Acutally a good week in the end – I’m not as tired as I was last week, but that’s because I’ve had a fair few days off and that means less commuting. And a wedding at the weekend meant I didn’t have the traditional weekend sofa reading time either, so not bad considering all that!
Read:
The Liar’s Daughter by Laurie Graham
Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris
Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
No Nest for the Wicket by Donna Andrews
Real Murders by Charlaine Harris
Started:
A Place for Us by Harriet Evans
Tiger Milk by Stephanie de Velasco
One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson
Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin
Still reading:
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
A trip to Milton Keynes mid-week led to six book purchases for me (although a couple were books that I’ve already read on Kindle that I wanted hard copies of) and some picture books for some little cousins we went to visit. Add to that a book on the Kindle, an impulse purchase in Sainsburys and the next Meg Langslow and the to-read pile is multiplying again…
This week’s other excitement was getting pre-approved on Net Galley for Part One of the Harriet Evans book mentioned above. I’m still quite new to Net Galley (and it’s not as if I need further encouragement to add more books to the pile!) and it’s the first time I’ve been pre-approved for something. It’s the simple things isn’t it. I’ll let you all know what I think of the first installment as soon as I’m finished reading it.
I always feel a sense of trepidation when I hear that a book or series that I like is being turned into a film or a TV series. There have been some notable successes, but equally a number of failures too. When I analyse it, I tend to prefer the adaptations where I’ve read the book after watching the TV show or movie. So here for your delectation are some of my hits and misses.
Miss Marple
To me, Joan Hickson was perfect
I’m fairly sure that I watched the Joan Hickson Miss Marple adaptations before I started reading the books. I was 10 when I first watched them (as mentioned in my post on Lord Peter Wimsey), twenty years on I still love them wholeheartedly – and actually have a fair few of them on my TiVo box which I watch whilst ironing. My favourites are Body in the Library, A Murder Is Announced, The 4.50 from Paddington and Nemesis (despite the fact that the murdered girl is called Verity!). I’ve only seen a couple of ITV’s “Marple” adaptations – and I’ve loathed them – not only do they change the plot and sometimes even the murderer, but they are utterly unnecessary considering the perfection of the 1980s adaptations.
Hercule Poirot
David Suchet gets it pretty much spot on
Moving from one Agatha Christie creation to another – I think my first encounter with the little Belgian detective was David Suchet’s audiobook version of Murder on the Orient Express, although I may have read a book or two first. I think this means I was predisposed to like his TV version – and I forgive it the tweaks and alterations. I don’t rewatch these the way I do with the Miss Marples, but if one happens to come on, I won’t turn it off. I also love the film of Murder on the Orient Express with its starry cast and gorgeous music by Richard Rodney Bennett (if you’ve never heard it, spare a few minutes to watch the wonderful Proms performance below) – a rare occasion of my liking two different adaptations of the same property!
Pride and Prejudice
My much-loved TV tie-in edition of Pride and Prejudice
I started reading the book after I’d watched the first episode of the legendary BBC adaptation with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. I’d finished the book by the time the second episode aired. Because I read it that way around, Ehle and Firth were Lizzie and Darcy in my head from the start – and that’s where so often it goes wrong with adaptations for me – when the actors just don’t look like the image you have in your head of the characters. I’ve never managed to get past the first 15 minutes of the Keira Knightley/Matthew Macfadyen version – possibly because I’m so attached to the 1995 adaptation and it’s so fixed in my head.
Harry Potter
German hardback Harry on Chamber of Secrets doesn’t look like Radcliffe
The “image in your head” issue is at the heart of the problem with Harry Potter. My sister was very angry when the first film came out – she wasn’t pleased with Daniel Radcliffe, but her bigger problem was Emma Watson – “Hermione’s not meant to be pretty and she’s about as convincingly plain as Rachel Leigh Cook is in She’s All That”. I agreed – and there are also parts of the books that I’m sentimentally attached to that are left out (the last lines of Prisoner of Azkaban for a start – “He was my mum and dad’s best friend. He’s a convicted murderer, but he’s broken out of wizard prison and he’s on the run. He likes to keep in touch with me, though … keep up with news … check if I’m happy.”).
The look of the trio definitely “evolves” once the films start
But of course for children reading the book now (or anytime in the last decade) that’s not a problem – you can’t avoid the film versions, so you’re unlikely to have the same strong mental image of what Harry et al look like that those of us who were fans of the books before the movies appeared. I read Harry in French and German to improve my vocabulary (for degree and A-Level respectively) and it’s noticeable that the cover illustrations of Harry grow more like Daniel Radcliffe as the books go by. On a side issue, I’m still sad that children now won’t experience Harry we (my sister and I) did – today, if you read the first one and like it, you can read all the way through to the end of the series. Never again will you have to wait a year to find out what happens next, or worry about how it’ll end.
