Well that was quite a week. I don’t really have much to say today, except that my reading mojo is a little bit awol at the moment but I’m working on trying to get it back.
One book bought and that was a pre-order of part three of the Fangirl Manga that had arrived at the comic book store and I hadn’t had time to pick up until this weekend!
Bonus photo: a London skyline on Fridaynight.
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
This week in Not a Book it’s (yet) another Netflix documentary. I’m sorry. I do try to mix it up a bit, but they’ve had a really good run and it’s what I’ve been watching this week. DOn’t worry though, I have other plans for next week and maybe the week after. I hope.
Anyway this latest pick is a four-part look at the life and career of David Beckham. It’s a decade or so since he retired now, but at his peak he was one of the best footballers in the world, as well as being one of the first footballers to become a truly global brand. He also married Posh Spice aka Victoria Adams at the height of both his and her fame. I mean if you haven’t heard of Posh and Becks, I don’t nkow where you’ve been for the last twenty five years, although these days it’s understandable if you know her mostly for her fashion line and him for… well being him.
It’s actually been really interesting in the office the last week or so trying to explain to people how big the Beckhams were at their peak. Really difficult. I’m old enough that I was there the first time – the World Cup 98 sending off, the purple suits and thrones at the wedding, the whole Rebecca Loos situation, everything. I don’t know that there is a modern day analogy really. Anything they did was front page news. Things they didn’t do were news. Victoria’s look was copied everywhere, David’s hair likewise – especially the bleached mohawk for the 2002 World Cup (How is that 21 years ago!). I think you get a bit of a sense of that from the documentary, but it’s really hard to convey. In a pre-smartphone world, they had cameras watching their every move, and the hunger for gossip or news about them was unquenchable.
Anyway, this has got all the access you could want (unless you want them to talk about the affair rumours) and has a sense of humour about it all. David is seen pottering around his outdoor kitchen cooking a single mushroom. Victoria is pretty frank about football (she doesn’t like football, but she likes watching David play football) and David’s teammates are also pretty frank about him. It’s hilarious in places – in the trailer you can see the bit where David says he doesn’t change, immediately followed by Fergie saying that he changed, and it’s not the only time it pulls that sort of trick. Roy Keane’s talking heads are consistently brilliant, as is Gary Neville on clubbing. Each episode is more than an hour long and they go by fast. It’s at its best when dealing with the early days and the Manchester United peak (partly because of those great talking heads from the teammates) but some of the Madrid and LA era stuff is good too. It’s not the whole story, but it is enough of the story that you come away feeling happy and as you’ve had a laugh you don’t mind.
Quite a restrained month to be honest, I’m fairly impressed with myself. One charity shop buy, one second hand purchase, one vintage store pick and then the two airport purchases which are on a separate photo because I lent them out to my dad as soon as I got home! Will the restraint last? Hard to tell given that there’s a lot of good stuff coming out at the moment, but I will try!
The second book in Robin Stevens’ new series is out this week, so I’m taking the opportunity to talk about her Wells and Wong middle grade mystery series this Friday.
So Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells meet at Deepdean School for Girls in the 1930s. In the first book, Murder Most Unladylike, they’re desperate for adventure and form their own secret detective agency in the hope of excitement, but it’s all pretty boring until one of their teachers is found dead in the gym and they start to investigate. And then across the next nine books they keep stumbling across bodies and intrigue in a variety of settings inspired by the best Golden Age mysteries. It’s doing Agatha Christie crossed with Enid Blyton.
I read these as they came out – and various of them were reviewed here at the time. I think my favourites are First Class Murder (Daisy and Hazel do Murder on the Orient Express), A Spoonful of Murder (Hazel on getting home advantage over Daisy in Hong Kong) and Death in the Spotlight (Daisy and Hazel do an Inspector Alleyn theatre mystery) but the books are a lot of fun and I think if I’d read them at the right age (if you know what I mean) it would have been a delightful gateway to Agatha Christie and Peter Wimsey. As it was, I went straight to Miss Marple when I was about eleven and loved it right up until the point I scared myself! I’ve bought these as gifts for the middle graders in my life – and loaned them out to the middle graders in my work colleague’s lives (although I’m still not sure how I ended up with Jolly Foul Play in ebook *and* paperback!
By the end of the series, Daisy and Hazel are almost grownups and it gets a little bit melodramatic in the Death on the Nile Homage, but I forgave it because I had enjoyed the series so much – and it was also setting up the Ministry of Unladylike Activity series, which you can also see in the picture above, where the new main character is Hazel’s little sister May.
I’ve read both of the new series too – which are World War Two-set spy adventures. I liked the first one better than the second but I think the premise of the new series is fundamentally a little harder for an adult to get on board with than the first series is. But if you are looking for a Christmas book for an older primary age child this Christmas (and they’ve already read Wells and Wong) they would be a safe bet. And they have cameos from Daisy and Hazel too.
You should be able to get these basically anywhere with a children’s section because they’ve been hugely successful – and the ebooks go on offer from time to time too.
Last week it was the Christmas memoirs starting to appear, now it’s the Christmas-themed novels. And how could I not mention that the new Meg Langslow has arrived this week. Birder, She Wrote was a great title, but I think Let It Crow! Let It Crow! Let It Crow! may be the best Christmas-themed pun of the year. Anyway, everyone’s favourite blacksmith, mum and super-organiser and her family are back and it’s promising actual weapon forging as well as the return of Faulk and Ragnar. I’m really looking forward to reading it. Also book 35 has a title now too – Between a Flock and a Hard Place. Honestly I don’t know who comes up with Donna Andrews’s titles – Donna or her team – but I salute whoever it is.
