Category: week in books

Book of the Week, fiction, historical, reviews

Book of the Week: The Paris Wife

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This week’s BotW is The Paris Wife by Paula McLain – which has been sitting on my to-read pile for far too long  What’s new.  How many times have I said that now?  But yes, once again, a really good book stuck in the backlog for ages.  You’d think I’d learn by now, and yet The Pile is still out of control. Hey ho. Moving on. 
The Paris Wife tells the story of the marriage between Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley Richardson.  The novel is told predominantly from Hadley’s perspective, interspersed with occasional diary style snippets from Hemingway.  Hadley and Ernest are clearly very much in love when they get married and this paints a very convincing portrait of a marriage torn apart by genius, ego, Jazz Age Paris, children and other women.  You can see the train wreck coming and they can see it coming – but they don’t seem to be able to do anything to avert it.  But this isn’t a miserable book, it’s sad in places, but it’s also fascinating.

Whilst I haven’t read a lot of Hemingway’s work, I have read a fair bit of F Scott Fitzgerald’s – who is another member of this crew – and as I’ve mentioned before, I love this interwar time period. After reading this, I’ve realised that I’ve got a bit of a glut of books about this set sitting on my shelves – not only Mrs Hemingway, but also Villa America and I think another one that I can’t remember the title of.  I might have to space out reading them so I don’t get too confused/overloaded, but I am looking forward to reading them soon.

I wouldn’t expect you to have too much difficulty tracking this down in the bookshops – it’ll probably be on the shelves rather than the tables by now though. But here’s a link to Foyles and Kindle just in case.

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 10 – August 16

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A couple of issues this week.  Firstly I got to 90 pages from the end of Paris wife in the early hours of Wednesday morning on my way home from work – and then it fell under my rule about not taking books with less than 100 pages to go to work with me* and so it sat unfinished til the weekend.  Then there was an issue with the Spider in the Corner of the Room – I can’t read it when it’s dark.  It’s too scary. So that’s not finished because I haven’t had enough daylight reading time.  This combining together meant at one point this week I had EIGHT books on the go at once.  Which is ridiculous even for me.  I think I’ve done well to get it down to four!

Read:

Dirty Bertie: An English King Made in France by Stephen Clarke

I Don’t Want To Talk About it by Jane Lovering

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome**

In The Drink by Allyson K Abbott

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

Wolf Bride by Elizabeth Moss

Started:

The Spider in the Corner of the Room by Nikki Owen

The Piano Man Project by Kat French

Still reading:

The Girl of My Dreams by Peter Davis

A Very Big House in the Country by Claire Sandy

A couple of books bought this week – so a bit of backsliding, but in my defence, they were bridging a gap in a series (I’ve read books 1 and 2, and have book 5 but can’t read it till I bought the ones in between) so really the purchase is helping reduce the pile.  That’s my story anyway, and I’m sticking to it!

* Because I finish them before I’ve finished the train to work and then have to carry around dead weight for the rest of the day.

** Yes, I’ve read this before, but I haven’t reread it in a decade, and it wasn’t on my goodreads list. And I read it properly as part of Novelicious’s Nostalgic Summer Reread.

Book of the Week, detective

Book of the Week: Death of an Airman

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This week’s book of the week is a rediscovered Classic crime novel, Christopher St John Spriggs’ Death of an Airman – first published in 1934 and now re-released as part of the British Library’s Crime Classics series.  Regular readers of this blog will know that I love Golden Age Crime (and re-listen to a Peter Wimsey audiobook at least once a month) and this was right up my alley.

George Furnace is a flying instructor at Baston Aero Club – killed when his plane crashes.  But the people who knew him are baffled – he was a skilled pilot and the plane was in perfect condition.  Although the inquest decides it was death by misadventure, a visiting Australian bishop suspects the truth may be more complicated.  Is it suicide?  Or murder?  Together with Inspector Bray a very cunning scheme is uncovered.

This is brilliant.  I’ll admit that I don’t know enough about flying (and in particular 1930s flying) to be able to tell you how accurate the aeroplane information is, but it certainly all made sense to me – and the titular death is brilliantly contrived.  I didn’t figure out all the solution until very late on – at which point I appreciated how clever Spriggs had been in dropping hints earlier in the book which passed off as totally innocuous at the time.

I’ve now read about half a dozen titles in this British Library Crime series – and have really enjoyed discovering forgotten murder mysteries from my favourite era – which in many cases rival their more well known counterparts – the Wimseys, the Poirots etcs.  The actual paperback copies look lovely (although they are a weird inbetween size) and some serious knowledge of the genre has clearly gone into the selection.  I read two from the series last week – I didn’t enjoy the other one as much, but it was clearly an important book in the development of the genre – and I’ll keep looking out for more.

