On Good Reads to-reads shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 441 (I’ve got to stop adding new books to the list and start reading them!)
New books* read in July: 18
Books from the Library Book pile: 0
Books from the to-read pile: 9
E-books: 6
Books read as soon as they arrived: 3
Most read author in July: Jasper Fforde
Books* read this year: 129
Books bought: 17 – 13 paperbacks (but they haven’t all arrived yet so the pile is smaller…) and 4 e books
Books acquired**: 9
Net progress: 8 books more on the pile…
Oh dear. I was going really well until the last week of the month – when I bought 7 books second hand on recommendations and another couple of kindle daily deals. But really the problem is the tempting Nature of Net Galley – and my ability to acquire books on there. But as they are all on the Kindle, they kind of don’t count right? I’ve decided that I need to weed the library pile – there are clearly books there I’m never going to read and I should take them back. And will August be the month that I admit defeat on Titus Groan – or will I finally finish it?!
**You’ll notice I’ve added a new category this month – books acquired – to cover the free books that I’m winning or being sent via NetGalley etc and free kindle books.
Out today (that’s Thursday 31st July) is this great chick-lit novel by Claire Sandy. If you’re a Great British Bake-Off fan, this may be the book for you if you’re getting panicky before the start of the new series next week. And if you’re not a baker or a cook, What Would Mary Berry Do? may still be the beach book for you this summer.
What Would Mary Berry Do? and some of my Bernadette Strachan collection…
So, first, the setup: After a disastrous school bake sale, Marie Dunwoody decides that by this time next year it will be different. With a Mary Berry Baking Bible in hand, she sets out to conquer cakes – and change her outlook on life thinking “What Would Mary Berry Do?” At the same time, husband Robert is struggling with office politics – where a muffin is worth more than sales figures and son Angus is struggling with problems at school – something his nine-year old twin sisters are determined to get to the bottom off…
I loved the cast of characters in this book – the Dunwoody family are a hoot and there’s a set of fully rounded supporting characters too, I particularly loved Marie’s employees at her dental surgery. The different strands of the plot work very well – and whilst I was frequently laughing, I also had a tear in my eye at one point too. You don’t have to be into making your own baked goods to enjoy either – the plot and characters are engaging enough to interest people who don’t know their Croquembouche from their Crème Anglaise.
The blurb says it’s ideal for fans of Jenny Colgan and I’d agree with that – but I’d also add that fans of Trisha Ashley and Alexandra Brown would probably enjoy this one too – and anyone who likes their chick lit with a dose of humour. And as Claire Sandy is a pen name for the fabulous Bernadette Strachan, if you haven’t read any of her work, can I point you in the direction of my favourite of hers – The Reluctant Landlady – where you’ll find loveable characters (Bing! Bernard!), a great plot, lots of humour but a bit less baking.
I’m hoping you’ll be able to get hold of a copy of What Would Mary Berry Do at all good bookshops, but in case you can’t get to an actual shop, here it is on Foyles website and Kindle. I’m hoping it will do really well – it’s my favourite book I’ve read this month.
You’ll remember a few weeks back I spoke about my poor record with Booker-nominated books and their authors and my pledge to do better. Since then I’ve read one of the Muriel Spark’s from my backlog and then got distracted by upcoming new releases and #Sunathon. Well today the Booker Longlist is out and I thought I’d check whether this year’s nominees increase my hit rate!
As five of the list haven’t been published yet, I think I can be forgiven for not having read them, and there’s one book on here that I actually already had on my to read list (but not the pile!) and that is We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, who is one of three authors on the list who I’ve read books by. And I need all of those three (the others are Siri Hustvedt and David Nicholls) to make the shortlist because it would really improve my record, with no extra effort from me. Of the other authors, I’ve got an Ali Smith waiting to be read – and I really should read some David Mitchell. As for the rest, I need to go away and read about them and read some reviews and decide which I might want to read and then wait for the Kindle discounts to come around!
