Category: Recommendsday

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Books about Hollywood

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After writing about some Hollywood-set fiction yesterday, I thought this week might be a great opportunity for a round up of some of the Hollywood-set or related non-fiction I’ve read over the years. This has got a couple of things that I’ve not mentioned before, but also some that have been to a greater or lesser extent.

Let’s start with one of those new things: I read Shawn Levy’s The Castle on Sunset a couple of years ago, but I can’t find that I really wrote much about it here, so I can rectify that now. This is a history of the Chateau Marmont, possibly the most famous hotel in Hollywood, used by generations of stars for all sorts of things. Depending on your age you may remember it as where John Belushi died, or the hotel Lindsay Lohan got kicked out of – and both of those are in this, along with a lot more.

I’ve reorganised this bookshelf since this picture was taken, but there are a few here that might be of interest. Helen O’Hara’s Women vs Hollywood look at female pioneers in the early days of the movies and how women were then pushed out. I don’t know what it’s not on this shelf, but if you want Golden Age Hollywood of a similar era to Loretta, then Karina Longworth’s Seduction: Sex, Lies and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood which focuses on the women pursued by the millionaire movie mogul from the 1920s through til the 1950s. And from a similar era there is Trumbo about the screenwriter who was blacklisted in the communist panic.

There are loads of books about individual stars too. I remember Gerald Clarke’s Get Happy about Jusy Garland as being pretty good, but it’s been closer to 15 years than ten. And I don’t know where my copy is but J Randy Taraborrelli’s The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe was a good read when I read it even longer ago – I wonder how it holds up! Taraborrelli has a fair line in Kennedy-related books, some of which I keep meaning to get hold of, because we all know I like a good book about that particular dysfunctional family. He’s also written about Elizabeth Taylor – who is another frequent books subject. I’ve read Furious Love about her relationship with Richard Burton, Elizabeth and Monty about her friendship with Montgomery Clift – and I’ve got Kate Anderson Brower‘s biography on my to read pile too.

And then there’s the other stuff I want to read – Laurence Leamer’s Hitchcock’s Blondes – which came out last year, just as the adaptation of his book about Capote’s Women was appearing on streaming services. I’ve got another Marilyn book on the kindle too – this time about Bobby Kennedy and Marilyn. I also want to read Oscar Wars, Michael Schulman’s history of the Academy Awards and Katie Gee Salisbury’s Not Your China Doll about Anna May Wong.

Happy Wednesday!

books, books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: July Kindle Offers

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I’m back with the most expensive post of the month – as it’s a rare month when I manage to write this without buying books myself. But I’ll give it a go – hang around until the end and I’ll let you know how I get on!

As usual, lets start with the former books of the week that are on offer. At 99p there’s Emily Henry’s Happy Place, which is last year’s release and thus just out in paperback. Also on offer because the author has a new book out is Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis – and at this point Hazelwood seems to have a book at 99p every month, so you just have to wait long enough for the one you want to come around. I’m still waiting to get my hands on the new Christina Lauren, but The Unhoneymooners is on offer at the moment – this is an enemies to lovers, forced proximity romance– where food poisoning in the bridal party sees the bride’s twin sister go on the honeymoon with the best man – who happens to be her nemesis.

A much more recent release is How To End a Love Story – and I stand by my reservations about one aspect of this one, but it is a pretty good summer read. And The Lifeline, Libby Page’s sequel to The Lido which I read on our holiday in April is also 99p. And Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date, the last book in the Bright Falls series by Ashley Herring Blake is 99p as well.

I’m really trying not to be annoyed about this considering I went out and bought the hardback on release day, but the final Maisie Dobbs The Comfort of Ghosts is down to £2.99 at the moment. This was my favourite book I read last month and is a lovely ending to the series, but as usual you’ll probably want to have read the others to get the most out of it.

On the non-fiction from Tara Westover’s Educated is 99p – it’s a few years now since I read this one, but it has really stuck with me because Tara’s childhood is so awful and she has overcome so much. Something I read much more recently is Nick de Semleyn‘s The Last Action Heroes about the stars of the blockbuster action movies of the 80s and 90s -if you liked the Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary on Netflix, then you’ll be interested in this. And if you want some history, Lucy Worsley’s Jane Austen at Home is 99p too.

I still haven’t watched the new series of Bridgerton, but the book that inspired it Romancing Mr Bridgerton is on offer this month – all the usual caveats about the differences between the twenty-plus year old source material and the adaptation.

