff and it shows. Attention to detail is very precise and I learnt a fair bit about the workings of the church. I liked the way in which she depicted the clergy as every bit as full of failings as the rest of us and intransigence a way of life for many of them. At first this book seems as though it might be a cosy mystery but in reality it's not at all. The setting is rather lovely but there are dark doings, nastiness and spite and it makes for quite compulsive reading.

I first read about this series on Geranium Cat's blog. I'm not churchy at all but I do enjoy the odd ecclesiastical mystery so reserved it from my library. Annoyingly they don't have book two in the series so I will probably download it onto my Kindle to read at some stage. A promising series.

~~~oOo~~~

Lost in a Good Book

2011-04-19T09:40:00.009+01:00

Today's my last free day for several days as we have family visiting until Saturday. Luckily I finished my latest book just at the right time to review it today, before I disappear!

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde is my book three for Carl's Once Upon a Time V challenge. My daughter very kindly grabbed it for me from the city library in Exeter and I decided to read it quickly so that it can go back and free up the space on her ticket. (Her and her husand, and our grand-daughter for that matter, always max out their library cards with books and then share them as they all, mostly, read the same thing.) Anyhoo, like I said, this my book three for the challenge and so far I'm quite pleased with the way it's going. Two of the books were off the tbr pool I put aside - and one from the library.

Thursday Next, SpecOps agent for LiteraTec, is now very happily married to Landen Parke-Laine. Or at least she has been. Thursday was responsible for putting the evil Jack Schitt, from the Goliath corporation, into The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe and leaving him there as punishment after the events of The Eyre Affair. Now the corporation, in the shape of Jack's brother, want him back. In order to do this they've 'eradicated' Landen and won't return him unless Thursday does what they want. History has been altered and Landen actually died when he was two in a drowning accident, whereas in reality he was saved by his father. But the portal book invented by her uncle has been destroyed and her uncle has retired so the way into books is no longer clear to Thursday.

And that's not the only problem Thursday has. Her father (a sort of time-travelling agent) visits her and tells her the world is going to end in two weeks and it's up to her to save it. Someone is out to kill her and that person's methods smack of Acheron Hades... but he's dead... isn't he? The people she works for even seem to have it in for her, despite her defeat of Hades. And worst of all she's now a celebrity and expected to do PR in the form of chat shows and public appearances.

Landen's eradication is her main priority though. Thursday's search takes her to a library - the biggest she has ever seen. It contains all the books ever written and all of those that will be written. And there she meets The Cheshire Cat who runs the library, and a group of special agents from books whose task it is to police the book world. Thursday finds herself apprenticed to Miss Havisham, from Great Expectations, not the frail old lady of the book but an old lady who likes fast cars and drives them like a crazy woman. Will Thursday be able to learn to book hop quickly enough to save Landen, before the world ends or before whoever is after her kills her?

Difficult to explain the plot of this one to be honest. So much going on and so many plot twists and turns. And I'm a bit hopeless at following time travel plots anyway. Regardless of all that, Lost in a Good Book is a worthy sequel to The Eyre Affair. To be honest, I think I liked it even more.

My favourite character was definitely Miss Havisham who went around in her wedding dress... and trainers... hates men, naturally, and loves fast cars. The world she inhabits is a fascinating one. The library is *huge* and made me drool quite frankly - it has to go down as one of the all-time amazing literary libraries!

There's much that's quirky and inventive about these books. A method of travel that takes you right through the centre of the earth. Mammoths brought back from extinction and trampling people's gardens on their annual migration through Swindon. Neanderthals also brought back from extinction, to do menial tasks, but feeling undervalued and looking for equality. A Kafka-like trial which made me realise that I don't want to read Kafka! LOL. I could go on and on... The books are pacey, unpredictable, funny, clever - unique in my opinion. A book lover's joy if you enjoy a bit of craziness. Not for everyone, but certainly for me.

~~~oOo~~~

Library Loot!

2011-04-16T14:05:00.004+01:00

Time for another Library Loot post as I haven't done one for a couple of weeks.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire at The Captive Reader and Marg at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

And here is my present bookish loot:

From the bottom:

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde. I wasn't going to pick up book two in Fforde's Thursday Next series so soon. Especially as I would have to reserve it. But my daughter was heading into Exeter city library yesterday while Hubby and I took the grandkids to the seaside, and she very kindly offered to pick their copy up for me. In exchange I grabbed the latest Maisie Dobbs for her from Teignmouth library. Works for me. :-)

A Single Swallow by Horatio Clare. This is a non-fiction which charts the swallows' journey the entire length of Africa. I saw it in Waterstones last year, wanted it, but decided to be good and wait for the library to get it. Which they now have.

The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen. Book 3 in the Rizzoli and Isles crime series that I'm currently hooked on.

Library Confidential by Don Borchert. Life in the stacks.

Clerical Errors by D.M. Greenwood. The first in the Theodora Braithwaite ecclesiastical crime series. I saw this blogged about somewhere but can't now remember where... apologies.

The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt. Victorian society fantasy. Dickensian apparently. Excited about this one and will be reading it for the Once Upon a Time challenge... after Easter, when things quieten down a bit.

Dhampir by Barb and J.C. Hendee. I saw this one blogged about on Animewookie's new book blog, My Gallery of Worlds, and thought it sounded quite good and would also do for the Once Upon a Time challenge.

