I have been reading...

I fully admit I've been a bit AWOL lately but thankfully it's not down to anything nasty... I've been reading a book that's 900 pages long and concentrating on it fully rather than reading something else alongside it, as I would normally do. So, lots of reading going on but no posts so I'll try to make up for that today.

So, after A Killer Read by Erika Chase I finished off A Year of Living Simply by TV presenter, Kate Humble.

The author is quite famous in the UK as a sort of wild-life TV person who also did travel docs on the side. She used to present programmes such as Springwatch, but over the last few years she's taken more to documentaries about walking stretches of UK coastal paths and about people who've upped sticks and gone to live in the wilds of, say, the Welsh countryside or Orkney, to start small holdings or holiday lets. She's very personable and I thought this book, with ideas of how to simplify your life and live greener, might be interesting. And it was, to an extent. She talks a lot about going out walking for your mental health, starting a garden, moving to a quieter area, in her case rural Wales. She's also bought a house in a remote part of France. These are not things most of us can do to be frank. Even going out for a walk is not easy for some. The other thing is that I'm not sure jetting off to New Mexico to look at Earthship houses is particularly carbon footprint-friendly. All that said, I did find this gentle book, about simplifying your life, quite interesting, and Kate Humble's writing is delightful: I've already bought her book about walking, Thinking on My Feet, for my Kindle. 3.5 stars upped to 4 for the writing. 

My fourth book for March was a 900 page door-stopper of a book, The Mad Ship by Robin Hobb. This is book two in her 'Liveship Traders' fantasy trilogy: I reread book one last month.

Not sure how to make this spoiler free, it being a second book in a trilogy. Basically this continues all of the stories featured in book one, Ship of Magic, which concentrated heavily on the doings of the Vestrits, a family of Traders based in Bingtown on The Cursed Shores. Ronica is the matriarch, when she lost her husband it was thought his live-ship, The Vivacia, would go to Althea, their youngest daughter, because she's been sailing with him for years. But it doesn't, it goes to her sister and her horrible husband, and Althea goes off to prove herself elsewhere. She's back in Bingtown in book two, for a while, patching things up with her family. The ship, meanwhile, with Althea's nephew, Wintrow, a novice monk, aboard, is having plenty of adventures of its own. And then there's Malta, Althea's neice, whose antics in book one brought her all kinds of trouble especially with the Rainwild Traders who live up river in a city in the trees where the water is so poisonous it has 'changed' these humans in some very odd ways. Very hard to describe these epic saga type books in a cohesive manner, but I can assure you they're not hard to read, in fact quite the opposite. 900 pages fair cracks along, I had it read in 8 days and loved every single page. This is very much a book about family, what people will do to protect them and also how certain members are prepared to sacrifice other members for gain or as a result of jealousy. Hobb's first connected trilogy, 'Farseer' is about Fitz, a royal bastard, and his life is all you hear about - the Liveship Traders trilogy is a sea-going romp and you get all kinds of points of view, even down to sea serpents and dragons. It's suspenseful, wierd, political, completely adventurous, one heck of a journey to be honest. And the writing is sublime. A five star read for me, no question whatsoever. I want to read book 3 very soon but think I should give myself a couple of weeks to get my breath back first!

Here's a brilliant graphic showing all of the Realm of the Elderlings books in order of pubication, which is how I'm reading them:

 

 

 So, my current read is this which is slightly less of roller-coaster ride.

Murder in the Mill-Race by E.C.R. Lorac is set in a very small, isolated village in North Devon, close to where I live as a matter of fact. A young doctor and his wife move to the village and, although friendly enough, find it ruled over by Sister Monica, the nun who runs a small orphanage. They don't like her one little bit and they're not alone... but most of the village inhabitants call the woman 'wonderful', 'a saint'. But is she? I love E.C.R. Lorac's murder mysteries, so well written and convoluted.

Anyway, I hope you're all well and finding loads of good books to read.