What a week. What a weekend – my sister came to visit and we went to London and ended up seeing two shows in less than twenty four hours, which is pretty much my idea of heaven. And I’ve got another one on Monday night too so I’m carrying the weekend fun over into the new week. And on the reading front, the Fetherings binge continues as well as some Christmas reading and a new-to-me historical mystery series. I just need to work on that long running list now…
The new novel from Lauren Willig, Karen White and Beatriz Williams has come out this week – and part of the blurb describes it as Murder, She Wrote meets Agatha Christie which is absolutely something I can get on board with. As I said in the autumn preview post this has got a big name author being murdered on a remote island in the Scottish Highlands, with three authors among the suspects.
When I came to write this post, I was convinced that there was more than one novel this Christmas that has got an author being murdered on an island (even an island in Scotland(, but I thought I must just have been remembering being excited about this one, which is hilarious. And then when I was in Foyles the other week I spotted this years BLCC Christmas release in the wild, which is about the murder of a well known playwright at his castle on a private island off Scotland – so I was right, there is more than one, it’s just the BLCC one was first published in 1948 and has been forgotten since then. So I wasn’t going mad, and I had actually remembered something real. Anyway this seems to be a break from their previous books as a trio because as far as I can tell this one only has one strand and it’s set in the present day. The blurb describes it as a pointed satire about the literary world, which is definitely a new development for these three, so I’m excited to see what they’ve written – if I can find a copy which is always a challenge…
A busy week in life and reading. Am I on a bit of a Simon Brett binge? Yes. But actually most of them are books I haven’t read before that have been sitting on the virtual TBR so that is progress on the backlog right? And I have started another 50 pages and out run through the bookshelf which has weeded some books off the pile because I don’t like them and don’t want to read the rest. Again, progress of a sort.
Most read author: Charlaine Harris, with the Lily Bard reread
Books bought: moving on….
Books read in 2024: 336
Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 754
A pretty solid month by figures, but still more than I’d like in novellas rather than actual books because that means it’s not reducing either the physical TBR pile or the Netgalley list. Still in the main they’re coming via KU so at least it means I’m getting value out of that membership!
Bonus picture: is it wrong to be proud of a cake?! Any way, I made this and I was so…
*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including 7 this month!
So… did I watch three episodes of Rivals back to back on Thursday night and a fourth on Friday while I was staying with a friend? Yes. Did this affect the amount of stuff I’ve read this week. Yes. Do I regret not having Disney + at the moment so I can watch the other four episodes? Absolutely. Is it for the best that I don’t have it at the moment? Also yes, but we’ll see how long my will power lasts because the last episode of Only Murders in the Buildingseries four hits Disney+ this week… Anyway, to the actual books I did read, and I still need to do a bit of work at getting that long-running list down, but I may have got a little distracted by trying to get a couple more states ticked off my 50 states list for the year…
The Lily Bard binge reread is over, which means I’ll presumably find something else to fixate on imminently to distract me from reading the backlog. It was ever thus. That said, it wasn’t a bad week of reading, even if there are still a few on the long running pile. This week coming is going to be a busy one though, so we’ll see how that all plans out.
Bonus picture: party time in town on Saturday with an ABBA Tribute band to mark the end of the market square redevelopment. We were on our way to the cinema, so we didn’t stay that long!
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
Last week was the biggest book release week of the year, and so I’ve been in the bookshops to check out the new arrivals. Because of course I have, what else would you have expected of me?!
Apologies for the angle – there was a table of non fiction in the way of the straight shot, but here are the foodie and celebrity books front and centre at Waterstones Gower Street. I’m not going to talk you through all of them, just the ones that are interesting to me. If you haven’t watched Stanley Tucci‘s TV programmes where he goes around Italy eating amazing food, then you’ve missed out. This is his second book off the back of the success of those series – this one is a diary of the food he ate over a year. The Nigel Slater is a similar sort of collection of food writing rather than recipes. Rebel Sounds I hadn’t seen before, and actually came out at the end of September, but it’s a look at the role music played in the twentieth century in resistance to oppression of various types. And From Here to the Great Unknown is the big celebrity autobiography/memoir of the year – it’s Lisa Marie Presley, as finished by her daughter Riley Keogh after her mother’s death. I had a read of the start of this one and it’s using different fonts for the bits written by Lisa Marie and Riley and actually I’m more interested to read it now than I was before.