So those are the seven books I have from the library at the moment. And only one on reserve, Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin, which I'll be reading for the Foodie challenge when it comes.

~~~oOo~~~

Thyme Out

2011-04-14T15:45:00.007+01:00

I'm quite pleased at the way my Foodie book challenge is going. I think I'm enjoying this slightly unusual challenge so much because you can read non-fiction or fiction as long as food is a major theme of the book. The Foodie challenge is being hosted by Margot at Joyfully Retired and runs all year. There are different levels of reading and I'm doing 'Bon Vivant' which is to read 4 to 6 books. Thyme Out by Katie Fforde is my book 3 so I'm about halfway through now, though I suspect I may end up reading more than 6.

Perdita Dylan is 29 years old, divorced for 10 years and running her own business. She grows and supplies unusual salad ingredients to local businesses - hotels, health spas - on land lent to her by her closest friend, Kitty. Kitty is 87 years old and practically brought Perdita up. Her parents were of the absent variety, always away on some trekking project or other, so Kitty has always been like a mother to Perdita and the two now live very happily as neighbours.

One morning, Perdita delivers the usual order of salad leaves to a local hotel and, to her horror, discovers that the chef has left and been replaced by her ex-husband, Lucas. The last she'd heard of him he was still 'something in the city' and she assumed he was still with the older woman he'd left her for, not cheffing in her neck of the woods. It has taken Perdita years to recover from the break-up and she is not happy in the slightest to see him.

The situation is not helped by the fact that Lucas has clearly turned into the chef from hell. He's demanding and truculent with his staff, and treats Perdita in the same manner. Perdita is furious at this turn her life has taken. She is not well off and has to work long hours for what little she does have, but at least she was content and happy growing her veg. Now things are complicated and difficult decisions have to be made. Is she really prepared to let Lucas inveigle her into making a TV cookery show with him?

Things come to a head when Kitty suffers a stroke. Roger, a long-lost relative of Kitty's turns up. At first he seems nice and it looks like he's there to help but slowly Perdita starts to suspect his motives. Who can she turn to for help as Kitty's situation worsens? The answer is obvious but unwelcome to Perdita as she's been trying to ignore her growing attraction for her ex-husband. There is no way she will allow him hurt her like he did before.

I suppose many would call Katie Fforde's books 'light, enjoyable reads' which, in some respects, they certainly are. The romantic aspect of this book is fun and 'funny' as we watch Perdita struggle with this ridiculous situation and try to keep everything together. It's clear she's kidding herself about her real feelings but on the other hand the reader feels for her because Lucas is actually a bit of a pig and, truthfully, you really don't know what to think about him as you read on.

The other side of the coin here is the sad situation with Perdita's friend, Kitty. It felt strange for me actually, because Kitty is so like my late mother-in-law in her quirkiness and obsession with gardening, that it was uncanny. Plus, the same thing happened to her in that she also had a stroke. So I could identify completely with the situation in the book. Kitty has always been there for Perdita and now it's the other way round - Perdita is the carer and has no idea what the future will hold. The uncertainty is no joke and forms the very real backdrop to what is, to all intents and purposes, a romance book. It makes it real and relevant but the book is never maudlin or depressing. Kitty's influence in her life is celebrated by Perdita; it's hard but she feels lucky to have had this wonderful woman in her life, and that was exactly the way I felt about my mother-in-law.

Being both a cook and, to a lesser extent, a gardener, I loved those elements of the story. Perdita can grow anything but can't cook to save her life. Thus, certain situations she finds herself in are hilarious - even if they are her own fault. And hearing about what goes on in a fine dining kitchen and also how a TV cookery show is put together made the book even more interesting for me.

I actually haven't read that many books by Katie Fforde... a couple I think... but they're always enjoyable. I don't remember the others being quite this thought provoking but that may be because I didn't identify with them quite as strongly as I did this one. I will certainly read more, as and when I see them in the library.
~~~oOo~~~

The Eyre Affair

2011-04-13T14:18:00.004+01:00

I'm a bit behind with book reviews at the moment, three and a half books read so far this month and not one of them reviewed. I have a feeling some will just get a mention on my end of the month post. I'll make a start with this one anyway - The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde is my second book for Carl's Once Upon a Time V challenge.

Thursday Next is an agent with SpecOps who police the 1985 she lives in. In this reality the Crimean war is still ongoing, Wales is a communist republic and more or less a closed country, and one of the most popular pastimes is reading. Thursday hails from Swindon, here in the UK, but lives and works in London. She lost a brother in the Crimea and fought there herself, her brother's death being the source of a huge controversy connected with The Charge of the Light Brigade.

The story begins when the original manuscript of Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit is mysteriously stolen from a museum. The box it was contained in is untouched and the thief does not appear on the CCTV tape. It appears this is the work of arch-criminal, Acheron Hades, and Thursday is recruited by another SpecOps department to help catch him. In a botched attempt her new partner is killed and Thursday badly injured; it seems Hades is a completely unprincipled scoundrel, going so far as to even kill his own brother in an effort not to be caught.

Thursday returns to Swindon but the Hades problem will not go away: Hades has noticed her and the next thing he does is to kidnap her uncle Mycroft who is a bit of a mad professor type. He's invented a book that can be used to enter the world of books, and Hades puts Mycroft's wife into a Wordsworth poem to make Mycroft do his bidding. 'His bidding' involves interfering in the ending of Jane Eyre for monetary gain; in this reality that book has a different conclusion to the one we're used to. It seems that the only one really capable of stopping this villainy is Thursday Next but how is this possible when Hades is always one step ahead and completely ruthless to boot?