This month’s Terry Pratchett is The Fifth Elephant, which is £1.99 and is in the fifth book in the City Watch sub-series of the Discworld books. The Science of Discworld III is also 99p at the moment too. The Georgette Heyer is one of my favourites – Sylvester – and not quite as cheap, but Have His Carcase aka Peter and Harriet 2 is the Peter Wimsey.

Happy Wednesday!

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: June Quick Reviews

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Only three things to tell you about today, and one of them is a check in on something I mentioned on release day, but hey, here we go:

One Last Summer by Kate Spencer*

I read Kate Spencer’s In A New York Minute back in 2022 and enjoyed it so I was really excited to see what she had written next. This is about a group of friends who met at summer camp and have kept a tradition going of meeting up at that camp again into adulthood. But this summer is the last hurrah – because the camp is being sold. Clara our heroine hasn’t been on the last few reunions – but her boss has forced her to take time off so she’s back – and now has to deal with her former camp crush Mack. I really liked the premise, but I found Clara really hard to like and the one-upmanship vibe that her relationship with Mack has is just not my thing. It will be for some people – but it veered to close to the “I’m pranking you to show you I like you” vibe that can really get on my last nerve. It was also much closer to New Adult in feel than I was expecting. Not for me – but never mind, I know other people will really like it, which is why I’m including it here.

Truly, Madly, Deeply by Alexandria Bellefleur

I mentioned this when it came out, so now I’ve read it, it’s only fair I come back to report. I’ve got a longer summary of the plot in that last post – but it’s a jaded romance author and a family lawyer at the centre of it and a enemies to lovers plot. I’m sad to report that it didn’t really work for me – mainly because of some issues with the subplots that I can’t really explain without spoiling them completely. But I am finding a theme with the Alexandria Bellefleurs that I’ve read that I like the idea of them or the plot description more than I like the actual execution. Count Your Lucky Stars was a BotW – but I had an issue with the final act. I don’t ever hate them – because I keep coming back for more – I just don’t ever love them-love them if that makes sense!

Career Books for Girls by Kay Clifford

It’s only a month to go before Book Con 2024, so I’m having a quick check that I’ve read everything I bought home from Bristol two years ago (yes, I know, I know) and this was one of the ones I found. As the title suggests, this is basically an encyclopaedia of books aimed at encouraging girls into careers, or informing them about what was actually involved in careers, in the long first half of the twentieth century. I had read more of them than I was expecting – and I really liked Kay’s writing which wryly points out the issues with the world view of these books as well as telling you about them. It’s not meant to be read all at once, more a dip into type thing, but that didn’t stop me!

And that’s it for this month, a reminder of the Books of Week in June were: Summer Fridays, Summer Romance, The Formula and A Nobleman’s Guide for Seducing a Scoundrel.

Happy Humpday!

LGTBQIA+, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Non-fiction for Pride Month

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It’s the final Wednesday in June, so for the last Recommendsday of the month I’m following on from last weeks’ fiction picks for Pride Month, with some non-fiction option.

Young Bloomsbury by Nino Strachey

Let’s start with something that I finished last week.This is a group biography of the second generation of the Bloomsbury Group, who joined in with the first wave in the 1920s when people like Virginia Woolf and Lytton Strachey were at the height of their powers and influence. There are a lot of people in this – many of them named Strachey – so it can some times get a little confusing, but it’s a very readable look at some of the lesser-spotted Bloomsburies and what they got up to. Very much an overview, and so I’m now off to see what there is on some of the more interesting figures in this that I didn’t already know about!

Wild Dances by William Lee Adams

This is a slightly strange one to write about – because William is actually a work colleague! As well as working with me, William is a massively popular Eurovision expert who runs a YouTube channel and blog. How did he get from small town Georgia (the US state, not the country) to here? His memoir will tell you and it’s quite the journey. Reading this was the first time I read a memoir written by someone who I know in real life, so that was slightly disconcerting experience. But the book is really powerful and worth reading even if you don’t like Eurovision.

I’ve already recommended a load of really good non-fiction that fits into their category too – like The Art of Drag – which you can see in the photo behind William’s book; Legendary Children – about RuPaul’s Drag Race’s first decade; Fabulosa – about the secret gay language Polari; and Harvey Fierstein’s memoir I Was Better Last Night. And currently on the pile waiting to be read, I have Queer City – about the history of gay London, The Crichel Boys – about a literary salon adjacent to the Bloomsbury group; and RuPaul’s memoir The House of Hidden Meanings. I’m also looking out for Bad Gays – looking at overlooked gay figures in history, and Hi Honey, I’m Homo – about queer comedy and the American sitcom.

