Category: books

Book previews, books

Out this week: Patrick Stewart

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It’s the start of Christmas release season, and the first big memoir of the festive calendar is out, and it’s from actor Patrick Stewart. Depending on your age he’s probably either Captain Picard or Professor X to you, but he’s had an incredible theatre career as well and this seems to be a full autobiography- from early days in acting (he trained with Brian Blessed!) through the RSC and off to Hollywood and back. This is the point where I mention that I was lucky enough to meet him a few years back while working on a piece about the RSC’s costume sale and he was a total delight. I had a flick through a copy in Foyles this week and the photo suggestion would suggest it’s heavy on the theatre career and lighter on the Star Trek despite the title, but I may be mistaken. He’s doing a tour to promote it – so expect to see him popping up on a chat show near you soon too.

books

Recommendsday: September Quick Reviews

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It’s the end of another month, and you’ve already had a stack of reviews from me what with the holiday, but I’m still here with a few more quick reviews of stuff I read last month.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sánez

This is a delightful coming of age and love story set in 1980s Texas. Ari is quite and reserved and has trouble talking about his feelings. His brother is in prison, but they’re not allowed to talk about it. Dante’s outcoming and articulate and open. They would seem like an unlikely pair to be friends, but over the course of one summer they form a friendship that endures across injury, separation and the trials of teenage life. It’s really lovely.

The Dress Diary of Miss Anne Sykes*

Now you’ll know from the weekly lists that this took me ages to read, so I did want to mention it after all that because it is a really interesting piece of social history – using a book of fabric swatches compiled by one woman in the 19th century to look at what we can learn about her life. I knew a bit about dress and fabric already, but this was particularly good on changing trends and increasing colourway options and differences between what was available in the Great Britain vs Singapore. It was sometimes a little frustrating that you didn’t have more information about Anne herself or the people that she included in her book – but Kate Strasdin also feels that frustration and writes about it really well and puts it into the wider context of social history of women’s lives. I read it as an ebook on a kindle and I feel like it would be really good in an actual physical copy with colour pictures that you could easily flick forward and backward between. But all in all, a good read.

The Shadow of Vesuvius by Tasha Alexander

Now I don’t usually review later books in the series, but I’ve mentioned Lady Emily before, I wanted to drop a word for this. Emily and Colin and their friends are exploring Pompeii when they stumble upon a body – and not an ancient one. Soon Emily is investigating a murder, but she also has family drama to deal with. This is a good mystery with an interesting set up and what felt like a definite Amelia Peabody reference. If you haven’t read the previous books in the series this has what I would term A Significant Development for the family which looks set to provide some interest in the books to come.

And finally a few links – here’s the holiday reading and the latest batch of British Library Crime Classics, Lost Summers of Newport, We Could Be So Good, Codename Charming, The Secret Bridesmaid and Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other.

Happy Reading.

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: From Dust to Stardust

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Back in old Hollywood for this week’s BotW. It might have taken me a couple of weeks to actually get time to properly sit down and get into this, but once I did, it was worth it.

As I mentioned in my post about this on release day, this tells the story of Eileen Sullivan who made her way to Hollywood via Chicago as a 14 year old chaperoned by her grandmother where she became a silent movie star with the stage name Doreen O’Dare. When the reader meets her, it’s the 1960s and she’s on her way to a museum in Chicago where a dolls house she created is on display. The model then jumps backwards and forwards between Doreen’s early life and film career and her conversations with the museum curator about her dolls house which she built during the Depression to house her collection of miniatures and toured it around the country.

Doreen/Eileen and her dolls house are based on the real life silent movie star Colleen Moore – at least in terms of the Hollywood career, dolls house and some aspects of her later life. I didn’t know anything about Moore before I read the book – and was astonished when I went to read up afterwards how much of the story was based on truth. This is my first book by Kathleen Rooney and I enjoyed the writing style as well as the Old Hollywood setting. It’s hard to tell how you’d find this if you did know more about stars of silent movies, but given that I’m fairly into stuff like this and didn’t know anything about her – despite the fact that it turns out that she’s credited with popularising the bob (and in the pictures it’s basically Phryne’s bob) – I reckon people who do know about her may be in the minority!