Lots of people love this series so I was expecting a fun read and I got one. The cleverness displayed by the author reminds me a little bit of Terry Pratchett but in reality this story was not much like anything I've ever read before. Favourite bits were things such as the Will-speak machine where you put a coin in and got a Shakespeare quote; the John Milton convention going on at the hotel where everyone came dressed as the author and had changed their name to... John Milton; and a scene where a 'Baconian' knocks on the door and tries to persuade Thursday that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays... in the manner of a Jehovah's Witness trying to convert you on the doorstep. Beautifully done and very funny.

I love the idea of a world where books are the thing and not TV (although TV does exist). Where everyone has read classic literature and not only thinks nothing of it but has an opinion and knows all the charcters in minute detail. Where absolutely everyone has read Jane Eyre and loathes the (wrong) ending. And where the stealing of an original manuscript is a catastrophe of earth-shattering proportions.

It helps to have some knowledge of Jane Eyre to read this book but it's not strictly necessary. To be honest, this book makes me want to reread it as I last read it as a teen, although I have seen several execellent dramatisations since. I think I liked the Mr. Rochester in this book better than I liked the 'real' one!

I'm now wondering what the other books in this series hold - which books are involved, what happens to Thursday, and whether or not more of Mycroft's wonderful inventions are instrumental in the plot. I've just checked and the next book is Lost in a Good Book and seems to involve Neanderthals, Just William and Flopsy Bunnies. Sounds great and I shall be checking to see if my library has it tomorrow. I really need another new series...

~~~oOo~~~

Cornish coast photos

2011-04-09T10:51:00.019+01:00

Last week saw myself and my husband down in Cornwall for a short break. We actually stayed in a generic hotel at Bodmin which is smack bang in the middle of the county and an excellent location for visiting the north Cornish coast. On our first full day, Monday, we struck lucky. In Bodmin it was a dull, overcast, dreary day but when we reached the coast it was glorious and stayed like it all day. First stop was the coast around Bedruthan Steps. I don't have a head for heights so we didn't go down to the beach, but had a walk along the cliffs there instead, an area the National Trust own and call 'Carnewas'.

The gorse everywhere was stunning.

By the time we'd wandered a mile or two, ooohed and ahhhed over the views, stopped for a cuppa at the little NT café, wandered a bit more the other way, ooohed and ahhhed some more - that took up most of the morning. We moved on up the coast after that and stopped at Constantine Bay. Not a bay we know well, although that area around Padstow is reasonably familiar as we used to pop down regularly when we lived in Barnstaple. We popped into the small village shop where they had homemade pasties for sale, grabbed one each and took them down to the bay for a picnic lunch. The day was chilly and blowy but very sunny so it really was gorgeous sitting on the rocks enjoying excellent pasties and looking out to sea.

Parts of the beach were rock-pool heaven for kids and we said we'd have to take the grandkids there in the summer.

This chap was trying to land his wind-surfing parachute thingy and it was quite the entertainment watching him make the attempt... at least half a dozen times.

Well, that's the first batch - I have two more lots to post, of Lanhydrock, the National Trust property near Bodmin, and of the coast around Tintagel. We packed quite a lot into three days!

March books

2011-04-02T10:35:00.006+01:00

Off to Cornwall tomorrow until Wednesday but before I tootle off I'll do a quick run-down of what I read during March. It was a good month, all in all, eight books read... that sounds rather good for me but none of them were particularly long or difficult reads. Here we go then (I'll number them according to how many I've read this year):

13. The Surgeon - Tess Gerritsen
14. Gossip from Thrush Green - Miss Read
15. The Tapestry of Love - Rosy Thornton
16. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive - Alexander McCall Smith
17. Requiem for a Mezzo - Carola Dunn
18. Garlic and Sappires - Ruth Reichl
19. Beauty - Robin McKinley
20. Diavolino - Steve Emmett

All eight were excellent reads - no duffers, as I call them. A bit of a mixed bag too. One non-fiction, three crime, a fantasy for Carl's Once Upon a Time challenge, a horror, and a couple of what you might call modern fiction I suppose. I read my first Kindle book and loved using it, so that, for me, was quite momentous (I'm easily pleased).

Next month I really want to get stuck in to Carl's Once Upon a Time challenge... my pile of books for that is calling to me and, in fact, I've started another, The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. I also have another Kindle book sent to me by an author to read - Dreaming, Not Sleeping by Julia Kavan. Looking forward to that.

I'm assuming I'll come back from Cornwall with books, or maybe I'll be able to resist? Or maybe not... (I can hear Deslily laughing hysterically from here.) I should come back with photos although the weather forecast doesn't look too promising. Was hoping to bore you all with photos of my beloved Cornwall's coastline and will certainly do my best to fulfill that threat... er... promise.

Happy Reading while I'm away.
~~~oOo~~~

Diavolino

2011-03-31T09:53:00.006+01:00

I've now read my very first Kindle book! Author, Steve Emmett, wrote to me to ask if I would care to read and review his debut book, Diavolino. I was about to write back to say that I couldn't because I was, sadly, Kindle-less, when another exact same request arrived. That put a stop to my dilly-dallying over whether or not to get one so I took the plunge and am now a fully paid up member of Clueless Owners of New Technology. Anyway, Steve's book was my first foray into actually reading a book on it.

Tom Lupton is a London based architect, married to Elspeth; they have a five year old daughter, Alice. They are all quite happy and settled in the capital. Then one of Tom's most important clients offers him a chance to build a dream house on a mysterious island on an Italian Lake. Tom and Elspeth are not sure about such a life-changing move but are eventually persuaded by the prospect of a few years in beautiful Italy.