Phryne Fisher
Book Phryne…
Back on the literary adaptations, we move on to the inspiration for this post. I love the Phryne Fisher books – but I have serious issues with the TV adaptations. I have to try to view them as completely separate entities or I get ragey. Very ragey. In the books, Phryne is in her late 20s, solves murders and gets a lot of action in the bedroom department. She has two adopted daughters, Mr and Mrs Butler to run her house, her regular man (or as regular as any) is Lin Chung and she unofficially assists the happily married policeman Jack Robinson. In the TV series, she still solves murders. The actress playing Phryne is at least a decade too old (although, to be fair, she is a good actress and does her best), one of her daughters and Mrs Butler have disappeared, Lin Chung appears in one episode (and looks young enough to be Phryne’s son), they’re trying to work up a love interest with Jack Robinson (who is divorced from the daughter of a police bigwig) and Phryne’s lesbian socialist sister has been replaced with Miriam Margolyes as an uptight class conscious aunt. On the plus side, the costumes and locations are gorgeous, although there have been some really shonky wigs.
…TV Phryne
I appreciate that for a family audience you can’t get away with what you can in a book, but the two are so different that it sometimes seems that the only thing they have in common is the names of some of the characters! One of the reasons for my recent Phryne re-read was to banish the memory of the second series of the TV series – which I mostly watched whilst yelling at the TV over the character changes and the narrative alterations, much to the amusement of The Boy. Still, so far, I’ve managed to keep my own mental image of Phryne going without it being overwritten with the TV version – I credit my rage for this!
So, there you have it. Three good, and two not so good. A couple of other snapshots for you: I found the TV version of The Handmaid’s Tale deeply disappointing when we watched it during A-Levels, but I like the first Bridget Jones film (the second was a bit of a let down, but then the book isn’t as good either). The Boy is a big fan of HBO’s True Blood and I’ve almost finished reading the books. We have fun comparing the plots of the two – which seem to differ wildly (Typical conversation: Him “Has the governor appeared yet?” Me: “What governor?” Him “He does experiments on Vampires and starts poisoning True Blood” Me: “That’s not in the book!”). I’m also working my way through the Inspector Alleyn series – both the books and the TV adaptations (the latter being classic ironing fodder) and the jury is still out on those.
I’ve got the TV version of Tales of the City waiting to be watched next time I do some ironing so that I can see how it compares to the books and I’m currently debating whether to go to see The Fault in our Stars at the cinema – but that’s not so much because I’m worried it’ll upset my mental image of the characters, but because I’m not sure I can handle all that crying again so soon after the book – and this time in public!
If you’ve got any literary adaptations that you love or loathe – or think I ought to watch, leave your comments below!
I’ve come to a bit of a standstill. This happens to me sometimes and it’s one of the reasons why I have such a large to-read pile. Despite the pile(s) of books awaiting my attention, I just don’t fancy reading any of them. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll have noticed that last week’s What I Read list was somewhat low on new books – and it’s all because I’m having one of these moments. I stare at the shelf of books waiting to be read and I can’t work up any enthusiasm for any of them. There are two usual outcomes to this – either I buy more books that I do fancy, or I go on a re-reading jag.
I don’t know what brings on these little moments, except that I’ve always been a re-reader and I have old friends that I can come back to again and again. But this is the third year that I’ve done the Goodreads Reading Challenge and I have a strict rule that I don’t count books I’ve already read towards the total – even if I haven’t already added them to my shelf. This means I spend a lot of time reading new stuff, and less time reading old favourites – as I’m always trying to beat last year’s total. In 2012 I read 202 books, last year I read 260 – and although I doubt I’ll better that this year, The Boy keeps asking me how I’m getting on and I get all competitive about it. When I beat my 2012 total last year, he got all superior about it because I’d read fewer pages than the year before (there was a higher concentration of short stories in there than normal) so I kept going until I beat the pages total as well.
Ten days ago I hit 100 books for the year (my first target) meaning I’m on target to do 200 books again and I think this might be what’s triggered my current bout of malaise. So, I’m re-reading the Phryne Fisher books – which were my big discovery of 2013 – so I can enjoy them afresh and block out the memory of the second series of TV adaptations (which are the inspiration for a post about TV versions of books that I’m currently working on). I also haven’t re-read Laurie Graham’s Gone With the Windsors for a while (I usually read it at least twice a year) so I bumped her latest paperback to the top of the to-read pile (The Liar’s Daughter) and I’m planning on getting GWTW out again after Phryne.
