Month: November 2024

books

Buy them a Book for Christmas 2024 edition

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After putting my hopes and wishes out there last Saturday, this week it’s the books that I think would make good gifts for people in my life. Although it should be noted that I actually have already bought the Christmas books for some of these people and they may or may not be books from this list, so if any of who who I buy for are reading this and are surprised because you thought you were getting something different, don’t panic!

First up, the stuff for my sister, who has been reading mommy blogs for twenty years and by extension content about Christianity in its many forms in America. First up The Exvangelicals by Sarah McCammon. McCammon is an NPR correspondent who grew up in an evangelical family in the Mid West and then went on to cover the Trump presidential campaign. It’s described as part memoir, part investigative journalism looking at the post-evangelical movement. In a similar/adjacent sort of area is This American Ex-Wife by Liz Lenz about the reality of marriage and divorce in America for women, written after Lenz’s own marriage broke up. Incidentally her first book, God Land about the competing forces of faith and politics after the 2016 election is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment.

I think True Story: What Reality TV says about Us by Danielle J Lindemann might be a pretty good gift for some of my friends. This is about American reality tv series, but we’re all people who have watched and dissected reality TV in its many forms over about two decades so I think an analysis of what it tells us about race, class and gender would give us plenty to talk about next time we hang out.

I know there are loads of people who love Parks and Recreation, so I think Welcome to Pawnee by Jim O’Heir aka Jerry/Garry/Larry would be a great gift. It’s a behind the scenes look at the show, with contributions from some of the other stars as well as the showrunners. And it gives me a great excuse to drop a Parks and Rec clip in this post! There’s also another book from the team behind Ghosts – this time it’s Ghosts: Brought to Life with a lot of behind the scenes details of how the show was made and stories from the show. It also means I can put this 10 Questions with Ghosts clip here and it gives me an excuse to watch it again and watch them crack each other up.

There’s a pretty good crop of big name memoirs this year – from the first part of Cher’s (tangent: the audiobook is partly read by Stephanie J Block of Kiss Me, Kate fame, who played Cher on Broadway!), to Al Pacino’s Sonny Boy, the Lisa Marie Presley which I’ve already mentioned and would quite like myself (just not as much as the books I mentioned last week!), Michael Caine’s Don’t Look Back, You’ll Trip Over, a new volume of Michael Palin’s Diaries and Stanley Tucci’s What I Ate in One Year.

I always find fiction a bit harder for gifts, but I’ve flagged a bunch of new releases over the last few weeks that I think would make good gifts – from the new Richard Osman We Solve Murders and The Author’s Guide to Murder for mystery readers, The Bells of Westminster for the historical fiction, or the new Matt Haig or a couple of new translated fiction novels which might appeal too.

I’m pretty sure there’s a whole load of books I’ve forgotten, but if they come back to me, there’s enough time for me to write another post I’m running so early! Have a great weekend everyone.

bingeable series, cozy crime, detective, series

Bingeable Series: Museum Mysteries

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Happy Friday everyone, I’m back with a cozy crime series that I blitzed my way through over a couple of months, and although I’m still annoyed that the final book is a different size to all the others, I enjoyed them enough that I’m trying to work past the issues it gives me for shelving them and writing about them anyway!

At the start of the series Nell Pratt is the chief fundraiser at the Society for the Preservation of Pennsylvania Antiques, when an archivist is found dead on the same day that it’s discovered that a collection of letters from George Washington is missing. Of course she starts to investigate – this is a cozy crime series after all – and thus a series of museum/antique related mysteries is underway. Like most similar series, Nell develops a group of friends and colleagues who help out with the investigation and there’s a running romantic subplot through the series too.

I bought the second in the series at Bristol this summer – and once I’d read it, I went off and started buying up the others and then read them in order. I really liked the set up of the museum and philanthropic community around Philadelphia – it felt like something a bit different after a lot of small business related cozies. I don’t know a lot about the way the museum sector works behind the scenes in the UK, let alone in the US so I have no criticisms to make on that front – I just enjoyed the mysteries and the characters and let it all unroll!

I haven’t read any other Sheila Connolly – and I was sad to see when I was digging around into her writing to find that she died in 2020. But she has other series that I will happily work my way through should the opportunity present itself.