What they find when they get there is a stunningly beautiful setting but a few locals who are not exactly thrilled to see them. Foreigners, it appears, are not welcomed by all. And then little Alice starts 'seeing' things around their temporary home on the island - strange monkish apparitions. No one quite believes the child although both her parents are also experiencing odd happenings.

Things come to a head when Tom and his assitant, Sima, are out excavating around the new build site. It's covered in weird creepers which clutch at you. Tom's attention is distracted and when he turns around Sima is disappearing into the ground and all he can see is her feet. Frantic, he tries to dig her out but the ground is hard and unyielding. What's happened to her? And what is the history of the island which the locals, and especially the mayor, are trying to hide from them? They eventually discover a macabre story which is centuries old... but what has that got to do with Sima's disappearance? They are soon to find out.

There's a really strong sense of place in this story and for me those are the best kind of books. I suppose it's the armchair traveller in me speaking, but if I can be transported by a story to somewhere I have never been and can imagine that place almost as though I had actually been there, then that's good writing. Here's Lake Trasimeno where the book is set:

It's clearly very beautiful indeed - I gather the author lived in the area for quite a while and for me that shows over and over. I really appreciate an author using that kind of local knowledge to full effect.

The story itself... well, it probably wouldn't be for everyone but I enjoyed it. Modern horror is not, to be honest, my forté - I prefer Victorian or Edwardian ghost yarns as there's something about gaslit stories of the macabre that I find utterly thrilling. But I'll give anything a go and this tale with its centuries old background gripped me from the start. I read it in a couple of days and I can't decide whether this was to do with Steve's very readable writing style or the ease of reading on a Kindle where you can choose exactly the font size you need. Both I suspect. Whatever, I found myself racing through it, wanting to find out what happens next as it really is 'edge of the seat' stuff.

My final point is something I'm not quite sure how to phrase. Erm... I find it, shall we say, 'refreshing', when male authors write about men as they really *are*. If you've been married a very long time, as I have, you tend to know these things but it's surprising how many female authors, writing men, don't seem to get it. The reverse is true too of course, many male authors don't write realistic women either, but that's not the point here. Steve's male characters rang very true and 'were' definitely blokes... not watered down versions of the reality.

All in all a good debut novel - creepy, suspenseful, atmospheric and, for me anyway, a lot of fun. And also a nice start to my Kindle reading experience - I'm thrilled with my new toy to be honest and love how pleasant it was to read a book on it. I'm sure it won't replace my proper books but as an additional reading tool it's brilliant.

Beauty

2011-03-28T13:55:00.010+01:00

I'm doing fairly well with my challenges this year, a couple of books read for both and the first book for Carl's Once Upon a Time V challenge is now under my belt: Beauty by Robin McKinley.

Grace, Hope and Honour are three sisters, the daughters of a wealthy ship-owner, whose mother died when they were young. Honour hates her name and thinks being beautiful is preferable to being honourable and thus, from when she is very young, is called 'Beauty' by everyone who knows her. This turns out to be a misnomer, as it happens, because as she grows it becomes apparent that Beauty is not beautiful like her sisters - in fact, she thinks of herself as rather plain.

Luckily they're a very close-knit family. When their father's business fails and they are all rendered destitute, one of his employees, Germain, offers marriage to Hope and a place for them all at his new forge, inland, in his remote home village. Miles from anywhere in fact, in a small village surrounded by a large forest. They accept his offer and a new life begins, one of hard work and simple pleasures with new neighbours who are welcoming and supportive. One thing Germain insists on though, is that none of them should ever go into the forest as it's known locally to be enchanted and dangerous.

Returning from a journey, late one night, the father gets lost in bad weather. Mistaking his way he ends up in the middle of the forest and eventually discovers a castle. Here there is no bad weather and beautiful roses are blooming. He picks one for Beauty and brings the wrath of the castle owner down upon his head - The Beast. The Beast tells him that he'll allow him to leave but he has to return within a week with his youngest daughter.

Back home, the father admits to what has happened. The whole family are horrified and against Beauty going but she won't hear of it and volunteers to go back with her father. Devastated at having to leave her family, but determined to go through with it, Beauty leaves for the castle, having no idea what her fate will be or whether she will ever see her beloved sisters again.

I have to say first of all that I have a well developed dislike for retold fairy tales. I'm not sure why but think it might be to do with the fact that I like unpredictability in my reading, I don't want to know how the story is going to pan out before I even start. And of course, with a retold fairy tale the story and ending is well known by everyone.

That said, I do have quite a fondness for the story of Beauty and the Beast. The idea of falling in love with someone, not because of their good looks, but because of their good character and intelligence greatly appeals to me. I've only read one book by Robin McKinley, Sunshine, a vampire story which I absolutely love, and I was curious to see how she handled this completely predictable story. Very nicely is the answer to that question. The story is beautifully narrated in the first person - Beauty is a delight in that she's down to earth, has no airs and graces and is brave and 'honourable' as her proper name suggests. It also doesn't harm that she's bookish! You can't help but like her. The Beast is also nicely drawn... I love the idea that his library is full of books that don't yet exist and thus Beauty is able to read Sherlock Holmes!

The sense of place is also very good... I'm a forest and mountains sort of person anyway so that helps but it does sound idyllic regardless of that; the descriptions are beautiful as the family go about their new pioneer style life. (Think Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder). I was rather envious, I must admit, despite the fact that the family's fortunes were ruined. It struck me they hadn't ended up with such a bad bargain.

