Month: September 2022
Normal service has been suspended…
and I think you can probably guess why.
Out today!
It’s Deanna Raybourn’s new contemporary adventure thriller and it’s on my kindle waiting to be read. How exciting.
August Quick reviews
There’s definitely not as much to write about this month – because I’ve already written about so many books that I read in August! Still I have scared up three books to tell you about today so, yay me.
Quick Curtain by Alan Melville
I talked about a bunch of theatre-set books of various types in August – and here’s another which was part of my haul from the conference book sales. Alan Melville’s murder mystery is another that sees an actor murdered on stage in front of an audience. Where it differs from the Ngaio Marsh novels with a similar premise is the satirical slant it takes on the detecting. On that front it’s closer to Nancy Spain’s Cinderella Goes to the Morgue, although this does care about solving the crime! A very nice way to spend an afternoon.
Femina by Janina Ramirez*
This is a fascinating look at the Middle Ages via the lives of writings and artifacts left behind by some of the women who lived through the period. Some of the names were people I had heard of, but I knew very little about any of them except for Margery Kempe. This is easy to read, but incredibly well researched and has plenty of pictures of the artifacts being talked about. It also has a huge bibliography at the back if you want to go and read more about any of the women. Well worth a look, even if you don’t usually do books on the Middle Ages. I mentioned this on publication day and it’s taken me a while to finish – but that’s because my brain has been fried and I only had the concentration for small bursts. Luckily it’s broken down into nice bite-sized sections!
Knit to Kill by Anne Canadeo
This is more of a lesson in doing more research than a review, because I picked this up on Kindle Unlimited thinking it was a first in series – because it says it is in the title but when I started reading it it really confused me because it didn’t read like introducing a new set of characters. So off to Goodreads I went where I discovered it was actually the first since a change of publishers – and actually the ninth book about this set of characters. Then things made more sense. Remind me to research the KU stuff the same way I do the rest of the books in future!
And in case you’ve forgotten, here’s all the other books I talked about in August: Piglettes, A Time to Dance, Thank you for Listening, Husband Material, A Twist of the Knife, the Sadler’s Wells Series, Swallows and Amazons series, London Celebrities series, Amory Ames series, books set in theatres, late summer romances and Actor Memoirs.
Happy Wednesday!
Book of the Week: Til Death Do Us Part
There were a few options for this post this week, but in the end I’ve settled on a really good locked room mystery, because those are so satisfying when done right – and this is really done right!
Dick Markham is in love (again). The object of the crime writer’s affection is Lesley Grant, a new arrival in his village. But when she accidentally shoots and injures a fortune teller at the village fete, he is told a story about her that is very different from the one that she tells about herself. Cast into confusion, he is asked to take part in a scheme to expose her as a serial poisoner – only for the person accusing her to be found murdered in exactly the way that he was told Lesley kills her victims: in an impossible locked room set up. Then Gideon Fell arrives on the scene to try and untangle the mystery.
It’s been a while since I read a locked room mystery, and this one is so clever. It is the first Gideon Fell mystery that I have read – although I read another of John Dickson Carr’s novels earlier in the year, and gave another Fell lined up already. But I can see why this one in particular has such an impressive reputation. It’s really pacy and makes you feel completely off balance as a reader because it twists and turns around so much you’re never really sure what you think – or what you’re meant to think. And I can’t really say any more about it than that because it gives too much away – even writing the plot summary was tricky! Anyway, give it a look for yourself.
My copy of Til Death Do Us Part came via my Kindle Unlimited subscription, but it’s a British Library Crime Classic, so when it cycles out of KU it should be available on all the major ebook platforms. And of course you can buy it in paperback direct from the British Library Bookshop online.
Happy Reading!
The Week in Books: August 29 – September 4
Another busy week. It started with the end of a nightshift on Bank Holiday Monday morning and then had two nights away from home. I can confirm that the nightshift affected my brain power and concentration as it always does, so it took until the end of the week to make some progress on the long runners. But I have made progress. I’m also trying to pace myself with the new Taylor Jenkins Reid and try and make it last. We’ll see how long that resolution lasts, although it is helped by the fact that I own it in hardback and not on Kindle!