My copy came via NetGalley – but it should be out now in book shops (I’ve seen and bought titles in the series in both Waterstones and Foyles usually displayed with a couple of others from the series) but if you can’t wait to get to a proper book seller, then here are some links – Foyles, Waterstones, Amazon, Kindle – although I couldn’t find it on Kobo.

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 3 – August 9

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A very good week’s reading – both in quantity and quality.  Some truly excellent stuff in there – the highlights of the week were two crime novels – one for Children by Robin Stevens (which I recommended in my Summer Reads post) and the other, well you can find out tomorrow!

Read:

The Notting Hill Mystery by Charles Warren Adams

Candy Corn Murder by Leslie Meier

The Little Paris Book Shop by Nina George

The Rules of Seduction by Jenna Mullins

The Cherry Tree Cafe by Heidi Swain

First Class Murder by Robin Stevens

Bound to Be A Groom by Megan Mulry

Death of An Airman by Christopher St John Sprigg

Started:

A Very Big House in the Country by Claire Sandy

Wolf Bride by Elizabeth Moss

Dirty Bertie: An English King Made in France by Stephen Clarke

Still reading:

The Girl of My Dreams by Peter Davis

So a lot of train journeys at the start of the week (to and from work) means that the to read pile on the Kindle is shrinking – and I’ve been valiantly resisting the urge to request more books from NetGalley after writing out my August Post-It note of NetGalley books and realising I got a bit carried away.  I also got a bit carried away late at night the other day – and ordered four actual books.  And I might have bought a few e-books too.  Backsliding again…

Book of the Week, non-fiction

Book of the Week: The Year of Living Danishly

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This week’s BotW is a rare non-fiction pick – and has been a big hit in our house. I picked it out a couple of months ago and gave it to The Boy to read last weekend when he’d done too much Janet Evanovich in a row.  He laughed so hard at it and enjoyed it so much that I promoted it to the top of my to-read pile and read it too.  And it is just joyous.

  
The Year of Living Danishly is the story of author Helen Russell and her husband Legoman who move to Jutland in Denmark after he gets a job with the Danish toy giants.  As the country is reputed to be one of the happiest in the world, she sets out to find out whether the hype is true – and whether living a bit more Danishly can help everyone.  Ms Russell does have some reservations about the Danes – they seem to have a bit of a herd mentality and some of their habits are a bit … odd – so this is quite a balanced look at the pros and cons of Danish life as she experienced it.

I absolutely fell in love with this book.  It’s witty and engaging and an absolutely fascinating insight into a country that I knew very little about.  I finished the book thinking that Denmark wouldn’t be a bad place to relocate too – even if the winters are dark and glacial.  The Boy has an auntie and uncle in Denmark – so he had some personal experience of a few of the experiences detailed in the book – he can confirm that Danish kindergarten is fabulous and laid back – he just joined in with a class of them in the park some time in the early 80s and the teachers didn’t even bat an eyelid.

Even if you’re not a big non-fiction reader, this is well worth a look. It’s not dry or academic, it’s warm and enthralling and will leave you wondering what pickled herring tastes like (but maybe not enough to try it).  Meanwhile, The Boy and I are thinking about making a trip to see his relatives in Copenhagen soon!

Get your copy from Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles, Kindle and Kobo – so go forth and live more Danishly.

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: July 27 – August 2

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A real mix of reading this week – classic crime, non fiction, women’s fiction, cozy crime.  I’m struggling a bit with Little Paris Book Shop (as you may have guessed by now), but I’m loathe to give up on it as I’ve heard good reports from elsewhere.

Read:

The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah

Wickham Hall Part 1: Hidden Treasures by Cathy Bramley

A Deceptive Homecoming by Anna Loan-Wilsey

The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell

Drape Expectations by Karen Rose Smith

From Pasta to Pigfoot by Frances Mensah Williams

Started:

The Notting Hill Mystery by Charles Warren Adams

Still reading:

The Little Paris Book Shop by Nina George

The Girl of My Dreams by Peter Davis

A bit of an ebook spree this week – 5 bought.  But no actual books.

Authors I love, Book of the Week, fiction, Series I love, Thriller

Book of the Week: Plum Spooky

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This week’s BotW post has been really tricky.  If I picked my absolute favourite book from last week – can I then still include it in my holiday reads post (which is why I was reading it in the first place)?  If I don’t pick my favourite, all my other options are going to be repeating previous favourite authors.  If I do pick my favourite it’s a repeat as well.  Tricky.  So people, this week’s book of the week is Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich.  Yes.  I know.  But There Were Reasons.