So, am I converted to retold fairy tales now? Nope. LOL. I did quite enjoy this one but that's probably enough now for at least another year. I picked the book up in a charity shop ages ago and several times I've been on the brink of putting it in the charity shop box, unread. But I'm glad I didn't as it made a delightful and easy start to Carl's challenge.
~~~oOo~~~

My series update

2011-03-26T23:47:00.029Z

Time to update my book series post; as usual this is really for my own records and is an update of the one I did on the 5th. January 2010. Basically it's to save me from having to go back that far every time I need to update numbers. This is a serious thing for me because this list really does help me to keep track of the series that I'm reading. What it also proves is how slack I am at finishing them! *And* what an easy target I am for shiny new ones. The other thing that's starting to be apparent is that I'm doing better with crime series than I am my other love... fantasy. And 15 months on from my last proper update this even *more* the case now than it was then. I continue to be bemused at this radical change in my reading habits.

SERIES ALREADY STARTED:

Sci Fi, Fantasy and horror - both adult and young adult:

The Temeraire series – Naomi Novik (read 2)
The Wess'har series - Karen Traviss (read 2)
The Thursday Next series - Jasper Fforde (read 2)
The Jackelian series - Stephen Hunt (read 1)
The Harry Dresden series - Jim Butcher (read 1)
The Mercy Thompson series - Patricia Briggs (read 4)
The Mortal Engines series – Philip Reeve (read 3)
Septimus Heap - Angie Sage (read 5)

The Women of the Otherworld series – Kelley Armstrong (read 1)
The Nightrunner series - Lynn Flewelling (read 3)
The Dark is Rising sequence - Susan Cooper (read 3)

The Pern books – Anne McCaffrey (read many, need to continue)
The Newford books – Charles de Lint (read 1)
The Darkover series – Marion Zimmer Bradley (read 2)
The Majipoor Chronicles - Robert Silverberg (read 1)

Crime - modern and historical:

Mma Ramotswe - A. McCall Smith (read 9)
Armand Gamache – Louise Penny (read 4)
Lake District series - Martin Edwards (read 3)
Ruth Galloway series - Elly Griffiths (read 3)
The Shetland mysteries - Ann Cleeves (read 2)
Daisy Dalrymple - Carola Dunn (read 4)
Rizzoli and Isles - Tess Gerritsen (read 6)
Inspector Brunetti - Donna Leon (read 1)
Inspector Montalbano - Andrea Camilleri (read 4)
Matthew Shardlake – C.J. Sansom (read 2)
Merrily Watkins - Phil Rickman (read 2)
Anna Pigeon - Nevada Barr (read 2)
Flavia de Luce - Alan Bradley (read 3)
Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes – Laurie R. King (read 4)

Oscar Wilde mysteries - Gyles Brandreth (read 1)
Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg series - Fred Vargas (read 1)
The Pitt mysteries - Anne Perry (read 2)
Simon Serailler – Susan Hill (read 1)

Sundry:

Isabel Dalhousie - A. McCall Smith (read 6)
Mapp and Lucia – E.F. Benson (read 2)
Diary of a Provincial Lady – E.F. Delafield (read 1)
The ‘Anne’ books – L.M. Montgomery (read 1)
The Little House series – Laura Ingalls Wilder (read 3)
Miss Read books - (read 10)
The Barchester Chronicles - Anthony Trollope (read 2)

Series I want to read: (mainly fantasy)

The Wit’ch series – James Clemens
Alpha and Omega - Patricia Briggs
The Priestess of the White trilogy – Trudi Canavan

The Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies – Robin Hobb

The Soldier Son Trilogy – Robin Hobb
The Pellinor series – Alison Croggon
The Coldfire trilogy – Celia Friedman
The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy – Guy Gavriel Kay
The Gardella Vampire Chronicles – Colleen Gleason
The Tamir Triad – Lynn Flewelling
The Gregor series - Suzanne Collins

And if anyone can think of any other series that I really ought to be reading please feel free to leave a comment.

Happy Birthday!

2011-03-24T10:01:00.005Z

I don't usually do birthday posts here, mainly because it tends to be a Live Journal thing to wish all your followers a happy birthday - on Blogger, not so much. But I'm going to today as Pat at Here There and Everywhere is a very special lady who deserves all the good wishes in the world. I think I'm right in saying that it was one of Carl's challenges that brought us together, most likely one of the R.I.P. ones. Pat commented on one of my posts and you know how it is... we just hit it off. We had a lot in common, both huge fans of Star Trek, both into fantasy books for both kids and adults and so on. There seemed no end to the stuff we had in common. That was several years ago and Pat has become the sister I never had, we e.mail, talk on the phone from time to time and as soon as I can get to Florida we'll be meeting, rest assured. Someone better call a Florida newspaper *that* day! And Hubby had best be ready with several boxes of tissues. Anyway, the point of all this is that it's Pat's birthday today and I want to wish my wonderful, funny, sparkling, smart, amazing 'sister' many happy returns of the day. May you have many more birthdays, Pat, and continue to brighten my life.

And here're some more bluebells to go with you card. And if there aren't bluebells in Kesterwood then there's just no justice!

Happy Birthday, Sis.

Garlic and Sapphires

2011-03-23T09:48:00.006Z

It seems that my non-fiction reading this year has been based on books about food. There's a reason for this of course and that is that I'm doing the Foodie challenge which is being hosted by Margot at Joyfully Retired. Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl is my book two for the challenge.

Ruth Reichl was living happily in California with her husband and young son, working as food critic for the LA Times, when she was offered the job of food critic for the New York Times. She didn't exactly jump at the chance, even though her husband was very keen for her to take the job. Her lifestyle and working conditions in LA were very laid-back, comfortable in fact, and she knew that a position at the NY Times would be anything but.

She takes the job however, but, on one of her scouting trips, discovers on the plane over that her face has been on posters that have been hung in every commercial kitchen in the city. For a food critic it's important to be anonymous and Ruth realises that now she never will be and that this is going to cause a major problem.

Her solution to this is unusual. She calls a make-up artist friend of her late mother and together they create various disguises for Ruth to adopt as she goes about her work in the restaurants.

First up is Molly Hollis, a rather frumpy woman of a certain age:

I bought a dowdy Armani suit that was three sizes too large; Claudia insisted that I wear a padded bra and two thick skirts beneath it to give me more girth. I found a proper little purse and Mom's old diamond ring. Bit by bit the clothing came together. It took almost two months before Claudia pronounced the costume complete.

I raised my head and opened my eyes. Looking into the mirror, I found a woman I did not recognize staring straight at me.
"Meet Molly," said Claudia. I could not speak. I found myself moving my lips to see if hers would move too. They did. I wiggled my nose; Molly's nose wiggled. I raised my fingers; she raised hers. I waved. She waved back. Claudia tapped my arm and said gently, "I believe it's showtime."

What happens as a result of this transformation is that Ruth is treated like anyone else in the restaurant they go to. Well, not quite. She doesn't look like their normal clientele; she's not wealthy or beautifully dressed - she clearly doesn't really belong and they treat her accordingly. The two ladies are given a small table at the back of the dining room, amongst the smokers, when she has specifically asked for non-smoking. They were subsequently ignored and condescended to by the staff; the evening was not enjoyable or a success in any way, shape, or form.

Subsequent disguises include 'Brenda' the earth mother, 'Chloe' the seductress, and 'Miriam', a startlingly realistic caricature of her own mother. What Ruth discovers is that these disguises not only transform her outward appearance, they transform her inwardly as well. She finds herself talking, reacting and even eating as they would.

Ruth now has the ammunition to write the kind of food column unknown up to now on the NY Times, one where the rating is based on what really happens, not on how the esteemed critic is fawned over from the moment she arrives at a restaurant until she leaves.

I found this pretty much unputdownable. I think the writing style accounts for this; it's very, very readable and the author injects almost a sense of suspense as you wonder how she's going to be treated in the various posh restaurants she frequents. She always gave the place three or four visits so it was fascinating to compare the different treatments meted out.

It was also interesting to read about the other places she liked to eat with her family or friends. The smaller, less well known, ethnic places or the family restaurants where children were welcome and they didn't care who you were. I found myself wanting to go to the Korean or Chinese places, the food sounded amazing.

Dynamics with colleagues at the NY Times building were also quite fascinating. How she was treated by various old-style and then new editors, the reactions of the former critic to her columns (he wrote vicious letters to the editor saying she should be sacked), and her friendship with Carol, one of the secretaries.

Also included in the book are some of Ruth's favourite recipes - New York cheesecake, hash browns, roast leg of lamb, last minute chocolate cake and so on. A nice addtion to the book I thought.

In short, this is a very good read for anyone even vaguely interested in food writing or eating out. Even if you're not particularly I think this would be of interest as just a jolly good, well written, interesting book. Plus, I always enjoy any book set in New York as the atmosphere, even though I've never - sadly - been there, seems unique. I'll also, almost certainly, be seeking out other foodie books by Ruth Reichl.
~~~oOo~~~