So I would rate this as well worth a read if you liked Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and want more movie stars – even if this has less twists and secrets, and is set in a different time. It also has the added bonus of being in Kindle Unlimited, although my copy came via NetGalley .

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: September 25 – October 1

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Back at work after two lovely weeks off and normal service has been resumed. Well, sort of. This week is slightly heavy on the audiobooks of Agatha Christie (lots of post-holiday pottering to do and a need for something to listen to) and a little light on the actual book-reading but I’m reading some non fiction and that takes me longer. Onwards into October!

Read:

Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie

Double Strike by Gretchen Archer

In the Shadow of Vesuvius by Tasha Alexander

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie

From Dust to Stardust by Kathleen Rooney*

A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas

Started:

Three Times a Countess by Tina Gaudoin

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

One book bought on Sunday in an excited rush amidst the new month kindle offers.

Bonus photo: the newest addition to my houseplant collection – a spider plant baby I got started myself. I’ve named her Cecily, to go with Cecil and Cecilia my two existing ones…

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

books, stats

September Stats

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Books read this month: 31*

New books: 26

Re-reads: 5 (all audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 10

NetGalley books read: 7

Kindle Unlimited read: 5

Ebooks: 4

Audiobooks: 5

Non-fiction books: 3

Favourite book this month: Hard to chose actually – either We Could Be So Good or Maiden Voyages I think.

Most read author: Still Simon Brett as I finished the Mrs Pargeter binge

Books bought: 6 books, 3 ebooks and three pre-orders

Books read in 2023: 283

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 707

Well, it was a slow start to the month, but the two weeks off – with a couple of trips and plenty of reading time sorted it all out. And now we’re into the last quarter of the year and I probably should take another look at that Read the USA list to check what I’m missing and start working on the gaps now…

Bonus picture: the Teide volcano on Tenerife off in the distance from the interior of Gran Canaria.

*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including 1 this month

books

Books in the Wild: Birmingham airport

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You knew this was coming didn’t you?? I can’t go on holiday and not tell you what I’ve spotted in the airport bookshops – especially since earlier in the summer I was speculating on what would be getting airport special editions! So happy Saturday everyone, here’s which books you should be able to get at the last minute before you step on a plane!

I’m starting with the fiction because I think that’s where most people start, and this is the airport exclusive section – aka the stuff you can only get in hardback elsewhere. And it had all the usual suspects I was expecting/hoping for. By which I mean I snagged the last copy of A Death in the Parish and got the new Richard Osman as well. Of the others Yellowface is the current buzzy book of the moment, obviously the Emily Henry Happy Place was the romance I was waiting for at the start of the summer and then it’s all the other big names you might expect – Jojo Moyes, Stephen King, Karin Slaughter, Jo Nesbo. Really Good Actually has come out in paperback this week, so I wouldn’t have bought that one in that format – even if I didn’t already have a hardback copy I haven’t got around to reading yet…

In general I would say that it felt like the store needed a bit of a restock/shelf replenishment, but the paperback selection was pretty much what I would have expected. I don’t know what happened to my photo of the top 12 books, but I can’t find it – but you can take it from me that it was the usual suspects that you would expect – you can see some of them on the edges – Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Lessons in Chemistry, some Coleen Hoover, Lee Child, the middle two Richard Osmans etc. This is actually the more interesting shelf – as well as Evelyn Hugo and more Colleen Hoover and some David Baldacci – there are a few things that you might not have read if you’re not a massive reader but that are outside some of the usual suspects. So there’s the Dan Jones Essex Boys historical fiction, Elena Armas who I’ve heard good things about, Rosie Walsh who writes women’s fiction thriller mysteries (and who used to write women’s fiction at the romance end of the scale as Lucy Robinson), Anthony Horowitz, Maggie O’Farrell and Jessie Burton.