I think another factor maybe tiredness. I’ve done a lot of hours at work over the past month and although it wants to read, my brain doesn’t want to contemplate anything new or taxing. Well, I’m hoping that a lighter week at work because of a heavy weekend and an upcoming wedding will deal with the fatigue and get me back into the zone because I know that despite what I think at the moment, that pile of books is bound to be full of interesting books and new favourites.
The final factor (that I can think of anyway) is Titus Groan. I started reading this damn book in January and it is lingering on. The trouble is that it hasn’t really grabbed me and there is so much other stuff waiting to be read that I can ignore it. Now you’d think that I’d take this as a sign and give up, but I’m a stubborn old thing and I hate admitting defeat, so this weekend just gone I took it with me to London (where I was staying for the weekend for work) to try to force myself to finish it. I read another 75 pages, but then I got too tired to concentrate on it and I went back to Phryne. I keep telling myself that I just need a bit more sleep and then I’ll get down to it and it’ll be fine – despite all evidence from the lingerers on the to-read pile that this is not the case. Watch this space.
Do you have any tips for getting back your reading mojo? Post them in the comments below.
Ok, so this doesn’t look like a very productive week reading-wise. And you’d be right. Sort of. I’ve re-read two and a bit Phryne Fisher books this week – and I’m doing something very rare – I’m trying to pace myself and make a book last. I love Laurie Graham’s books and Liar’s Daughter is her latest to be released in paperback (I valiantly resist the urge to buy them in hardback) and I’m trying not to gobble it up in one sitting. I had about 80 pages to go when I left home for a weekend working on Friday night – which meant fell under my rule about not taking books with me when I have less than 100 pages to read (because it means I have finished it before I get to London and then have to carry it around with me for no benefit) – so I’m expecting to finish this on Monday. On the bright side I did take Titus Groan with me for the weekend to try and finish it – as I’ve been reading it on and off for months now.
Read:
Owls Well That Ends Well by Donna Andrews
Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay
Started:
The Liar’s Daughter by Laurie Graham
Still reading:
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
Purchase wise – a good week – only one book bought – the next Meg Langslow which is coming from the States so may not arrive for another week yet. I also won another Goodreads First Read book – which has already arrived – so I have two of those that need reading asap now. Look for them on this list next week!
You can tell I worked four days this week and commuted each day can’t you?! A much better week for reducing the to-read pile – and a library book in there too! I also finally got around to reading The Fault In Our Stars ahead of the film release.
Read:
The Valley of the Shadow by Carola Dunn
The Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan
High Rising by Angela Thirkell
The Temptress by Paul Spicer
The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry
Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple
The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
Started:
Owls Well That Ends Well by Donna Andrews
Still reading:
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
On the purchasing front, I bought the next Meg Langslow book, my pre-order of Laurie Graham’s Liar’s Daughter arrived (I’d forgotten that was out this week – hurrah!) and that was it – apart from two children’s books from the New Foyles flagship store for The Boy’s nieces (Weasels and The Great Granny Gang if you’re interested). So progress on that front too!
A few friends have already asked me for ideas for books for their summer holidays, so I thought now might be the time to come up with a proper set of recommendations for holiday reads. It is a tradition in our family that you get a holiday book – this was started by my mum back when I was small and I have various books on my shelves with neatly written notes in the front from my mum telling me which holiday she gave them to me for. My sister and I have continued this as grown-ups – The Boy thought it was weird at first but I now have him so used to it that he starts to offer suggestions for what he’d like me to get him. I have terrible trouble deciding what to take to read on holiday (thank goodness for the kindle) so I’ve tried to include a range of options.
The One that Everyone’s Reading
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simison –I know. It really is everywhere. But I read this on our trip to Rome earlier this year and laughed so hard that people on the plane started staring at me. It has had a lot of hype, but it is very, very good. I don’t want to say too much about the plot, but watching Don Tillman hunt for love is properly funny – and in places you’ll want to read through your fingers as you cringe at his mistakes. I’m already looking forward to the sequel.