Once Upon a Time V

2011-03-21T14:33:00.014Z

I know that here in the UK daffodils and primroses are blooming but I never think that Spring has truly arrived until Carl's Once Upon a Time challenge is once again upon us. I did his Sci Fi experience this year, so I had something to tide me over as it's a long time between the 31st. October and the 21st. March! But all the time I've been waiting for this, one of his main challenges, and am delighted that, at last, it's time.

Once again there are various options in the form of quests. I'll be doing...

Read at least 5 books that fit somewhere within the Once Upon a Time criteria. They might all be fantasy, or folklore, or fairy tales, or mythology…or your five books might be a combination from the four genres.

I don't know how Carl manages to find such beautiful artwork every time for his challenges but he's done it again. This year's artwork is the work of Anne-Julie Aubry and it is just beautiful.

I'm trying to read a bit more from my tbr pile this year so my pool of books is based mainly on that this time. I suspect I won't just read from that though... I'm certain someone will read something that I must have and will want to read for the challenge. And really that's part of the fun so I'm not going to deny myself that. But if, amongst my books, I can read three or four from this list then I'll be a happy bunny.

~~The Eyre Affair~~ - Jasper Fforde
~~Lost in a Good Book~~ - Jasper Fforde
~~Storm Front~~ - Jim Butcher
The Wood Wife - Terri Windling
Eric - Terry Pratchett
The Ropemaker - Peter Dickinson
The Snow Spider Trilogy - Jenny Nimmo
The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch
~~Beauty~~ - Robin McKinley
Labyrinth - Kate Mosse
Jack of Kinrowan - Charles de Lint
The Ill-Made Mute - Cecilia Dart-Thornton
~~The Court of the Air~~ - Stephen Hunt
Daughter of the Forest - Juliet Marillier
~~The Door into Fire~~ - Diane Duane
~~The Islands of the Blessed~~ - Nancy Farmer

Some of these have sitting on my tbr pile for years and I know have been on previous OUaT lists of mine. I feel quite ashamed of that but such is the way with book addicts... there are worse sins. :-)