Happy Wednesday!

LGTBQIA+, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Fiction for Pride Month

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Now we’re through the quick reviews and the kindle offers, I thought I’d do this week’s Recommendsday with some fiction picks for Pride month. And it turns out, I’ve already read and recommended a lot so narrowing the field down was the tricky bit – but I’ve given it a good go.

Now a lot of the stuff I’ve read the most recently has been romance – and I’ve told you about loads of them already. But that’s not going to stop me from reminding you about some of my favourites. So there’s Alexis Hall’s Boyfriend Material, K J Charles’s Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen and the Bright Falls Series. And of course it’s just a few weeks since Cat Sebastian’s You Should Be So Lucky was Book of the Week.

Talking of recent books of the week – there’s Mona of the Manor and in fact the whole of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series. I struggle a lot with comps for these because they’re just so wonderful and the early ones uniquely capture the moment that they were written in – San Francisco in the mid-1970s. But another book that captures the moment that it was written in is Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin – a fictionalised version of the author’s time in Berlin in the dying days of the Weimar Republic. Written a couple of years after his return, it was published in 1939. If you’ve read many/any books set in 1930s Berlin then this is worth a read even if only to see how it was seen at the time.

I’m hopping around a bit, but I’m going back to YA for a second – as well as Heartstopper, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (which has a sequel) Red, White and Royal Blue, Our Own Private Universe and The Gravity of Us, there is What if it’s Us which I haven’t read yet, but which comes highly recommended by my friend Tom.

And that’s all I’ve got today – but have a great Wednesday!

books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: June Kindle Offers

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Hello I’m back again to tempt you into spending more money on Kindle books to add your to-read piles, which I’m sure are already bulging, but we’re heading into summer holiday season, so if you needed an excuse to buy a book (or two) make this it!

There are a bunch of former Books of the Week on offer this month so lets start there. I mentioned The Dead Romantics in my Books with Ghosts recommendsday the other week, so it’s only fair to mention that this former BotW is 99p at the moment. Another is Cathy Yardley‘s Role Playing – I loved this so much this time last year – then there is also Forget Me Not by Julie Soto – who has her second book out next month. At the same price is A Very Lively Murder, the second Three Dahlias book – ahead of the arrival of book three next month.

The third Emmy Lake book is 99p at the moment – I reviewed Mrs Porter Calling when it came out last year, but it’s got a fresh cover (I assume for the paperback edition) in case that’s confusing you. I’m still hoping for a fourth in the series too, but no news yet and it’s usually two years between these so it’s not “due” until next year so I’m not worried yet. It’s got a new cover since I bought it, but K J Charles‘s The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting is 99p – the second in this series (although it will be standalone) is out next month as well.

Carley Fortune is a new to me author, but I’ve seen lots of good reviews of her other books and her latest This Summer Will Be Different is 99p at the moment – I bought this last month – but it’s still on offer as I write this. In other new books that I haven’t read yet, Sarah Morgan’s summer novel is 99p at the moment – it’s called The Summer Swap. And I mentioned Kirsty Greenwood’s new book in my Summer of Not Sequels post, so it’s only fair to mention that another of the Novelicious crew Cressida McLaughlin has a new book out this summer too and The Happy Hour is 99p.

We’re only on series three of Bridgerton, but book five in the series – aka Eloise’s story – is on offer at the moment. I really like To Sir Philip, With Love, but I know that it’s not everyone’s favourite and if you’ve watched the series before reading the books it may be a bit of a shock to you! In other TV tie-in news, we have The Magpie Murders at 99p – I loved the books, I loved the TV series and I’m on record as wishing Anthony Horowitz could write more of them. I’m almost embarrassed about how many times I’ve mentioned Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy now, but I did love it so much that I can’t really be sorry. It’s 99p, read it on the beach.

If you want some non-fiction, Jen Gunter’s The Vagina Bible is 99p -which I’ve read, and her Menopause Manifesto, which I haven’t.

My dad recently discovered that there was a Discworld book he hadn’t read – I wish I could have a similar moment but sadly I know I’ve read them all. But it’s that time of year again where I’m thinking about which Discworld book to re-read – and Guards! Guards! is always right up there and if I didn’t already own it, it’s £1.99 at the moment and is a great place to start the series. GNU Sir Terry and if you’re wondering, the one that Dad hadn’t read was Equal Rites. Talking of my family, Ralph’s Party by Lisa Jewell was one of my sister’s favourites back when we were teenagers, I thought it was new at the time – but doing the maths as it has a 25th anniversary edition out now, it really can’t have been!

