Nightshift week and lots of good books read. You’ll have seen some of them already in my Holiday Reading post too. I started a couple that I didn’t have the brain power to cope with with nightshift brain, but that always happens. But nights are over now and I’m attempting to get my body clock back to some semblance of normal with the help of early nights and more books!
Read:
A Quiet Life in the Country by T E Kinsey
Big Sexy Love by Kirsty Greenwood
Duke With Benefits by Manda Collins
One Kiss in Greece by Kirsty Greenwood
Modern Lovers by Emma Straub
How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
Natural Born Charmer by Susan Elizabeth Philips
Picture Miss Seeton by Heron Carvic
Started:
Wise Children by Angela Carter
The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf by Nick Bryan
The Twelve Clues of Christmas by Rhys Bowen
Still reading:
Kick by Paula Byrne
The Greedy Queen by Annie Gray
I’m afraid some impulse purchasing took place on the nightshifts. But I think that’s entirely understandable really. I mean it’s hard to resist the urge to purchase at 3am…
My summer holiday already seems like a long time ago, but the schools have only just broken up, so many of you may be yet to make your summer trips. So for your delectation as I sleep off my final nightshift of the run, here are some beach reading suggestions from me.
Big Sexy Love by Kirsty Greenwood
I know Kirsty through Novelicious – I can’t believe I know someone who can write a book this good!
I loved this latest novel from Kirsty Greenwood. It’s like the book love child of a late 90s/early 2000s romantic comedy and the sort of screwball antics a drunken modern day Katherine Hepburn in Philadelphia story might get up to. Big, Sexy Love tells the story of anxious Olive, who takes refuge from her fears in routine but is forced out of her comfort zone by her dying best friend Birdie. I laughed, I nearly cried (in a corner of the newsroom on my “lunch” break at 3am) and I loved the romance. But most of all I loved the friendship between Olive and Birdie – they’re there for each other, through thick and thin, with humour but without jealousy, judgement or ulterior motive. We need more books with Olives and Birdies. Read this on the beach – but maybe not on the plane for reasons that will become apparent if you read it! And it’s a total bargain at 99p on Kindle at time of writing.
Modern Lovers by Emma Straub
My copy came from the bookshelf at work where Arts team put books when theyre done with them – thats why its an arc. But its been on the pile for a while…
One of my favourite sort of books to read on my holidays are “rich people problem” novels, and Modern Lovers by Emma Straub is a really good one. You’re following a two couples and their children over the course of one summer. Twenty years earlier, three of them were in a band together and now Hollywood wants to make a film about the fourth member, who made it big and then died young. Will they do it? Are they ready for the revelations that that might bring? And what happens when your kids start to be cooler than you? If you don’t like reading about rich, privelieged hipsters in Brooklyn then give this a miss, but if you do, well, it’s a joy.
Dead is Good by Jo Perry
I love the current dog-centric covers for Charlie and Rose
If you’re after a mystery to read on the beach, try Perry’s Charlie and Rose series from my old friends and frequent supplier of excellent noir-y books, Fahrenheit Press. Dead is Good is the third book following the afterlife adventures of Charlie and Rose the dog as they wander Los Angeles trying to solve crimes but unable to actually influence the outcome of anything (or at least not often). It may sound a bit meta, but it’s a lot of fun. In book 3, Charlie is trying to keep his ex-girlfriend alive and figure out who it is who wants her dead. And the details about Los Angeles are a joy. I could have read another 50 pages at least. Dead is Good is £1.99 on Kindle at time of writing – but if you want to start at the beginning and find out how Charlie ended up as a ghost, then Dead is Better is only 99p.
How To Stop Time by Matt Haig
Another lovely cover – this one is simple but striking too.
If you love historical fiction or books set across different periods, Matt Haig’s new novel may be for you. It’s not your usual time slip book though because although the narrative jumps around between the present day and various points in the last 500 years, our lead character is the same person. Tom may look like he’s 41, but he’s actually hundreds of years old. He’s lived through everything from the Elizabethan era Britain to Jazz Age Paris and now he’s a history teacher in modern day London. It’s the perfect cover – teaching children about the things that he’s lived through – as long as he doesn’t slip up and fall in love. Because last time that happened it didn’t end well. This kept me engrossed on several train journeys this week, and I couldn’t wait to find out how it turned out. And if that wasn’t enough, it’s going to be turned into a film, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, so everyone is going to be talking about that when it comes out and you can be all smug because you read it first!
A couple of other suggestions for you: there’s more romantic comedy in or if you want something older Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me; there are more rich people problems in Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan; if you want some more travels through time – albeit with a different tone entirely – then try The Chronicles of St Mary Series by Jodi Taylor and if you still haven’t read Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligibleyet, that’s out in paperback now (and was only £1.99 on Kindle at time of writing).