And finally the airport non-fiction, where I’ve often found hardbacks that I couldn’t have justified buying otherwise (Traitor King I’m looking at you!), but this time was a bit disappointing – although if I hadn’t read Reach for the Stars I probably would have bought it – because it didn’t have enough history to tempt me, and much as I love F1, Drive to Survive and Guenter Steiner, I’m not interested in his book!

Have a great Saturday everyone!

books

Series Redux: Her Majesty the Queen Investigates

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So, we’ve just passed the first anniversary of the death of Elizabeth II, and this week the third novel in S J Bennett’s Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series is finally published in the USA – so I’m taking the opportunity to remind you of my post about the series from November last year, which was when Murder Most Royal came out in the UK. When I wrote this series post, this was due to come out in the US in early 2024 – so there’s clearly been a delay on that, I’m not sure why – it could have been a knock on of the supply chain issues that pushed things like Sherry Thomas’s seventh Lady Sherlock book back from fall 2022 to early 2023, or maybe it was bumped back to avoid the Coronation? Anyway, if you’re in the UK, the paperback of this came out earlier in summer. The fourth book is due out here in February 2024 and is called A Death in Diamonds. It’s available to pre-order now, and judging by the blurb centres around a mystery set in 1957 – which if it is entirely set in 1957 will be a new departure for the series and might answer the question about what might happen with this series now the Queen is dead. I’m looking forward to reading it.

book round-ups, books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: My summer holiday reading

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So as I mentioned in the Week in Books post, we’ve been on holiday, and although I’ve already told you about We Could Be So Good , The Lost Summers of Newport and The Mysterious Mr Badman, but I have a couple more reviews from my holiday week of reading. You’re welcome. And by a weird quirk, they’re all murder mysteries of various types. Who knew.

Lets start off with The Sea Breeze by S J T Riley. This came out last year and is a murder mystery set in 1950s Devon. A crime reporter at a London paper receives a call from an old friend after a boat is found abandoned in the harbour with one crew member dead and others missing. When he arrives in town, he finds his friend is missing and the locals are closing ranks against him. But that’s not going to stop him investigating. This throws you in without a lot of explanation and the pacing is a little spotty at times, but it’s a pretty well-executed murder mystery that will appeal to you if you like things like the BLCC titles that are set at sea (or near the sea).

Next up is A Death in the Parish, which is the second historical mystery from Reverend Richard Coles. I said that I would get to it didn’t I! I read the first Canon Clement book last year and I enjoyed that one, but this one definitely feels like he’s settling into writing cozy historical crime books. He’s established his late-1980s rural set up in the first one and in this one he gets to flesh out the characters and the world and show the aftermath of the events of the first one. And if you haven’t read the first one, this one will spoil the murderer in that – so that’s worth bearing in mind if you’re thinking of going in fresh to the series with this. But the mystery is good – and the clash between Daniel’s style of ministry and that of the vicar in the neighbouring parish is good, especially if you have ever been involved in a parish church and the various different factions that you get in one. There is a third one coming – and I thought I knew where some of the running strands were heading towards the end of the book, only for it to surprise me at the last so I’m looking forward to seeing where this is going to go next.

And finally and less successfully my latest attempt to try and find another mystery-thriller type series in the vein of things like Janet Evanovich’s Steph Plum or Carl Hiassen was Cultured by D P Lyle – which mentions both of those authors in its blurn. This is the sixth in a series (but it’s very clear that you can read them standalone) about a retired professional baseball player whose PI father gets him involved in investigations. In Cultured, he’s asked to try and infiltrate a self-improvement programme by an anxious mum after her daughter who was working there disappears. Is The Lindemann Method a scam? A Cult? A front for something else? Jake and his girlfriend Nicole are going to find out. This had all the elements that I wanted in the blurb, but just didn’t really work for me. It doesn’t really have the humour of Evanovich or Hiassen and Jake doesn’t have enough personality to carry a book. Add to that a lot of focus on how attractive the various women are, some unexpected changes of Point of View and pacing that means it doesn’t quite flow and it didn’t really work for me. Never mind.