The Longlist in full:
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Emma Louise over on her eponymous blog has come up with the fabulous idea of the #Sunathon which is all about encouraging people all over the world to take time and make time to read. It starts tomorrow (Monday) so I’m hopping onto that this week – and I’ve come up with a list of summery books that I have sitting on the to-read pile (or in the unread folder on the Kindle) that I’m going to be reading this week and wanted to share them with you (as I’ve found the best way to make sure I actually read what I say I’m going to is to put it down in writing so I can’t sneak off and do something different!) I can’t promise to get through them all but I’ll try. So the books on the #sunathon list are:
Unfinished Symphony of You and Me by Lucy Robinson
What Would Mary Berry Do by Claire Sandy
The Beach Hut Next Door by Veronica Henry
Longbourn by Jo Baker
The Storms of War by Kate Williams
The Physical part of the #Sunathon to-read pile and my sunlounger
You’ll notice that several of these are recent releases or due for release in the next couple of weeks, so hopefully there may be some reviews of them coming up too. For now though, follow my progress over on Twitter – I’m @WildeV and join the conversation or even join in yourself using #sunathon.
Apologies for this brief spurt of posting – I meant to post the Children’s/Young Adult blog earlier in the week and time got away with me somewhat. I do try and space my posts out, but to do that I need to actually schedule them when I write them not just save them in drafts *headdesk*
I read a lot of books. I have read a lot of books. I like to think I read widely and across a lot of genres. But I have not read a lot of award-winning books. Why is this – and what am I going to do about it?
In researching this article, I printed myself out a list of the winners and nominees of the Booker and the Orange/Bailey’s prize and the winners of the Costa awards. I settled down with a pink highlighter to mark up what I have read. There is not a lot of pink on the lists. But there are a lot of books that I think I should have read – and others that I would like to read, but have never got around to.
What do I mean by not a lot? Well, I’ve read seven books from the list of Booker winners and nominees – yes, just seven. Of that seven, two are winners (Ghost Road and Wolf Hall), one I studied at A-Level (The Handmaid’s Tale), two have been read in the last month (Mrs Palrey at the Claremont and Loitering with Intent) entirely coincidentally and the remaining two have been read in the last year as well (Good Behaviour and Restoration). You may have noticed from that little list that I have only read two books from the last 20 years of Booker nominees. Now considering that I think of myself as a book person, I’m a bit ashamed of myself.
Handmaid was one of my A-Level books (the battered cover is from my schoolbag!), whilst Restoration is a more recent acquisition
There are some authors on the list where I have read some of their other works – just not the prize-winning ones, people like Muriel Spark, Nina Bawden, Penelope Lively, Jill Paton Walsh and David Lodge. But there are some authors where, despite their reputations and in some cases multiple entries on the list, I haven’t read any of their books – let alone the prize-winning ones. People like Salman Rushdie (although I listened to some of Midnight’s Children when Radio 4 serialised it when I was about 14), Iris Murdoch, Doris Lessing, Beryl Bainbridge and Ian McEwan to name a few. There are some who I have books by on the Kindle waiting to be read – two of this year’s list including the winner – that I haven’t got around to because there’s always something “better” there as well.
So what’s my problem?
Well, I think it’s partly in my head – I think they’re going to be boring and hard-going. My mum used to read the Booker winner every year – a habit she gave up when she got stuck while reading Ben Okri’s Famished Road. I can remember her saying that there was no point in reading something you didn’t enjoy, that she hadn’t enjoyed the last few winners and she wasn’t going to force herself to read them just because they were winners anymore. I think this has stuck with me – I avoid them because they’re award winners or nominees, even if the blurb on the back makes them look interesting – I think it’s a trick.
My collection of pretty Designer Virago books – and a couple of other VMCs by award nominees
Now I am starting to get over this – the two nominated books I’ve read in the last month, I’ve enjoyed – and I didn’t know they were nominees when I picked them out and read them. In fact I was surprised when I found out – because they were interesting and funny. I’d also like to thank Virago for their role in this – they keep turning out attractive looking reissues of intelligent (and often funny) women’s fiction. I have half a shelf of their Designer hardbacks – many of which I’ll admit I first picked up because they looked beautiful – and I have a lot of their paperback Modern Classics too. They are widening my horizons.