More new non-fiction here, and again I’m not going to talk you through them all. But The Bookshop, The Draper, The Candlestick Maker is a history of the high street from Annie Gray, who wrote The Greedy Queen, which I enjoyed when I read it five or so years ago. The Scapegoat is about George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham and final favourite of James I. I’m pretty across the Tudors, and the Hanoverians, but I’m not as good with the Stuarts – particularly the early ones, so this in my area of interest, although we know how long it can take me to get around to a hardback history book… And the other in this category is Augustus the Strong, about an eighteenth century ruler of Poland and Saxony and which is described as a study in failed statecraft, as he left Poland so damaged that it disappeared as a state.
Now obviously not all these crime hardbacks are new, but there are a couple that are, and that I want to read. You know about the Richard Osman already, but I’m also interested in the Julian Clary – I read the introduction which made me laugh, and then started on the book and had to force myself to put it down before I accidentally bought it! There’s also the new Jackson Brody book – this is squarely in the “series I want to read, but haven’t got around to yet” as I’ve watched a couple of the TV adaptations and need to get the books they’re based on and read the others before I consider a hardback purchase. I’m also interested in Hells Bells, but that’s a sequel and I should probably read the previous one first. And finally there’s the new Jane Thynne down in the bottom left corner. I’ve read three of her five Clara Vine novels which are set in 1930s Berlin, but this is a standalone (or maybe the start of a new series), also in the 1930s but this time in London and Vienna.
And that’s your lot today – you’ll be surprised to hear I came away without purchasing anything, but that’s only because I was feeling so bad about the state of the pile and so many that I wanted were hardbacks…
While some series regularly do a Christmas instalment, it feels like there are a higher than usual number of them this year, so I thought I’d do a recap as they’re starting to appear on the shelves.
One of the ones already on the shelves is Jenn McKinlay’s A Merry Little Murder Plot, the fifteenth in the Library Lovers series which came out last week in hardback in the US if you can lay your hands on it, and another is the thirty sixth (!) in Donna Andrews’s Meg LangslowRockin’ Around the Chickadee which hit the shelves yesterday, again in hardback but unlike the McKinlay this does come on Kindle in the UK. There’s also number 11 in the Fixer-Upper series – The Knife Before Christmas is getting a hardback release according to Amazon, which is new thing for the Kate Carlisle series – when the previous book came out, I had that pre-ordered in the usual mass-market paperback size so I’m going to have to wait this time because a) my set won’t match and b) £23 is too rich for me when it comes to cozy crime.
There are also a couple of novellas linked to series – from Nita Prose there is The Mistletoe Mystery which came out last week and features Molly the Maid from The Maid and the Mystery Guest and from Richard Coles there is a Cannon Clement novella – Murder under the Mistletoe coming a week tomorrow on the 24th.
Moving into November there is the fourth Three Dahlias book which I have mentioned a couple of times already – A Very Lively Midwinter is out November 5 (and I have it pre-ordered) and on the same day there’s a new Albert Campion continuation from Mike Ripley – this one is called Mr Campion’s Christmas and is set in Norfolk in the early 1960s. There is also the 18th Royal Spyness novel which isn’t necessarily Christmas-set judging by the blurb but does have a festive reference in the title as it’s called We Three Queens .
And finally, it’s not really a series, but every Christmas the British Library Crime Classics series comes up with a new festive-themed book – this year it’s Dramatic Murder which came out last week and is by an author I hadn’t heard of – Elizabeth Anthony. The blurb says it was first published in 1948 and has been forgotten for 75 years so I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be the only one in that situation. It’s set at a Christmas party on a private island off the coast of Scotland where the host is found electrocuted and I think it sounds really promising. That’s your lot:
I’m having one of those spells where I’m finding it hard to settle down and read some of the things on the list – but instead bingeing through something else. In this case, it’s manifesting in Patti Benning novellas and some Charlaine Harris. Who can tell the mysterious ways my mind works, I certainly can’t. Anyway, the weather has been awful, it’s proper sit inside and read weather – I feel like my feet have been on the edge of being damp for about a month now it’s been so wet. Hey ho.
Well, as usual in kindle offers week, a few ebooks bought – and I still have some samples left to read for other things so potentially more to come there. Two books in Foyles which you’ve already seen and a couple more ordered (but not yet arrived)
Bonus picture: some Art at the Outernet last week – it’s very cool but it makes my head hurt quite quickly!
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
The mornings are getting darker, we’re into October and it’s the final quarter of the year. Whatever happened to 2024? Anyway, a fairly ok week in books – not quite as much finished as I wanted, but there was a lot going on in the world.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 