This is another of those times where most of a cozy crime series isn’t available on Kindle – only the last one is in ebook format, and I didn’t realise when I ordered the paperback it that it was going to be a non-matching size – if I had I might have gone with the ebook.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Book previews

Out this Week: New Gail Carriger

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This is slightly early – because the official release date for this is Sunday, but depending on how you buy this, I think you might already be able to have The Dratsie Dilemma on your device. This is the latest in Gail Carriger’s San Andreas Shifter series – which features similar sort of supernatural creatures to her Parasol Protectorate and Custard Protocol series, but in modern day California and a very different type of world. It’s been four whole years since the third instalment so I’m really excited to see what next for the found family that we’ve got to know and love.

Christmas books, Forgotten books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Classic Christmas mysteries

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Anyway, some Christmas murder mysteries for you today – and did I say I was done with British Library Crime Classics for the year? Ahem. Here I am with a post that’s two thirds BLCC. And that’s if you’re being charitable. It’s probably more like three quarters. Oopsie Daisy.

Santa Klaus Murders by Mavis Doriel Hay

Starting with one I read a while ago – in fact I’ve read Mavis Doriel Hay’s other crime novels, which were among the first BLCCs I read and they are brilliant, but forgotten, Golden Age crime stories. This is no exception. A Christmas set house-party murder – with chapters written by various different character – it ticks all the boxes for what I look for in a murder mystery. It’s well worth starting your Christmas reading with this – especially as it’s in Kindle Unlimited at the moment.

Dramatic Murder by Elizabeth Anthony

So this is the new BLCC release for this Christmas, and features the murder (even if the courts think it’s accidental death) of the host of a Christmas show party by one of the guests. I will admit that I had the culprit worked out before the end, but as far as Christmas mysteries go, this is a pretty good one.

Midwinter Murder by Agatha Christie

The Autumn equivalent of this was a BotW not that long ago, but I think this winter version is maybe slightly better – at least if you like Christie’s big name detectives. This has plenty of Poirot in it as well as some Miss Marple, Parker Pyne and Harley Quinn and the mix is pretty good. And of course the fact that it’s short stories means that you can read one, and then go do something else – ideal if you’re preparing for Christmas!

Just a couple more from the British Library to mention before I go: firstly Mystery in White by J Jefferson Farjeon – I’m the reverse of most people in that I prefered Seven Dead to Mystery in White, but if you want a locked room Christmas mystery, then this might be it. Then of course there is Christmas Card Crime – book of the week just after Christmas 2021. Silent Nights collection – BotW back in 2015!

Happy Reading!

Recommendsday, romance

Book of the Week: Rivals

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I was trying to work out when I was finishing the Week in Books yesterday how obvious it was that what I was going to pick today. I was figuring that given that I wrote about the adaptation on Sunday and then a 700 page plus book appeared on the list and had been read in under a week the signs might have been there. But who can tell the workings of my mind? Anyway, here we are.

So (obviously) this is the book the Disney+ series is based on. And what I didn’t mention in the post on Sunday is that the eight parts of the adaptation don’t cover the whole of the book. And having been left on a cliffhanger of not knowing l of course I wanted to see how it all turned out without having to wait however many years it’s going to be for series two. If we get a series two because I’ve been burned before (see: My Lady Jane, Pushing Daisies, The New Adventures of Superman). And also I wanted to know how different the book is from the show.

And the answer to that second question is it’s pretty close. There are a few things that happen a bit differently most of which I can’t mention because of spoilers but the one I can is that Rupert being blonde in the book and dark haired in the show. And that didn’t bother me because traditionally I prefer a dark and brooding hero and I saw the adaptation first. I’m fickle me. The 80s attitudes to some things are still there in the book – but some of the best lines in the show come directly from the book dialogue.

Some of the people are worse in the TV show than the book, others the reverse. There are a few characters in the show who are more fleshed out on screen than they were in the book. I was wondering how they could do a whole other season out of what was left of the book but there’s so much plot still to cover I’m pretty sure they can – especially if they want to bring a few of the things that are different back around to the book. Plus the ending of the book is all very fast. So there’s a bit of scope there.

All in all it’s deeply readable and although it satisfied my craving for resolution it probably made me even more desperate for series two sooner rather than later. Hey ho. At least I can reread/rewatch if I want to.

You should be able to get a copy of this absolutely everywhere given the adaption and of course it’s on Kindle and Kobo too. Plus there’s a new reading of the audiobook performed by Georgia Tennant aka David’s wife if you want a bit of a crossover effect and nearly twenty five hours of audio to listen to!

