Category: books

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: Three Times a Countess

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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!)

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 2 – October 8

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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.

Read:

Deeds of the Disturber by Elizabeth Peters

Ministry of Unladylike Activity by Robin Stevens

The Body in the Blitz by Robin Stevens*

Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang

A Nice Class of Corpse by Simon Brett

Three Times a Countess by Tina Gaudoin

Mrs, Presumed Dead by Simon Brett

Started:

Sweet Mercies by Anne Booth

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

One ebook and one preorder.

Bonus photo: I do love a good stat milestone, even if I am still annoyed that I missed a day 900 days ago…

*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

Books in the Wild: Autumn releases

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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!

Have a great Saturday everyone.

bingeable series, books, series

Mystery series: Mrs Pargeter

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This week I’m taking a look at Simon Brett’s Mrs Pargeter books as the ninth in the series is out this week. I read the new one a few weeks ago (thank you NetGalley!) and then went back and filled in all the others in the series that I hadn’t read already.

Mrs Melita Pargeter is a widow in her sixties, left in comfortable circumstances by her late husband who was engaged in business, although she never really enquired although he did leave her a very handy black book of contacts for his many friends and colleagues. Across the course of the series she makes generous use of this black book to help her solve the various mysteries that come her way – from a death in a private seaside hotel (definitely not a boarding house) to stolen paintings that need returning.

I’ve written about Brett’s Charles Paris series before, and this has the same sly sense of humour but with quite a different set of characters and vibe. Where Charles is borderline alcoholic (you could definitely debate the borderline depending on where in the series you are) and often stumbles across the right culprit in the process of trying to unmask a different one, Mrs Pargeter is shrewd and clever and plots very carefully. She’s also usually working at slightly parallel purposes to the police as her methods and ends do not necessarily fit in with what is legal!

The series is definitely best read in order – so you meet her regular friends but also because they’ve been written across about thirty years so time gets a little blurry and a few details have adapted or adjusted somewhat over the years! I think you would notice that more if you read them back to back, but I’ve jumped around a bit in the series and I’m fairly forgiving on that front if the books are fun – and these are fun. If you like Richard Osman, these wouldn’t be a bad bet to take a look at – although they are more straightforwardly funny than the Thursday Murder Club is.

The latest in the series is Mrs Pargeter’s Patio where our heroine’s morning coffee on her patio is disturbed when a paving slab break and exposes a skull underneath. Rather than bother the police immediately she sends for a couple of Mr P’s old associates to make sure that there are no nasty surprises in the investigation. And so the fun begins, and it is a lot of fun.

The first eight books in the series are available in an omnibus edition in Kindle Unlimited or to buy for just 99p – which is pretty good for more than 1500 pages of fun! And the latest is available in Kindle and Kobo although I’m going to go right out and say that the price is bonkers because they are not massively long books.

Have a great weekend everyone.

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!