That’s your lot for today, but there are a couple more things that I read on holiday that I suspect will pop up on here in the future – but I’m going to leave you guessing as to what they are!

Happy reading!

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: The Lost Summers of Newport

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As I mentioned yesterday, I read both of the physical books that I took with me on holiday this time – and today’s pick was one of them. To be fair, I did pick what I was taking quite carefully and this was one I’d been looking forward to reading.

The Lost Summers of Newport is a three-stranded story about a Gilded Age Mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. Set in three different points in the mansion’s life, each is connected to the other, and you move between the three. In 1899, Ellen is just started a job as a music teacher at Sprague Hall, to help an heiress snag an Italian prince. In 1959, Lucky is living at Sprague Hall with her husband Sty, who she married when she and her grandmother fled Mussolini’s Italy. Her husband is a womaniser and an alcoholic but she’s worried what a divorce would do to her young daughter. In 2019, Andie is working on a TV home makeover show that’s featuring Sprague House as its latest project. She wants the programme to focus on the history of the house and restoring it – but the network higher ups have different ideas. On top of that, the house’s reclusive owner has two conditions to filming – don’t talk to her, and don’t go near the boathouse. And she has two grandchildren who don’t want the TV crew there at all.

This was a really good book to read on the beach or by the pool. Because you’re switching between timelines it comes in nice sections so you can read a bit, go for a swim, read a bit more while you dry off, go for an ice cream, read a bit more – you get the idea. And in case you didn’t get it from the description, this has got some Gilded Age Rich People problems stuff going on. And there are Vanderbilts and society rivalries here galore in the two plots in the past. My enjoyment of books set in periods like this is well known – whether it’s novels or non-fiction – and so that worked well for me, particularly with the element of high society rubbing up against the seamier side of life. The different story lines gives more scope to layer secrets and see characters at different stages of their lives.

But of course the downside of having three plot strands to a book is that you can often wish that you got more time with each strand – or with one strand in particular. And there is a little bit of that with this, but it actually works together really well, especially when you consider that the book has three authors – and that each author writes one storyline (or at least that’s what the readers guide at the end says).

I read Beatriz Williams‘ and Lauren Willig‘s solo novels – and have written posts featuring some of them – although I haven’t read any of Karen White’s other books. This is the second of their joint efforts that I’ve read and I liked it more than I remember liking the first one. If you’ve read Beatriz Williams other novels you’ll spot some of the same families popping up here, which is a nice Easter Egg.

The paperback of this came out in July – and I had it preordered and so I’ve actually got to it quite quickly in the grand scheme of things – but it’s also available in Kindle and Kobo as well as in an audiobook with a different narrator for each strand.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: September 18 – September 24

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I’m just back from a lovely week in the sunshine on holiday and I think youcan tell from the reading list. In a minor miracle, I read both the books I took with me to read on holiday AND the two books I bought at the airport, and I started on the book Him Indoors took with him to read. This is unheard of – I have a terrible record for taking books with me, then buying something at the airport and reading the new ones and then going back to the kindle. So well done me. And I also made some really good progress on that still reading list – I will get there, I will! Anyway, a nice and very varied week of reading all in all. And now – back to work…

Read:

The Mysterious Mr Badman by W F Harvey

Lion in the Valley by Elizabeth Peters

Wild and Crazy Guys by Nick De Semlyen

A Death in the Parish by Rev Richard Coles

Lost Summers of Newport by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White

The Paper Bark Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu

Cultured by D P Lyle*

The Sea Breeze by S J T Riley*

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman

The Other Side of Mrs Wood by Lucy Barker*

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

Started:

Double Strike by Gretchen Archer

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

From Dust to Stardust by Kathleen Rooney*

No books bought – the airport spending spree was on last week’s list

Bonus photo: stargazing on holiday…

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