And if you need even more, may I point you back in the direction of my favourite beach reads from my holiday, which I loved so much I’ve already written whole posts of their own about them: Written in Dead Wax and StandardDeviation.
Need a book that comes in bitesized chunks? Try Reel History: The World According to the Movie by Alex von Tunzelmann, which is based on her long-running Reel History column in the Guardian. The basic idea is to compare the movie versions of history with the actual historical fact and the results are frequently hilarious. Movies are graded on entertainment and on history, because it’s perfectly possible for a film to be both entertaining and historically accurate, although it’s rare. That’s not to say that she expects films to be slaves to historical accuracy because she’s well aware that what is good history doesn’t always make good watching, but it’s a lovely way of finding out where the truth is behind the films and makes a great jumping off point if you want to disappear down an internet (or library) rabbit hole or two when you find out the truth.
I do love a nice bright cover – and this one is so much fun
Von Tunzelmann has a wicked sense of humour on her, without resorting to cheap shots very often. In fact there’s so much good stuff to giggle about in this that what started out as me reading bits out loud to Him Indoors turned into me reading the whole book out loud to him! This meant that the book took a lot longer to read than if I’d just been reading it myself, but made for a lovely shared experience as we chuckled together as the movies moved in time from prehistory until the nearly present. He’d seen a lot more of the movies mentioned than I have, but I still enjoyed the book even the films that I haven’t watched.
I don’t think we can expect many/any more columns – as von Tunzelmann has turned her hand to script writing (she wrote the recent film Churchill) and, as she told Dan Snow’s History Hit podcast, she doesn’t think it’s quite cricket to be on writing films and criticising them. I’m sad that there won’t be a sequel to this, because I enjoyed it a lot, but I’m off to enjoy the back catalogue on the Guardian website. I’m also off to take a look at her book Indian Summer, which is about the liberation of India in 1947, which is a subject I know woefully little about and would like to remedy with the 70th anniversary coming upon us next month.
Reel History is available in paperback from all the usual sources and was a bargain £3.49 on Kindle at time of writing and is also available on Kobo.
This week’s Book of the Week was an easy choice – I devoured the Sumage Solution as soon as it was published last week, and read it as quickly as I could within the restrictions of having to work and go to bed to get enough sleep to work. I don’t read a lot of male/male romances, but because I love all of Gail Carriger‘s other work I had this on pre-order and was prepared to give it a go.
The cover is a distinct shift from Carriger’s other books – but it works.
This is the first in a new contemporary paranormal series, which Carriger is self-publishing under the name G L Carriger because they are (very) different to her Parasol Protectorate and Custard Protocol series. And she’s not wrong. This book made me blush reading it, and I’ve read a lot of romance over the years. This is a modern day version of the same world as we know from the other books – although it has evolved somewhat – but with a lot of explicit sexy times here. A lot. So be warned. If you don’t want to read about what a werewolf and his bad boy mage get up to, then just give this book a miss and go and read the Parasol Protectorate or the Custard Protocol series or if you don’t want any sexy times at all, the Finishing School series.
So, that disclaimer out of the way, if you’re still interested, this is the story of Biff, who has just moved to San Francisco with his brother and his brother’s new werewolf pack, and Max, a failed mage who works at the magical equivalent of the DMV. They meet when the pack paperwork comes in front of Max and soon they’re trying to prove the idea that werewolves and mages must hate each other wrong. Along the way they’ve got to deal with an enchanted house and the vexed question of whether the pack will get permission to stay in San Francisco.
This is full of snarky humour and the witty banter that I’ve come to expect from a Carriger novel. As well as making me blush, it made me smile and laugh. I had so much fun watching Biff and Max work their way towards their happily ever after. The world building is great – a lot has moved on from the nineteenth century, but there’s enough nods back to the history of the paranormal in the Carriger-verse that a regular reader doesn’t feel at sea or confused. The rest of the pack is great fun as well and I’m hoping that this will sell enough copies that Ms Carriger will write some more installments for the other members.
If you want to get a bit of a sense of what’s going on here, try the novella that started it all (and has now turned into a prequel) Marine Biology which is 99p on Kindle and Kobo at time of writing ( and so must be worth a punt surely?). It’s the story of Biff’s older brother Alex and his merman boyfriend. If it turns out that’s not for you (and it’s not as explicit as Sumage Solution) then you’re not going to like the series proper. But if you do like it or you’re already an avid reader of M/M romance (and I know there are plenty of you out there), then Sumage Solution is available in Kindle and Kobo as well as in paperback from Amazon.
If you’ve got any suggestions for some more M/M romance for me to try, please do put them in the comments, because nothing makes me happier than making my to-read pile bigger!