It’s the second Wednesday of the month, so it’s Kindle offer day, but it’s also an Amazon promo event at the moment, so apologies in advance if there are a few deals in here that don’t last long.
But I’m starting this list the way I started the month – by buying Sarah MacLean’s latest book, Knockout, which is 99p on kindle. These don’t go on offer often, so grab it while you can. There are a few other historical romances on offer too – Just Like Heaven and The Lost Duke of Wyndham by Julia Quinnas well as Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer. In contemporary romances, there is former BotWThe Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood and an older Katie Fforde – Wild Designs – and Trisha Ashley – Wish Upon a Star – that are 99p
And finally it’s about to turn 20, so maybe that’s why The Wee Free Men is 99p – it’s the first of Terry Pratchett‘s four Tiffany Aching books, which are childrens books in the Discworld and I love them, even if I’ve never been able to reread the last one, which was also Terry Pratchett’s final book. As a bonus Carpe Jugulum from the adult bit is £1.99.
A non-fiction pick again this week, after a bit of a mixed week, where as I said I got side tracked by re-reading some Mrs Pargeter!
Tina Gaudoin’s book is looking at the life of Raine, Countess Spencer. Now if you’ve heard of her it’s probably because she was Princess Diana’s stepmother, but she was also the daughter of romantic novelist Barbara Cartland, a debutant of the year and had a career in politics as well as. I’m a Northamptonshire girl, so Althorp the ancestral home of the Spencer’s is just down the road from me and so I knew a bit more. The stories about the changes/renovations she made to the house have lingered, as has the fact that her Spencer step children called her Acid Raine. But that’s about it. So I picked this up to find out a bit more and see what the rest of the story was behind this.
And I now know a lot more about it all. It’s a really interesting life and a much more purposeful one than I was aware of. But this book is also so positive about her which is obviously the opposite of the stories that I had heard previously. And (again as a Northampton local) I spotted a couple of little errors that should have been picked up in fact checking. So now I want to go and find some more stuff about Raine to try and work out whether Raine’s legendary people skills have managed to seduce Gaudoin from beyond the grave in the research of this!
But it’s very readable – and that’s why I’m writing about it today. I read the whole thing in about four days – which is fast for me for a non fiction paperback when I’m not on holiday (because I don’t take physical books on my commute anymore now I’m schlepping a laptop around with me the whole time) and I’m now going to lend it to my mum who is much better on the local history than I am and will undoubtedly have a view on it all.
I hadn’t heard of this until I spotted it in Waterstones that day when I had a spending spree in The Works, but it’s in Kindle and Kobo as well as in paperback. I’m not sure how easy it’ll be to find in the shops – I suspect Northampton Waterstones had it because of the local connection and I haven’t really looked for it elsewhere (I didn’t make it as far up Foyles as the history/biography section when I was in there last week!)
Did I get distracted midway through the week by rereading the first couple of Mrs Pargeter books? Absolutely. Do I regret it? Not really! I also had a bit of a weed of the to-read pile on Sunday evening unintentionally because everything I started I didn’t like. Still every little helps doesn’t it.
A music documentary this week and I’m a bit behind because this came out early in July. But a good music documentary is always worth catching up on. And this is a good one.
This is the story of wham, as told by archive footage and interviews. I’m still sad that George Michael is dead, but there is plenty of archive material of him talking about the band, but there’s also loads of Andrew Ridgeley who comes out of this as just such a lovely guy. He and George were friends from the moment they met at school and he just seems to have been happy for his friend’s success and never jealous that George went on to solo stardom. It has great music, great stories and great archive – including scrapbooks of press cuttings collated at the time.
It’s only 90 minutes but it’s a really entertaining hour and a half, even though the story isn’t always sunshine and roses. But it will remind you how insanely talented George was and what a shame he’s not still around to make music. I defy you to come away without a Wham song stuck in your head. I was humming I’m Your Man for days!
Like so many of these things, it’s on Netflix and made for Netflix, so it won’t turn up anywhere else. Which means if you’re someone who cycles through which streaming services you’re paying at any given time, add it to your list for next time you have Netflix!
As I mentioned on Thursday, we’ve hit the start of the Christmas book season, so I’ve been around Big Foyles (aka the Charing Cross Road branch) to take a look at the first batch of offerings.
I’m going to call this the celebrity memoir selection, even if they’re not all celeb memoirs! Anyway as well as the Patrick Stewart, we have another from Miriam Margoyles, plus Nick Frost, Timothy West, Kerry Washington, Joan Collins and Doon Mackichan. I may have flicked through the picture sections of several of these!
More celebrity memoirs or memoir adjacent books – Bernie Taupin is doing the talk shows this week promoting his, which was a surprise to me. I read Dylan Jones book about the New Romantics, so I’m sort of tempted by the Velvet Underground book, but realistically I know it would take me years to get to it!
Next up: Serious Non Fiction. the Helen Fry is the only one I might be interested in, so I include it just to prove it exists!
I’m including this one because it has the V E Schwab in the wild – it’s very, very chunky!
And finally in Foyles, have the Tech bro books (with added Rory Stewart). I’ve been trying to read not one but two articles about the Michael Lewis book, so really must try and finish them this weekend to see if I need to add it to my Christmas list, or maybe wait until Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial is over!
One last treat: On the way back to where I was staying, I went past the Tottenham Court Road Waterstones, and though they’re the same owners, it useful to see what they’re putting in the window of a smaller store – as a hint about what you might be able to pick up in the smaller shops – or even at the airport! Lots of the same suspects here but with the addition of David Mitchell’s history book, a bit of Peter Kay and Paris Fury. I did see the Michael Palin in Foyles (and I saw him in person the other day too, presumably on his way to do an interview on the press tour) it’s just not in my pictures!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 