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what others have on their lists and thanks to Carl for once again hosting this brilliant challenge.

~~~oOo~~~

Library Loot!

2011-03-20T11:10:00.008Z

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by
Marg and Claire that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

I had a good clear out of my library books last week, admitting to myself that I'm only in the mood for undemanding books at the moment. So this is my current library pile:

From the bottom:
The Lost Art of Gratitude & 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith. The first is book something or other *g* in his Isabel Dalhousie series, the next in line for me to read anyway. The second, 44 Scotland Street, is the first in the series of the same name which I need to try as so many folk seem to like it. Exactly what I need... another new series.

Library Confidential: Oddballs, Geeks and Gangstas in the Public Library by Don Borchert. An American friend grabbed this from her library and I was astonished to find when I checked that our library had it too. This is a non-fiction book which, I'm guessing, does exactly what it says on the tin...

The Grave Tattoo by Val McDermid. Randon grab, I know she has a lot of fans and it's time to see if I might be one of them.

The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen. Book two in her Rizzoli and Isle series. I'm expecting more blood and gore...

Pilgrim's Rest by Patricia Wentworth. Another totally random crime book grab.

Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl. I'm reading this for my Foodie challenge. Almost finished now and have thoroughly enjoyed this look at the life of the New York Times food critic.

So, that's it. Seven books on my library pile at the moment. Nothing too testing but that what I seem to want at the moment, so there you go.

~~~oOo~~~

And just to add to this post, a couple of random photos. First up, the first of our spring primroses. The hard winter has knocked them back a bit but a few have come through nicely.

And secondly, my latest jig-saw puzzle:

It's a scene of The Great Smokey Mountains in the USA, one of the most beautiful areas in the world, imo, along with The Blue Ridge Mountains. We brought this puzzle back for our daughter last time we were there in 2006, looking at the size of the box, I'm not sure how, but we did! Anyway, it was lovely to do... very odd shaped pieces which made it not straightforward at all.

Hope everyone is enjoying the start of Spring here in the UK. Elsewhere I gather that winter is still holding some in its icy grip but here we have bright sunshine and Hubby has already started digging the veg beds with a view to planting a few early seeds. Our own veg are a bit of a way off yet but I can't wait.

Kindle!

2011-03-14T11:18:00.021Z

Well, I am now the proud owner of a swish new Kindle.

It arrived the day after I ordered it, at 8.00 in the morning. I was flabbergasted. Especially as I'd been given a delivery date of a week hence. I'd been thinking of getting one for several months now. Several close online friends have them and quite a few acquaintances too and every one of them seems to love their Kindle. Then a couple of authors wrote and asked me to review their books and it turned out they were Kindle only. So I took the plunge and ordered... a bit shocked at myself to be honest as they're not *that* cheap and I'm still wondering if the expense is justified: I have a very large tbr pile so I don't really need it. That said, I'm chuffed to bits with it and love how nice it looks and how easy it is to use.

I'm not planning on filling it full of brand new books, I have to admit. A few maybe, but I'm more attracted by the free stuff available. I downloaded a clutch of books from this site last night:

ofkb

Two Edith Whartons - The Custom of the Country and In Morroco. Also several pioneer type US travel books such as First Across the Continent by Noah Brooks and The Oregan Trail by Francis Parkman. And a couple of other sundry volumes such as South Sea Tales by Jack London.
The other site I really want to investigate is The Book Depositry's free book site: The Book Depositry

They have loads and loads of free items, many by Dodo Press by the look of it, who do some interesting titles of which I actually own several. I need just a bit (lot!) of time to go through the 13,000 strong list.

I know there are more sites out there too so am looking forward to investigating further. Plus one of the features is that you can put your own files on there, and for free now, by using the free.kindle address. So, if you're a fan fiction sort of a person you can carry that around with you as well as books. We're away for a few days at the beginning of April (Cornwall) so it'll be lovely not to have to haul a bag of books away with me, but to take my nifty new Kindle instead.

~~~
I'm obviously feeling a bit full of the joys of Spring so here're a few flowery photos I took last week at our local National Trust house, Knightshaye's Court:

~~~oOo~~~

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

2011-03-13T09:43:00.010Z

I've now read two books for my What's in a Name challenge and thought I was doing well until I saw that some have already finished it. I suppose I like to spread my challenges out a bit - each to his own, as they say. Anyway, my latest for this one is The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith. It is, I think, book eight in his Mma Ramotswe series of books and is my read for the 'life stage' section of this challenge.

Mma Rammotswe's friend and colleague, Grace Makutsi, is now engaged to Phuti Radiphuti, owner of a local furniture store. Mma Makutsi's circumstances are now completely the reverse to when she started at the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, when she was very poor, unable to find employment despite excellent results from her secretarial college, and looking after a very sick brother. Her fiance is a wealthy man and she really has very little need to work at all any more and thus, little things with her job are starting to annoy her... mainly her employer's tendency to find fault with Mma Makutsi's habit of plain speaking, sometimes to the point of rudeness.

Other changes are afoot. Mma Ramotswe's husband, Mr. J.L.B. Matakoni wants to take a more active role in the detective agency and is given a case to investigate. And Charlie, the older of his apprentices, wants to leave the garage where he's an apprentice mechanic, and start a taxi business.

Cases are piling up. The rudest woman in Gabarone wants to know who her husband is having an affair with. A printing business is experiencing petty theft - its owner thinks she knows who the culprit is but needs proof. And in Mma Ramotswe's home village of Mochudi a cousin has reported three deaths in the hospital where he works. It seems the deaths have all taken place in the same bed, in the same ward, on the same day of the week and at the same time. It's peculiar to say the least. Precious investigates but meets a wall of silence, no one, it seems, knows anything. The other two cases are investigated by Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and Mma Makutsi, but all three eventually surprise everyone with their outcomes.