The other issue – that I can think of anyway – is the size of the to-read pile and the Goodreads challenge, both of which mean I often go for books I know I can read quickly so I can get them off the pile. I leave long books and “difficult” books on the shelf – favouring short ones and “light” fiction.
As you can see, there are a few books by nominated authors waiting to be read
Writing this has made me feel a bit embarrassed – and very ill-read. So. I’m going to try harder. I’m going to try to do better. I’m going to try to improve my hit rate with prize winners and prize-winning authors. I’ll start by working my way through the books on the to-read pile that are award nominated or written by prize winners. And to make sure that I do do better and read these books that I say I will – I’ll keep you posted too.
Help me on my way by recommending me your favourite prize-winning or award nominated books in the comments below.
I am not a good candidate for serialisations. I am your classic binge reader – find me something I like and I’ll gorge on it until there is nothing left. I don’t like having to wait. Anticipation is not my friend. I count myself as anticipated out after waiting to find out what happened next in Harry Potter for years at a time from the end of Chamber of Secrets onwards.
I’m writing this on my phone, on a train in the early hours of the morning because I’ve just finished the first part of Harriet Evans new book which I was pre-approved for on Netgalley and I need to know what happens next. Now. Preferably about 10 minutes ago.
Part one of this serialisation has set up a cast of characters designed to captivate, has dangled enough clues about secrets to tantilise and then FOUR sentences from the end dropped a great big enormous bombshell and then left me hanging. To quote one of my favourite TV shows (involving a Miss B Summers of Sunnydale, California) Inquiring minds need to know. And this one needs to know now.
A Place for Us (so far) is the story of three generations of the Winter family who have been summoned to the family home for Martha the matriarch’s 80th birthday party. Previously very close, the family has fractured apart and during part one we get to know them – find out who they are and some of what they’re hiding, and guess at other secrets as yet unrevealed. Then, at the end of Part 1, we find out the bombshell that is about to be dropped at the party (or at least I think we do, unless it’s a masterpiece of misdirection) and your brain starts frantically trying to work out what happens next – and whether this will bring them closer together or send them spiralling further apart – because although this secret is huge, there are lots of other things lurking beneath the surface too.
I’ve read a couple of Harriet Evans’ books before and enjoyed them. She mentions Georgette Heyer (always a good way to my heart) and I like her heroines. This book has so many characters I don’t know who is my favourite yet, but I want to read more so I can decide! (I hope my message is getting through, though I fear it may sound like the deranged rantings of a sleep-deprived woman, it’s not. Honest. I just Need To Know). If the rest of the book lives up to this first part (of FOUR – how am I going to cope with this?!) I believe then it is going to be a great read (and possibly somewhat epically long) and deserves to be gobbled up by fans of Harriet Evans and new readers alike.
It’s Thursday morning and I’ve re-read my rantings from last night before publishing. I don’t think I sound too crazy. I’m hoping I sound enthusiastic and excited about the book rather than plain loopy, although I fear it’s a fine line. But I didn’t want to alter too much of my post – because this was my genuine response to finishing Part One of the book. And it was 1am, on a train, at the end of a 10 hour shift and that sort of sleep-deprived creativity cannot be faked!
On Good Reads to-reads shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 422
New books* read in June: 19
Books from the Library Book pile: 2
Books from the to-read pile: 12
E-books: 0!
Books read as soon as they arrived: 5 (including a freebie)
Most read author in June: Donna Andrews
Books* read this year: 111
Books bought: 11
Net progress: -1 – the pile is a book smaller than it was last month!
There were 4 Phryne Fisher books from the Kindle this month – but very little else – which is naughty, but I’ve been focusing on the physical pile. It’s all excuses isn’t it?!
* Total includes some short stories (although none this month)
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.
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!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 