Plum Spooky
I do love a foil cover – but they’re really tricky to photograph

Plum Spooky is the fourth (and last as it stands) in the Between-the-Numbers Stephanie Plum books – which means it’s a bit like a normal Stephanie Plum but with a supernatural twist.  They’re also the books where you meet Diesel – who goes on to get a series of his own (the second of which was my Evanovich Gateway Book back in April – see previous BotW post).  Plum Spooky is the longest (a proper novel rather than a novella) and best of these fill-ins – it has the balance right between NormalSteph and SupernaturalStuff – and is a good read in it’s own right – not just because you like the other Plum books.

In Plum Spooky, Steph’s FTA has got messed up with the guy that Diesel is trying to find – and it all gets a little bit scary/weird in the Barrens – an area which reminds me a lot of the were-panther area in Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Series.  Spooky is very good at balancing the supernatural element of the story with the normal bounty hunter storylines from the regular series.  Having Diesel around does mean less Ranger and Morelli action – but as these are meant to be slightly outside the mains series you couldn’t really have any action that impacts those relationships without causing ructions.

This is great fun – but probably best enjoyed with a bit of existing knowledge of the series – or if you know you like this sort of book. You should be able to get it from all the usual places – and probably your second-hand book store too.

This week I’ve planned my reading better.  And that Summer Reading post is nearly ready, I promise. Just a few more books to read…

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: July 20 – July 26

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I’ve admitted defeat this week on The Weightless World.  It’s been lingering for more than a month – and it didn’t grab me.  I shall hold on to my copy and maybe try and come at it again at a later date.  Just not for me at the moment.  The Boy rattled through The Year of Living Danishly this week – and spent so much time chuckling over it that I’m going to have to read it soon to see what he was laughing at.  I had six days off work this week (!) and there seems to be a correlation between train journeys and amount read.  I’m working a lot this week – so we can put this theory to the test! As I was at home, most of my reading this week was actual books from the pile – so that’s progress of a sort at any rate!

Read:

The Other Daughter by Lauren Willig

A Woman of Consequence by Anna Dean

Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich

Bricks and Mortar by Ann Granger

Dark Road to Darjeeling by Deanna Raybourn

Started:

The Girl of My Dreams by Peter Davis

The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah

Still reading:

The Little Paris Book Shop by Nina George

I *may* have bought a couple of e-books this week, but I nobly resisted the urge to buy actual books – despite a trip to the supermarket and to the charity shop.

Book of the Week, Chick lit

Book of the Week: The Cake Shop in the Garden

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This week’s BotW is Carole Matthew’s latest – The Cake Shop in the Garden.  Last week was a heavy detective fiction week, and as my highest rated book on Goodreads was the second Peter Grant book and it’s only a couple of weeks since the first was my BotW, I thought a fun summer read should be my Book of the Week.

Fay runs a cake shop from her garden, next to the canal near Milton Keynes.  Her mum is difficult and cantankerous and her sister is thousands of miles away in New York, getting up to antics her mum isn’t meant to know about.  Then Danny Wilde arrives at the bottom of the garden on his boat and she starts to question her decisions.  When tragedy strikes, it looks like everything is going to change.  Will Fay have the courage to make the decision that’s right for her?

This is a fun, romantic summer read which is set not far from where I live (which I’ll admit added to the attraction of the book for me).  I thought it was well set up and the plot worked really well – with a few twists that I wasn’t expecting.  The only downside for me is that I found myself wanting to give Fay a shake sometimes and tell her to man up and stand up for herself.  But I know that that’s easier said than done, particularly in the situation that she found herself in.  I was happy with the resolution – although I was worried for a while that I wasn’t going to get the ending that I wanted.

So, another week, another great book for your holiday*.  OK the Costa del Keynes (as Matthews calls it) isn’t quite as hot as a beach in the Med, but I think this might be the perfect for a staycation in the UK – I can see people reading this on canalboat holidays or on the beach in Devon.  It’s not my favourite of Matthews books – that title still belongs to Welcome to the Real World – but this is a good page-turner.

The Cake Shop in the Garden should be fairly easy to get hold of – the paperback came out in April** – but here are some links to Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles, Kindle and Kobo incase you can’t wait to go to a real shop.

* I promise the summer reads post is coming. Soon.  Before August starts.  There’s just a couple more books I want to read first…

**My copy came from NetGalley to coincide with that, but as usual, I’m behind on the NetGalley list.  Also, insert usual honest review disclaimer here.

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: July 13 – July 19

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Not massive amounts read this week – family wedding, jobs to do etc – but I enjoyed what I did read, which was a little murder mystery heavy…

Read:

Wallis: My War by Kate Auspitz (I say read, it was actually an audiobook)

The Cake Shop in the Garden by Carole Matthews

Hand in Glove by Ngaio Marsh

Moon over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

Dead Water by Ngaio Marsh

Death at the Dolphin by Ngaio Marsh

Started:

n/a

Still reading:

The Weightless World by Marcus Trevelyan

The Little Paris Book Shop by Nina George

Only one kindle book bought this week – I’m trying to behave myself.