By the time you read this, my nightshifts will be underway. I’ll probably just be waking up as this is posted – or at least I hope I’ll just be waking up if I’m going to have got enough sleep for me to be able to stay up all night again. This week has been really quite busy – and my brain has been quite frazzled – so there’s a lot of comics and graphic novels on this list. This may continue next week because of nightshift brain, which as usual, means expect to see a lot of cozy crime and romance on this list next week!
Read:
The Summage Solution by G L Carriger
Simple Irresistable by Jill Shalvis
Reel History: The World According to the Movies by Alex von Tunzelmann
Bitch Planet Vol 2: President Bitch by Kelly Sue DeConnick et al
Rivers of London: Detective Stories 2 by Ben Aaronovitch et al
Bitch Planet Triple Feature 1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick et al
Bitch Planet Triple Feature 2 by Che Grayson
Room For Doubt by Nancy Cole Silverman
Started:
A Quiet Life in the Country by T E Kinsey
Still reading:
Kick by Paula Byrne
The Greedy Queen by Annie Gray
Modern Lovers by Emma Straub
Two ebooks bought – both on deals and part of series that I’m following or want to read more of to work out if I like them or not!
This week’s BotW is another case of “why on earth haven’t I read this before”. I have no idea why I hadn’t got around to the Camomile Lawn before. All I can think is that the TV version had Jennifer Ehle in it and that my mum may have steered me away from it in the immediate aftermath of the 1995 Pride and Prejudice because I was 11 and if the TV series is anything like the book, it really wasn’t suitable for me at the time and I may have got it in my head that the book wasn’t worth it! Who knows. Anyway.
A book, a Pimms (sorry, summer cup for the Great British Menu viewers) and a weekend on the beach
The Camomile Lawn tells the story of five cousins, who we meet at their Aunt-by-marriage’s house in Cornwall in the summer before the start of the Second World War. We follow them through the war and meet up with them again some years later as they reassemble for a funeral. There is beautiful, mercenary Calypso, outwardly conventional Polly, Oliver, Walter and much younger Sophy, who watches what the older ones are up to and wants to join in. And then there is Helena – married to a man injured in the last war and bored by her life, watching the kissing cousins as they set out into the future. As the war begins, life changes for all of them – new opportunities open up for the women and danger lurks for all of them – not just the obvious ones for the boys in the forces.
Mary Wesley was in her 70s when she wrote this – and it was only her second novel. She lived through the war that she is writing about and was a similar age to the characters when it happened. If she hadn’t been, perhaps there would be a temptation to say that the characters were having too much fun and too much sex considering that there was a war on. This reminded me a lot of Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles, but with the sex and antics turned up. Wesley doesn’t really bother with description – except for some of the details of the house in Cornwall – but she writes in a wonderful, understated way dropping bombshells in like they’re nothing so that you do a double take as you read it.
I’m off to read some more Mary Wesley and to try and get my hands on a DVD of the TV mini-series. You should be able to get hold of a copy of The Camomile Lawn fairly easily. I got mine from a secondhand bookshop on Charing Cross Road. The Kindle and Kobo versions were £$.99 at time of writing and the paperback version was £5.99 on Amazon albeit in a slightly older cover than I saw in Foyles.
Not bad going all in all – and some really good stuff. I’m going to have trouble picking my Book of the Week tomorrow!
Read:
The Hissing of the Silent Lonely Room by Paul Charles
Jeeves in the Offing by P G Wodehouse
Dead is Good by Jo Perry
Paper Girls Vol 2 by Brian K Vaughan
Killer Party by Lynn Cahoon
Lowcountry Bombshell by Susan M Boyer
The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley
Started:
Room For Doubt by Nancy Cole Silverman
Still reading:
Kick by Paula Byrne
Reel History: The World According to the Movies by Alex von Tunzelmann
The Greedy Queen by Annie Gray
Modern Lovers by Emma Straub
A couple of books bought (two secondhand and two Ebooks), but nothing too bad really. I mean not compared to the last few weeks! I did treat myself to a new Kindle though…
For this week’s BotW, we’re back in the world of the boarding school books that I love so much, after I happened upon this on the collectible shelf of the charity shop last week for the bargain price of £2. My love of the Chalet School, Drina books and boarding school and ballet books in general is well known, but I’d never had a chance to read any of the Dimsie series – which was out of print by the time I was old enough to read them. This is the sixth book in the series, and so probably not the best place to start, but I’m not one to let a trifle like that stop me!
Who hasn’t felt a bit confused when reading a Girl’s Own book? The illustration is lovely though.