The One if you like “Chick Lit”
I guess this could be considered my home genre (unless you count historical novels. Or cozy crime), anyway I read a lot in this sort of genre. So I couldn’t just pick one. Books I’ve recently really enjoyed are The Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan (which is definitely a holiday read – it’s set in Cornwall by the coast!), Trisha Ashley’s Every Woman for Herself (which has a full review here) and Sinead Moriarty’s Mad About You (although I think I’d have liked it more if I had read the other books about the characters) which all should be available in the sort of multi-buy offers you get at WH Smiths and the Supermarkets.
The One if You like Cozy Crime
It’s not really new, but try Manna from Hades by Carola Dunn if you like the sort of cozy crime that’s set in the past – this is in 1960s Cornwall where Eleanor Trewynn has retired to after a life working for charity abroad. It’s as readable as the author’s Daisy Dalrymple series. If you like your cozy crime modern, I reviewedJenn McKinlay’sDeath of a Mad Hatter a few weeks back which is fresh on the market – or you can’t go wrong with Donna Andrews’ Meg Langslow series – Death with Peacocks is the first one and as it came out 10 years ago, you can get it for cheap second hand.
The One if you like Non-Fiction
This is a tough one for me – because I’m very behind with my non-fiction pile. Of books released recently, I enjoyed Neil McKenna’s Fanny and Stellawhich is the story of two young men who dressed as women in Victorian London and the scandal that ensued when they were caught. Apart from that, all my recent non-fiction reads have been published some time ago. I hesitate to recommend anything I haven’t yet read, but the excellent Helen Rappaport has a new book out (in hardback sadly) – Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses which has been picked out as a recommendation at various places. If you haven’t read her Magnificent Obsession (about Queen Victoria’s relationship with Prince Albert) that is available as a paperback and is well worth a look – as is her Beautiful Forever which is about a cosmetician and con-artist in Victorian London – who coincidentally also gets a mention in Fanny and Stella.
The One if you like Thrillers
A Delicate Truth by John le Carré –I got given copy of this a month or two back – you can see the long review here. Its pacey, suspenseful and disturbing. If you haven’t read any le Carré, go get yourself some of the Smiley series and try them out – they’re Cold War and this is modern, but all the ones I’ve read have been very, very good.
The One that’s a Kindle Bargain
Vintage Girl by Hester Browne – This was 56p when I wrote this blog – which by any standards is a bargain, let alone when it’s as fun as this. Valuer Evie gets sent to Scotland to asome heirlooms – romance, family secrets and Scottish Dancing ensues. (NB previously published as an e-book called Swept Off Her Feet – so don’t buy it twice!)
The One(s) if you want a series to start
The Amelia Peabody books by Elizabeth Peters. I have a terrible habit of starting a series and keeping going with it, ignoring all other claims from the to-read pile. E-readers make this so easy and if you’re a quick reader, you may need more than one book for your week at the beach (hell I need more than on book for a DAY at the beach). Amelia is a Victorian feminist who sets off for Egypt to do a spot of archaeology. I can’t come up with the words to do her justice, but’s like a funny female Indiana Jones. There are 19 books in the series (more than you could read on one holiday surely!) and the later ones feature various members of her family too – her son is a scream!
So there you are. I hope there’s something for everyone in the list – I think most of them should be easy to find and in some cases as available in multi-buy deals. As usual most of my links are to Foyles – because I like independent bookshops and the name of their loyalty scheme Foyalty. And if you’ve got any recommendations for books I should be reading this summer – please do put them in the comments below!
Note the colour gradation that my matchy-matchy problem forces me into
I discovered Katie Fforde in my final year at university – when I was stressed, overworked and severely in need of relaxation. At the time I’d been dealing with the stress by watching a lot of DVDs (I had an unlimited LoveFilm membership and boy was I using it) because as a History and French student I was doing a lot of reading for my courses and reading didn’t seem like much of a treat! I was also working on a very limited budget – and I was trying not to buy books. I picked up my first Katie Fforde (Paradise Fields I think) at York Central Library – on a trip to borrow DVDs – and I was hooked. I knew from the start that these would be books that I would re-read over and over and my budget went out the window as I started buying up her back catalogue. As it turns out Paradise Fields is possibly my least favourite of her books now I’ve read the lot – and I think it is the only one that I don’t own – and I did buy myself a copy over the internet but it was the wrong size* and so I got rid of it.
There is a bit of a formula to them – and you’re not exactly going to have trouble working out who the heroine is going to end up with (or at least you’re not once you’ve read a few of them) but they’re brilliantly relaxing reading, which will leave you with a smile on your face and a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.