I never fail to be charmed by this series. Someone (I can't remember who now) on My Life in Books had the first book as one of their book choices. They said that the crime element is really incidental and I would agree with that wholeheartedly. They're really all about the people in them, their relationships with each other, how it's possible to make the world a better place by treating one another with decency and kindness. I would call these books - and thus the author - wise because he stresses in every book that things are not always black and white. People do things for reasons that are not always obvious, sometimes they just don't know any better. In Africa it's often the case that if you sack the breadwinner a whole family starves or a dependent relative who is HIV positive will die for lack of medical attention. These things have to be considered and consider them Mma Ramotswe does. That's probably why she's one of my favourite characters in literature at the moment.

It's all done with such gentle hunour too. Mma Makutsi's 97% at secretarial college is a constant source of wry amusement. But it's often her personal musings that tickle me the most:

... she found herself looking down on the top of Teenie's head; at a small woollen bobble, in fact, which topped a curious tea-cosy style knitted cap which she was wearing. She looked more closely at it, wondering if she could make out an opening through which a tea pot spout might project; she could not see an opening, but there was a very similar tea cosy in the office, she remembered, and perhaps she or Mma Ramotswe might wear it on really cold days. She imagined how Mma Ramotswe would look in a tea cosy and decided that she would probably look rather good: it might add to her authority, perhaps, in some indefinable way.

Oh yes... I can just imagine Mma Ramotswe's face if Grace suggested she put a tea cosy on her head. ;-)

What I would say is that if you like to read only proper crime books then this series is probably not for you. But if you have an interest in Africa and its people, in the dynamics of family or working relationships or just simply love people centred books with a bit of philosophy thrown in, then you could do a lot worse than try this delightful series of books. They're certainly one of my all-time favourite comfort reads.

~~~oOo~~~

The Tapestry of Love

2011-03-09T11:08:00.006Z

When Rosy Thornton e.mailed me to ask if I would like a copy of her latest book, The Tapestry of Love, I had to think hard about it. I knew it was set in France and to tell the truth I avoid books set there like the plague. The reason? Well, a much loved sister-in-law and her husband moved there in the mid-nineties. It was a financial and healthwise disaster from start to finish, culminating in the husband dying of pancreatic cancer and my sister-in-law of a brain tumour two years later. This kind of thing is not conducive to good memories of a country. So I thought long and hard, decided that my sister-in-law would have said I was being a wimp and said 'yes please'.

The book begins with Catherine Parkstone arriving in France to start a new life. She's leaving behind two adult children in their twenties, a sister who's a lawyer and a mother with Alzheimers who lives in a home. Catherine is divorced, her husband having left her for a younger woman, although the couple are on reasonably good terms. Obviously this is a brand new start for Catherine whose plan is to settle into a newly bought house in a small (very) village in the Cévennes, a mountainous region of southern France. In order to make ends meet she plans to be a needlewoman, taking on soft furnishing jobs and taking commissions for her tapestries.

And that's it really. I don't want to give too many spoilers away but basically the story revolves around how she settles in and gets to know her neighbours. I loved this aspect of the book. I haven't been to the Cévennes, my sister-in-law lived first of all on the edge of the Dorgogne and then moved further north close to the Vendée. Her first house was in the middle of nowhere, but she did have farming neighbours just like the couple in this book. Everything was so familiar, their way of life, the markets, the giving of little gifts. It was startlingly accurate. When she moved to a small village she woke one morning to find another local farmer had been around and cut her grass with his machine without being asked, just as Catherine's neighbour did for her.

I absolutely adored the descriptions of the local area, the mountains, woods and valleys in particular. The author takes the time to give the reader a real feel for the area and by the sound of it it's absolutely stunning. I pinched this photo from the national park website:

Wow. It's every bit as beautiful as the book implies although I think the heat in the summer would give me personally real problems.

Other things I enoyed - how the author focusses on Catherine's needlework. I don't do much these days but I used to and it was wonderful to hear details of her work and how she went about each project, the threads and materials she used and the use to which each project was put. I found myself wanting photos!

So, all that said, what was I not too keen on? Answer, the romantic stuff.

A bit spoilery...
.
.
.
She gets involved with Patrick, a neighbour who is clearly interested in her too. And then he does something which I found myself very saddened by as by this time I really liked him. I couldn't forgive him for it, even at the end when he said why. In fact... his reasons only made it worse for me and if this were real life I would be worried for her. So did this ruin the book for me? No, certainly not. I like a book that makes me think and this made me ponder on the kind of behaviour some women accept from men and how, unless women stop doing this, the behaviour of - I should say - a *minority* of men, will never get any better. But that's just me... I haven't seen where anyone else was bothered by this and actually it makes the book a lot less predictable that it might otherwise have been. Plus, having strong feelings about certain aspects of a story is *never* a bad thing; in point of fact, it's a good author who can provoke reactions like this in my experience.

Anyway, my thanks to Rosy for allowing me to read her book for free. It's a terrific read... atmospheric with one of the best senses of place I've ever come across. Take it from me, this is the *real* France here, warts and all! I think I may even be over my aversion to books set in that country, though sadly I still have no wish to go back and visit.

I'll be quite happy to pass this one on to anyone else who would like to read and review it. Either e.mail me or leave a comment - I'll post anywhere in the world.

ETA: Book taken - winging its way to Texas as we speak.
~~~oOo~~~