Dimsie is a prefect at Jane Willard Foundation, and the start of this book sees the prefects shaken by the unexpected departure of the head girl Erica and her replacement with the dreamy second prefect Jean. The title gives it away that Jean’s reign may not be a long one, but it’s a lot of fun watching how it all unfolds. Dimsie is a butter-inner, slightly lacking in tact, but utterly devoted to her school. When she sees that Jean isn’t pulling her weight in the way that she should be, she tries to set the Head girl on the right track. When one of the new prefects proves to be too officious and inflexible in her dealings with the younger girls, it’s Dimsie who tries to sort the situation out. To be honest, I’m surprised she wasn’t Erica’s replacement in the first place – except for the fact of course that that if she had, the author wouldn’t have had a book!
It wouldn’t be a boarding school book without the Middles causing trouble – here it takes the form of insubordination to the prefects, illegal pet keeping and midnight feasts. What more could you want? And yes, this is a slightly higher level of spoilers than I usually give out – but to be honest, I can’t imagine that many of you are going to be able to lay your hands on a copy of this! Which is a shame really, because it’s not half bad – some of it is funny in a way the author didn’t intend but that’s one of the joys of reading a book written for children in the 1920s now! It does have some of the usual problems of outdated language and a very homogeneous cast, but that’s sadly to be expected in a children’s book of this era and it’s by no means as bad as some.
Im inclined to think that this was a proper bargain for £2.
This was my Dorita Fairlie Bruce book, and I suspect it won’t be my last – I’ve already been playing on the used book websites to see if I can find more. Because of course what I need at the moment is more books. Of course it is. The big worry is if it sends me off down another rabbit hole of classic school story authors that I haven’t read.
Started the week going great guns, and then slowed to a halt – partly because of a family party on Saturday. On the bright side I got to dress up as an extra from the Bronze and live out some Buffy-ish moments!
Read:
Lowcountry Boil by Susan M Boyer
Trans Like Me by CN Lester
Dimsie, Head Girl by Dorita Fairlie Bruce
Murder in D Minor by Alexia Gordon
Lumberjanes Vol 5: Band Together by Noelle Stevenson et al
Started:
Modern Lovers by Emma Straub
Jeeves in the Offing by P G Wodehouse
Still reading:
Kick by Paula Byrne
Reel History: The World According to the Movies by Alex von Tunzelmann
The Greedy Queen by Annie Gray
The Hissing of the Silent Lonely Room by Paul Charles
I bought rather a few books again. Ooops. But some came from the Barnes Booksale – and were total bargains – and three ebooks as well. Naughty Verity. Must do better!
Longtime readers will be well aware of my love for Laurie Graham. Gone With the Windors is one of my all-time favourite books and while reading Paula Byrne’s biography of Kick Kennedy I’ve been reminded again how good her historical research is. It’s been seven years since she wrote a contemporary novel, but the Early Birds is her first sequel and is actually a return to the group of women we first met in Future Homemakers of America, which came out more than 15 years ago.
Here’s the airport edition – spotted at Luton on the way to Croatia the other week
For those who haven’t read the first book, the gang were brought together by a coincidence of geography in the 1950s. Most of them were US airforce wives, posted to Suffolk along with their spouses. One, Kath, was a local they met on a trip off-base. That’s all you really need to know. The Early Birds rejoins them in American in at the turn of the millennium when the ladies are in their 70s. Peg is moving across the country to help with the care for her ex-spouse. Old age is catching up with the gang, but their friendship and their sense of fun endures. Then 9/11 happens and the world changes and there are lots of new questions – not least was life as an air force wife worth it?
My favourites of Laurie Graham’s books tend to be the laugh out loud funny ones. This is more a wry smile and the occasional giggle sort of book, but it is a wonderfully touching portrait of female friendships and camaraderie that has endured through time, distance and changing circumstances, forged in the shared terror of what could happen to your husband while he was flying a jet plane – and what would happen to you if the worst did happen. They don’t all like each other all the time, they sometimes enjoy a bitch about each other, but when something bad happens to one of them, they’ll move heaven and earth to help.
There’s not much to smile about in Peg’s husband’s descent into Alzheimer’s, but those passages of the book do capture a lot of what I remember about my grandparents when the were suffering from dementia. I was never as involved in their care the way that Peg is, but I remember the sadnesses and the frustrations of people forgetting who you are and the adaptations that you make to try and make more days “good” days.
I probably should have re-read Future Homemakers before I read this, and I’m probably going to go back and read it again now I’ve seen the girls dancing through their dotage. The world needs more books about strong women supporting each other.
You should be able to get a copy of The Early Birds from all the usual sources – like The Big Green Bookshop and the like – but you may need to order it. IIt’s in hardback at the moment – but there’s a large format airport paperback as demonstrated in the photo! And of course it’s also available on Kindle and Kobo. Future Homemakers of America is also available on Kindle and Kobo – and new and second-hand copies can be found on Amazon (I think it may be out of print as it’s showing as out of stock everywhere else I search).
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 