Category: week in books

Book of the Week, mystery, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Solving Murder

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It’s Halloween week, and so today’s Book of the Week has ghost in the title, even if it’s not so much spooky or scary as mysterious. You’re welcome.

It’s the end of 1914 and Alma Timperley has just found out that she had an aunt that she didn’t know about, but also that her aunt has died and left her a hotel in her will. The Timperley Spiritualist Hotel is in Cornwall, and caters to a very specific clientele – those who wish to communicate with the dead. And as the first Christmas of the war approaches, there are more people than ever looking for comfort in hearing from their recently departed loved ones. As if that wasn’t enough, soon after Alma’s arrival at the hotel, one of the maids is found dead and there are suggestions that there is a German spy in town. And then there is the fact that Alma can talk to the dead, just like her aunt could.

The spiritualist craze that happened during and after the Great War pops up in a few books – notably (in my reading life anyway) in Dorothy L Sayers’ Strong Poison, where Miss Climpson uses her experience of fraudulent mediums to help Peter Wimsey – but in this case, the mediums (or some of them at least) really can talk to the other side. And in terms of the mystery that needs solving, as a newcomer Alma is able to ask plenty of questions about the hotel and it’s inhabitants without arousing too much suspicion. I have a somewhat mixed relationship with books with supernatural elements as you all probably know by now, but I really, really enjoyed this – it’s a great idea and an interesting twist on a wartime spy mystery and not too heavy on the actual ghosts – I wouldn’t even really say it was haunted. This is F H Petford’s first novel (at least as far as I can find) and the end of the book suggests that there is the possibility of a sequel – which I would read with great pleasure.

My copy of A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Murder came via NetGalley, but it is out now in Kindle and Kobo, where it is £1.99 at time of writing, as well as in paperback.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 20 – October 26

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Another incredibly busy week, where I went down to Essex and then up to Carlisle as well as work and a trip to the theatre. The list is looking pretty good though, even if the still reading list doesn’t seem to be coming down much. But I can work on that!

Read:

The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog by Elizabeth Peters

Nightfall in New York by Katherine Woodfine

A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Solving a Murder by F H Petford*

Soyangri Book Kitchen by Kim Jee Hye*

From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming

Murder at the Grand Hotel by Isabella Bassett

War and Peas by Jill Churchill

Started:

The Will of the Standing Stones by A G Barnett

The Murder at World’s End by Ross Montgomery*

Stone and Sky by Ben Aaronovitch

Still reading:

You Had to Be There by Jodie Harsh*

Ritual of Fire by D V Bishop

Pet Shop Boys, Literally by Chris Heath

Two secondhand books acquired and I think that’s it.

Bonus picture: thank you flowers from my trip to Essex, and a glimpse of the to-read overflow pile…

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

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: What You Are Looking for is in the Library

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Hello everyone. Apologies for the slightly blurry photo – I was finishing this one late night on Sunday, and haven’t been home in daylight to improve this. These things happen. Anway…

What You Are Looking for is in the Library is the stories of a series of people who visit a library in Tokyo and receive book recommendations from Sayuri Komachi, the enigmatic librarian who works there. Each of them is struggling with something in their lives, and although they don’t really tell her that, she senses what the recommendation is that they need. Each chapter follows the person receiving the advice, so you don’t actually see that much of Sayuri – just when they visit her in the library.

This is quite quiet and low stakes, but it’s immensely satisfying and soothing, and I loved seeing little glimpses of the people we had already met in the subsequent chapters. I read this in about 24 hours – starting fairly late on Saturday evening and finishing later than I should have been awake the night before the early train on Sunday and it still almost felt like it was over too quickly. I would happily read a sequel, but so far I can’t see that there is one, although this has been so successful that another one of Michiko Aoyama’s books, The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park, has been published in English already, with another, Hot Chocolate on Thursday, coming early next year although interestingly they both have different translators from this one.