Read:
This Side of Murder by Anna Lee Huber
Femina by Janina Ramirez*
Knit to Kill by Anne Canadeo
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
The Queer Principles of Kit Webb by Cat Sebastian
The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian
Death in Soho by Emily Organ
Til Death do is Part by John Dickson Carr
Started:
Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Stirring Up Love by Chandra Blumberg*
The Inverts by Crystal Jeans
Still reading:
Godemersham Park by Gill Hornby*
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Another Time, Another Place by Jodi Taylor
Going With the Boys by Judith Mackrell
Mercury Pictures Presents by Anthony Marra*
One book bought, one preorder arrived. Still controlling myself admirably after Bristol…
Bonus photo: I’m still very cross about the one day I missed 500 odd days ago, because who knows how long the streak would be otherwise given that the weekly streak is over four years… when did they start gathering this data anyway? I’ve had a kindle a decade now and I think I’ve probably used it every week of that decade…
An * next to a book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
Back to school…
If you’re heading back to school this week after the summer holiday – whether you’re a teacher or a student, I hope this week goes well for you – or as well as these things can and that this school year is better than the last one.
Books in the Wild: very late August
I had a bit of a wander around Tottenham Court Road Waterstones on Wednesday, and I have thoughts…
Firstly, I liked the window. It’s tempting. I’ve obviously read A Fatal Crossing, but I think that’s it and a lot of the stuff there looks tempting. And it’s bright and varied and I can get on board with that.
I’m doing better on the YA table – here’s The Agathas in the flesh, and I’ve read The Gravity of Us and The Fault in Our Stars (more fool me). And there are a few things here that tempt me – but also remind me about my tbr- I want to read the first Aristotle and Dante book and I have one of the Inheritance Games books on the kindle pile.
More guilt on the fiction table – Lincoln Highway is on the Kindle TBR too. But I have at least read The Christie Affair lo. I keep picking up and thinking about Diary of a Void, but I’m not sure my brain is in the right place for it at the moment!
Here’s my problem though. All the non fiction is one giant section (see above) and adult fiction is lumped together. How am I meant to serendipitously happen across a book that will appeal to me I want to read if it’s all in one big lump? I go to bookshops to happen across stuff that the algorithm isn’t going to tell me about. Sometimes that means spotting a shelf talker for something but more often it means going to the section for the genre that I’m interested in and seeing what’s being put out on the table in front or has been turned to be front facing or is shelved with something I like. Alphabetical for all fiction just doesn’t work for me.
In the end I came away without buying – the two that tempted me were the Muriel Spark and the Sybille Bedford but they’re both classics and so I’ll see them again, and what I really wanted was to happen across something new and under the radar. Hey ho. I suppose I saved some money…
New arrival: Carrie Soto is Back
Is this the book I have written about the most this year before it even came out? Probably. And it came out on Tuesday so this is a couple of days late because I’ve only just got home from a couple of nights in London to get my hands on it. But I have already read all of the Kindle preview while I was away and I’m ready to dig in to the rest. I don’t think I had appreciated that the release date coincided with the US Open, which would have been a nice touch but is now an excellent touch as Serena Williams is currently competing in her (probably) final tournament – and this is a book about a female tennis great coming out of retirement to reclaim her crown…
August Stats
Books read this month: 33*
New books: 16
Re-reads: 17 (7 audiobooks, 10 books)
Books from the to-read pile: 5
NetGalley books read: 4
Kindle Unlimited read: 2
Ebooks: 5
Library books: 0
Audiobooks: 7
Non-fiction books: 1
Favourite book this month: of the new stuff, Thank You for Listening or Husband Material. But all the Lucy Parkers are still great!
Most read author: Lucy Parker because of that London Celebrities reread!
Books bought: Lets not talk about it. It all went a bit wild at conference and because so many summer reads were on sale!
Books read in 2022: 265
Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 658
Shall we just christen this the month of the reread? It started with rereading a bunch of the Sadlers Wells books again, then there were a few rereads/relistens of classic crime – including a Miss Marple ! – and ending with all five London Celebrities books. Quite a fun month all in all – what with outings and conference and some lovely reading.
Bonus picture: another picture from my day out on the way home from Bristol.
*Usually includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – although this month it doesn’t!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 