The Convenient Marriage is this month’s 99p Georgette Heyer, both the first Poirot and the first Miss Marple books are 99p if you want some Agatha Christie, and The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford is also on offer if you want some Bright Young Things in action.

And surely that’s enough books now? It’s all you’re getting anyway – so Happy Humpday!

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: May Quick Reviews

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As you may have realised, May has been a really busy month – and I’ve already written about a lot of the new-to-me stuff that I’ve read this month, so only two books here this month in the quick reviews.

Lips Like Sugar by Jess K Hardy

This didn’t make it in to the Summer of Sequels post, because it actually came out in February and it just took me a while to get to it. Also it’s not really a sequel because it’s a romance series so it’s a fresh couple that are linked to the one in Come As You Are. Anyway, we’re back in the same town in Montana – but this time our heroine is Mira, bakery owner and mum to a teenage boy. Our hero is Cole, grunge-band-drummer turned music-studio-owner. It starts as a fake date to Madigan and Ashley’s wedding, but obviously it turns into something more. It’s lots of fun and really easy to read – and hopefully setting up for a third because there’s a big old loose end dangling I think – although it’s would be a bit of a pivot for the series.

Cut and Thirst by Margaret Atwood

Every now and again, Amazon pops up with a new short story from Margaret Atwood and I rush out to read it. I have a somewhat mixed record with her novels but I really like her short stories. This one is about three older women who are plotting to take revenge on the men who did one of their friends wrong years ago. It’s just dark, and funny and delightful. If you’ve got Kindle Unlimited, then this is really worth a read.

And that’s it – like I said, only two reviews this month but hey, what can I do. There have been some other great books in May that I’ve already written about – so if you’re not caught up on my reviews of Happy Medium, Mona of the Manor, You Should Be So Lucky and The Reunion, go check them out as well as my Recommendsday post about Books with Ghosts.

Happy Reading!

new releases, Recommendsday, women's fiction

Book of the Week: Summer Fridays

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As if you didn’t know this was coming from my post on Thursday. I mean. Unless the sample was a total swizz this was odds on for the pick today. And here we are, and I feel fully justified in my decision to impulse purchase this in paperback after reading the aforementioned sample, which turns out to be up until page 47 of the paperback.

It’s the summer of 1999 and Sawyer is living in New York with her fiancé Charles. They’re getting married in the autumn and Sawyer is working in publishing, he’s got a job at a law firm – but he’s working ever longer hours, which he says is on a big case, but which Sawyer suspects may be linked to his co-worker Kendra. When Kendra’s boyfriend Nick reaches out to her about his suspicions, they meet up – and don’t get on. But when he finds her online to apologise, the two start to develop a friendship – as they spend their summer Friday afternoons together while their partners are working. They’re just friends – but what happens at the end of the summer.

I think this book is possibly one which should have “A Novel” on the front of it – because the signalling I get from the cover is that it’s a romance and I described it as such in my post on Thursday, but I think this is going to be a divisive one in terms of genre. And that’s because as you can tell from that plot write up, our central characters are in a relationship with other people at the start, and that is a state of affairs that does continue for a while (I can’t tell you more than that without spoilers) and that is going to violate some people’s no cheating rule. Now given that it is right there in the blurb that this is the case, you should be going in forewarned, but I’m mentioning it anyway.

For my part, I couldn’t put this down. I thought it was incredibly well written and really evoked a specific time period – pre-mobile phones, dial up internet – and place. I could have spent another 100 pages with Nick and Sawyer wandering around New York, and I thought the way that their relationship developed was nuanced and at times messy in a way that real life can be – especially when you’re in your early 20s and figuring yourself out but also have big life events hurtling towards you. I thought it was brilliant – and I hope Suzanne Rindell writes more in this sort of area, because I liked The Other Typist, but I loved this. And now I want to buy Three Martini Lunch and see where that fits into to the spectrum between the two!

Summer Fridays is out now. It’s 99p on Kindle today – which is a massive drop from when I read that sample on release day last week and I would absolutely have bought the ebook if it had been that at the time I read the sample – so this sounds like your sort of thing (and bearing in mind that warning) then it’s totally worth that. It’s £3.99 on Kobo and it’s also in paperback as you know. I couldn’t spot any physical copies in Foyles when I was in there yesterday, and Waterstones isn’t claiming ot have Click and collect copies, so you’re probably going to have to order it.