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: November 18 – November 24

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A pretty good week in reading, partly because I was commuting back and forth and not staying in lining, partly because the weather was awful so going out seemed very unappealing. I’ve started on the Christmas-themed reading now too, so there’ll be some more on that front coming too. And as you can see, I have now read the actual book of Rivals…

Read:

Frequent Hearses by Edmund Crispin

Dramatic Murder by Elizabeth Anthony

What Bloody Man is That by Simon Brett

Rivers of London: Stray Cat Blues by Ben Aaronovitch et al

Soulless by Gail Carriger

Rivals by Jilly Cooper

Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans

Midwinter Murder by Agatha Christie

One Lucky Subscriber by Kellye Garrett

Started:

Cher: The Memoir Part One by Cher

Murder at Christmas by Rupert Latimer

Guilt at the Garage by Simon Brett

Still reading:

The Divorce Colony by April White

Two books, no ebooks.

Bonus picture: Snow at the station on Tuesday morning on the way to work. I think the season really has changed now…

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

book adjacent, streaming

Book Adjacent: Rivals

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Back with a book adjacent streaming pick this week, because why not. And this has had so much advertising that you all can’t have missed it and as I’ve watched it I thought I should report back.

This is the pretty starry eight part adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s legendary 80s bonkbuster novel, Rivals. Set in the Cotswolds, it’s 1986 and retired Olympic showjumper and now MP Rupert Campbell Black and his rival Tony Baddingham are jockeying for power. How are they doing that? Well it’s through the medium of regional commercial TV franchises. I know. That sounds bonkers, but it works. And yes – those franchises really were a thing. And there are a lot of storylines going on here from the huge ensemble cast. At the start of the series we see Tony returning to Britain from a trip to New York where he’s recruited a hotshot producer for his company Corinium and then poaching Irish journalist and interviewer Declan O’Hara away from the BBC. And it’s the arrival of the O’Haras that sets up a lot of the events of the series.

I’m going to fess up now that I hadn’t read the book when I watched this, but maybe that’s for the best, given that you often have a picture in your head of what everyone should look like and the show often doesn’t match up. So I went into this with no preconceptions or loyalties and I enjoyed the hell out of it. This is a over the top melodrama where basically every character is doing bad things to a greater or lesser extent. In fact, the only really “good” character in all of this is the eldest O’Hara daughter Taggie. Taggie is 20, and it’s her… complex relationship with Rupert that is at the heart of this and keeps it from vereing over into awful people doing awful things. And I thought long and hard about how to describe what’s going on between Rupert and Taggie, but it basically boils down to the fact that I know that the age gap is too big, and I know that Rupert is probably morally bankrupt, but by the final episode I really didn’t care!

This has also got a lot in it about the British class system – everyone in it is rich, but they’re not all posh. And the way you can tell is through a myriad of tiny and bigger things – from Valerie’s double glazing and uncertainty about whether she should be saying dessert or pudding, to Tony’s insecurity about his grammar school education compared to Rupert’s at Harrow and much, much more. It’s so clever. Oh, and there is so much sex. From opening on a couple joining the mile high club in Concord’s toilet to fourways and pretty much everything inbetween. Excess is the word of the day – and there’s a lot of 80s excess in here. Your mileage may vary on that – and also on the sexual politics. I could have done without Rupert’s behaviour towards Taggie at the dinner party and I could definitely have done the full visuals on the nasty rape in episode six, but for the most part I just tried to see it as a product of a different time that the show runners haven’t tried to modernise too much because if you did that you would lose a lot of the rest of what makes it so much fun.

I watched the first four episodes in Essex the other week, and I then watched them again with Him Indoors so that I could watch the rest of the episodes with him and I could happily watch the whole thing again – maybe now with the benefit of fast forwarding the bits I didn’t love. And can we have series two stat please – there is so much left unfinished they can’t just keep us hanging surely…

books I want

Buy Me a Book for Christmas 2024

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At the behest of my sister – and because I really do want to make sure I get some of these in my stocking this year, I’m back with this year’s suggestions for books I would like to receive this Christmas before we’re even out of November. You’re welcome.