Stately Pursuits by Katie Fforde
If I had to pick a favourite, it would be Stately Pursuits. It has my favourite type of heroine – Hetty’s fairly close to the age I was when I first read the book (nearly a decade ago – crikey!) and I like my male leads to come from the grumpy on the outside but with a soft centre mould. Connor’s dilapidated stately home – which Hetty is sent to house sit adds to the books charm for me – I love books with houses as a character, that’s why Trisha Ashley’s A Winter’s Tale has been my favourite of hers for so long (although I think I like her “new” one Every Woman for Herselfnearly as much).
Like Hetty, many of Fforde’s heroines have (or get thrown into) interesting jobs – in another of my favourites, Flora in Flora’s Lot inherits a share in a struggling auction house and fights to save it (whilst falling in love), but there’s also wedding planners, artists, cooks on canal boat restaurants and interior designers. Another of my favourite books is Thyme Out – where Perdita, the salad gardener, ends up supplying the restaurant owned by her ex-husband and then working with him rather closer on a TV series.
For me Fforde’s books are great examples of the cozy romance genre – they’re not raunchy or rude and they won’t make you blush on the train – they are entertaining and romantic and do exactly what it says on the tin – what more can you ask for?!
You can find Katie Fforde’s back catalogue in any good bookshop – like Foyles – and her new books are usually stocked by the supermarkets in their multibuy promotions and they sometimes have some of the older ones too.
* I’m planning a post about my OCD tendencies when it comes to book jackets and arranging my shelves. But trust me when I say that I really don’t like it when books by the same author aren’t the same size and cover design!
Hopefully when I post this, I’ll be asleep. Oh the wonders of scheduled posting. As you may have gathered from previous posts and from my Twitter account, I’m on nightshifts at work at the moment. And so I thought that this would be a good moment to write about what I read when I’m on nights.
The Boy says there are three rules about dealing with me when I’m on nights or have just finished nights:
1. She will be irrational
2. She will burst into tears
3. She is incapable of making decisions
And to be honest, that’s pretty fair. I’m quite good at sleeping in the day (although I never feel that I get the benefit from it that I get from the same amount of hours at night) but I never feel quite on top form. This means that I tend to avoid anything too weighty or requiring too much brain power for my commute during nights. I also don’t read as fast – I’ve been reading Judith Krantz’ Scruples – and after 4 train journeys (5ish hours – although I have been checking twitter at various points during the journey) I hadn’t got to page 300 and normally I’d have finished it in that time.
In my previous job, there used to be some points in the shift were there wasn’t much to do – and it was during those lean hours in the early hours of the morning that I discovered some great series like Elizabeth Peters’ Vicky Bliss and Amelia Peabody novels, Carola Dunn’s Daisy Dalrymple books and Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher mysteries – which I’m currently re-reading to try and get the TV series out of my head. I also managed to finally get around to reading Wolf Hall on a nightshift – after taking it with me because it was one book that I definitely wasn’t going to finish before I got to the journey home!
The current job doesn’t really have any down time – so the only reading I get done on these days now is in my dinner break and that’s usually something from the Kindle because it’s easier to read and eat (very bad habit) with a kindle than a book. On the commute I usually read a paperback as I continue to try and get the to-read pile down. I tend to avoid non-fiction (too much brain power needed) and anything scary, depressing or that I think might make me cry. So it tends to be a diet of chick lit, historical romance and cozy crime – I’ve got through a lot of books from M C Beaton’s various pseudonyms during nightshift commutes!
The other consequence of nightshifts is impulse book buying. In the early hours, when I’m feeling tired and miserable, I’ll end up buying myself a few books to cheer myself up – as a treat/reward for surviving nights. In my first three nights this week I bought five books – three of which turned up during the day when I was trying to sleep which is distinctly suboptimal. Mind you book buying is somewhat cheaper than the beauty product spending spree I went on last time I was on nights. Or the ASOS one the time before…
Oh nightshifts. You really do fry my reading plans. I suppose it doesn’t help that I’ve been re-reading Phryne Fisher during my dinner breaks rather than reading something new, but I need something easy and fun in the early hours. Still, I don’t think I’ve done too badly all things considering.
Read:
Mutton by India Knight
Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
Scruples by Judith Krantz
Started:
We’ll Always Have Parrots by Donna Andrews
Still reading:
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
The downside is that I had a bit of a book buying spree – one in the early hours of Monday morning, two in the early hours of Tuesday and two more in the early hours of Thursday. So the to-read pile hasn’t exactly shrunk this week – and I’m currently resisting the urge to by the next book in the Meg Langslow series as I’m enjoying We’ll Always Have Parrots…
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 