Happy Reading!

Book previews, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Summer of Not Sequels

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After last week’s post with the notable sequels this summer, it seems only fair to also do the other books I’m looking forward to this summer – or expecting to see all over the place – because it’s nearly June and a lot of them are about to appear.

Let’s start with Welcome to Glorious Tuga by Francesca Segal, which is out on June 6, has a tortoise on the cover and is about a zoologist who takes up a fellowship on a remote island ostensibly to study an endangered species, but actually also because she has a secret that connects her to the island. It has blurbs from Marian Keynes, Nick Hornby, Jessie Burton, Naomi Alderman and more so I feel confident in predicting you’ll be seeing this around a lot this summer.

Another book I’m confident to predict is going to be all over the place is the new novel from Kevin Kwan, the author of Crazy Rich Asians. Lies and Weddings follows a former model and future earl with a cash flow problem and on the hunt for a rich woman to seduce at his sister’s wedding to solve it. But nothing goes to plan and the write up promises money, murder, sex and lies in locations like Hawaii, Marrakesh and Beverley Hills. Expect to see this on a lot of sun loungers from late June.

Heading into July, I think Chris Brookmyre’s The Cracked Mirror might be the poolside book for the crime readers. The blurb promises a mashup of Agatha Christie and something more hard boiled as an elderly lady who solves murders in her village crossed paths with an LAPD homicide detective who will do whatever it takes to get to the truth. I’m interested to see this – although given my reading preferences I’ll need it to be closer to the Marple end of the gruesome scale!

In August we have a new Rainbow Rowell novel which is always exciting. Slow Dance is the story of star crossed best friends who everyone thinks should be together except each other. Emma Straub and Gabrielle Zevin have blurbed this one if that helps you figure out where we’re at – but it feels like it’s been a while since a proper Rowell adult novel so I’m excited.

And finally jumping back to the near future and something that I’ve already started, there’s a new novel coming from Kirsty Greenwood in late June. I used to review (occasionally) for Kirsty’s old site Novelicious in the early days of this blog, and she writes romantic novels that are also very funny. The Love of My Afterlife has a heroine who wakes up in the waiting room for the afterlife only to run into the most handsome man she’s ever met – and he seems to be into her. Then whoosh – he’s gone again and Delphie is offered a ten day return to earth to try and get him to fall in love with her and win a second chance at life. I’m about halfway through as I write this and it’s so much fun!

And that’s your lot – but I’m fairly confident that even if you don’t read them yourself, you’ll spot at least a couple of these four out in the wild over the next few months!

Happy Reading everyone!

Book previews, book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Summer of Sequels

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Something slightly different for this week’s recommendsday, because it’s a bit of a preview type thing. There are a lot of books coming out this summer that are sequels to books that I’ve really enjoyed, and per my rules, I probably won’t be able to review them, because: spoilers. So today I thought I’d flag them now – while I’m still excited about them and before any of them have the chance to disappoint me)!

First of all, and all ready in the shops, is Displeasure Island by Alice Bell, a follow up to last year’s Grave Expectations. I was hoping for a sequel to that – but for some reason this one had gone completely under my radar until I spotted it in the airport bookshop the other weekend! It came out at the start of May, and sees Claire and her friends off on holiday on a remote Irish island, where the hotel is double booked, there are fighting ghost pirates and – per the blurb – Claire is fighting off “anxious And Then There Were None vibes” even before a murder. This sounds like a lot of fun and I’m probably going to end up picking it up at some point.

Out yesterday in the US and who knows when in the UK is The Guncle Abroad, the sequel to Steven Rowley’s The Guncle, which I loved when I read it and started me off on buying all of Rowley’s books (except Lily and the Octopus because I think that’s going to be way too sad). The sequel finds us rejoining Patrick as he heads to a family wedding in Italy, in a very different place professionally from where he was at the start of the first book. He’s also nearly fifty, and out of favour with the kids, who a struggling to adapt to their new normal.

Next up, and out in a couple of weeks is How to Solve Murders Like a Lady by Hannah Dolby. This is a second book featuring Violet Hamilton, after last summer’s No Life for a Lady. This finds Violet hard at work as a lady detective, but when the body of a woman is found on the beach, her efforts to investigate are thwarted at every turn for some reason. The first in this series has been consistently in Kindle Unlimited for the last few months, so it may be that this one is too at some point in the near future.

And of course there are lots of longer running series that have fresh books out this summer, but I’m sticking to the actual sequels today, so that’s your lot.

Happy Wednesday everyone!