As you know, the general theme of these posts is that I pick books that I want to read but can’t justify the price of right now given the side of the pile – which often means hardback non-fiction and this year is no different. So lets start with Women in the Valley of the Kings by Kathleen Shepherd. My love of the Amelia Peabody series is well known and this is the story of the real women Egyptologists in the so-called Golden Age of Exploration. Next up is Ask Not by Maureen Callahan, which has the subtitle “the Kennedys and the Women they Destroyed”, or The White House by the Sea by Kate Story about the Kennedy’s Hyannisport compound which both slot right into my reading interests because the Kennedy circle is both insane and strangely fascinating in a sort of horrified way. I also wouldn’t mind a copy of Not Your China Doll by Katie Gee Salisbury which is about Anna May Wong, the first Asian American film star and thus is in my Old Hollywood wheelhouse, as is A Murder in Hollywood by Casey Sherman about the murder of Johnny Stompanato.

Moving on to the fiction side of things, there’s The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living by Louise Miller, which has got a comparison to Diane Mott Davison in the blurb, but isn’t a murder mystery (or at least not as far as I can work out), Steven Rowley’s Guncle sequel, The Guncle Abroad, or Beatriz Williams’ The Beach at Summerly which is now in paperback. There’s also Avery Carpenter Forrey’s The Social Engagement which looks like proper Rich People problem fiction, and Love at First Spite by Anna E Collins which is a romcom about a woman trying to get her own back on her cheating ex-fiancé by building a vacation rental on the land next to the house they were meant to live in together.

And one final one before I go – Helen Ellis has a new book of essays out – it’s called Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge and the sample is as funny as her other books, American Housewife and Bring Your Baggage, and Don’t Pack Light.

As always part of the fun of this for me is the fact that I know my mum and my sister often pick from this list based on which books they would most like to borrow from me after I’ve read them, so I look forward to seeing what turns up this year!

Have a great weekend everyone.

mystery, series

Mystery Series: The Secret Bookcase

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Happy Friday everyone! The fourth in Ellie Alexander’s new series based around a bookshop in California came out on Wednesday, and I have read all four of them, so now it’s time to write about them!

Our heroine is Annie Murray, a former criminology student turned bookseller at the Secret Bookcase in the small town of Redwood Grove in California. IN the first book, The Body in the Bookstore, she’s looking to try and boost the shop’s prospects by expanding into events – but of course a body turns up and she needs to solve the crime or the shop will end up in an even worse situation than it was to start with. Investigating the murder is one of her former professors, who also tries to entice Annie back to the world of criminology which she left after her best friend was murdered – in a crime which remains unsolved. And thus we have the template for the series so far – Annie organises an event and there’s a murder, and in the background she’s trying to decide between bookselling and criminology but with the running thread of that unsolved murder of her best friend in the background.

These are really easy to read, well plotted cozy crime novels. Annie has a nice group of friends around her which make for good secondary characters, and the events mean that there’s been a variety of locations where the murders have taken place, not just in the bookshop which helps with the “How is this business still going given all the murders” issue of the small business cozy crime. I have a little less patience with the best friend murder running strand than I do with the crime of the week (so to speak) but that’s probably because it’s going so slowly and I just want it wrapped up and sorted. But given the structure of the books, I get why it’s not happening fast.

In an astonishing turn of events, the first of this series only came out in June, and we’re already up to book four – with book five coming early next year. I’m assuming Ellie Alexander had a few of these stacked up already because the first two came out on the same day and then we’ve had another one every three months so far since, so we’ll see how long that pace can keep up, especially given as she has a couple of other series too. They’ve used various comps across the four books – some of which I don’t agree with because they lean towards the comedic and I don’t really see that in these, but generally, if you like a small business cozy crime, these may well work for you.

Anyway, I read the first one and the fourth one via NetGalley, but two and three thanks to the wonders of Kindle Unlimited. And that of course means that these are only on Kobo as audiobooks.

Have a great weekend!

books

Out This week: New Royal Spyness

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I mentioned back in the Christmas series post that we have another Royal Spyness novel this winter – and I wanted to give it another mention because the series has been creeping its way towards the Abdication crisis since at least book eleven and the blurb for book eighteen suggests we’ve finally hit the height of it all. In We Three Queens we’re in late 1936 and Georgie is at the centre of it all- with Wallis Simpson staying at her house while the King figures out what he wants to do – while at the same time a film crew have been given permission to shoot a movie there by her step-father Sir Hubert. And of course Mrs Simpson needs to be kept out of sight – and Georgie still has a newborn to deal with.

And of course if you want to know more about the series, you can go back and read my other posts about it – you can find them here and here.