What You Are Looking for is in the Library should be really easy to get hold of – it’s sold a tonne of copies and I’ve seen it all over the bookshops. And of course it’s also on Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 13 – October 19

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Well, I think the thing that should be noted here is that Abdication is more than 500 pages long and quite dense as well as full of lots of people to keep track of. And I finished my craft project (hurrah!) and went out one evening, and went to the cinema as well and so, well yes, the still reading pile has got bigger. But I will work on that this week, even if I am on the move from one end of the country to the other, and going to the theatre again tonight…

Read:

A Quiche Before Dying by Jill Churchill

The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett

Abdication by Brian Inglis

Jandy Mac Comes Back by Elsie J Oxenham

Bone Cold by Patti Benning

What you are looking for is in the library by Michiko Aoyama

Started:

A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Solving a Murder by F H Petford*

Still reading:

Nightfall in New York by Katherine Woodfine

From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming

You Had to Be There by Jodie Harsh*

Ritual of Fire by D V Bishop

Pet Shop Boys, Literally by Chris Heath

On the bright side, I didn’t buy any books that arrived this week, but I did take full advantage of the Waterstones 25% off pre-sale books offer… I got my basket down from over £200 to a much more sensible £60 or so!

Bonus picture: a sign that made me smile at the book stall at the market (and Diwali fair) on Saturday.

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

Book of the Week, non-fiction

Book of the Week: Red Land, Black Land

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Considering how busy last week was, I actually had choices for this week’s BotW, which was a bit of surprise to me, but these things happen and it required some serious thinking to work out what to pick. And hard thinking is tiring. So in the end I went with my first instinct. Whether that will work out in the end, who knows. Anyway…

Red Land, Black Land is Barbara Mertz’s social history of Egypt. It takes you through the daily life of an Ancient Egyptian, although perhaps unsurprisingly considering that most of what we know about them is from their tombs it tends towards the end of their lives and death!

Those of you who have been around here for a while will know that although I love history, it is rare that I venture before the Middle Ages and if push comes to shove, I would say that I’m most interested in the period after 1750*. So why did I venture more than a thousand years before my usual area of interest? Well Barbara Mertz is the real name of Elizabeth Peters, author of the Amelia Peabody and Vicky Bliss series, who did a PhD in Egyptology in the early 1950s and published this and a second book, Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphics in the 1960s. They have remained in print ever since (having both been revised a couple of times – including in the case of Red Land, Black Land in 2008, which is when the audio book version that I listened to is from.

This is very much an introductory prime, written in an accessible, chatty style. I can imagine it being on the preliminary reading lists for all manner of courses on Egyptology, to get people into the swing of it before they go on to read the drier, more academic texts. In fact in many ways it’s got the same vibes as Ian Mortimer’s Time Traveller’s Guide series (which I also listened to on audio). And if you’ve read the Amelia Peabody series you can see where some of the inspiration for the various plots came from as well as spotting the various real life figures that popped up in that series (Theodore Davis, Arthur Weigel et al) as their discoveries and tombs are referenced.

Your mileage on this may vary depending on how much you like your history books with asides. I really like that (well when it’s an author whose voice I like!) and I found the audio book experience for this a real delight. I listened to the whole thing across about four days, and liked it so much I’ve bought Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphics in audio too!

Red Land, Black Land is available as an audio book and as a paperback in its current revision, but not on Kindle or Kobo. If you’re tempted to buy secondhand, pay attention to the age and edition that you’re looking at – as from looking at the reviews on Goodreads it would seem that it did change and update a lot over time – especially given that there’s 30 years between the last two updates and scholarship can move a lot in that time!

Happy reading!

*and if you look at the history modules that I did for my degree you will see this born out!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 6 – October 12

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I’ve got to stop starting these posts by saying how busy I have been, but really I have. I’ve had house guests, and evenings out and a craft project to finish. And this week I’ve got nights out and that craft project still isn’t finished. Anyway, that’s one way of saying that this list could have been much worse. I’m making progress on Abdication, but it’s more than 500 pages and dense, so that’s taking time. And I really need to get on with the Pet Shop Boys book when I have an evening at home, because it’s hardback and I’m not carting it around with me to work and back!

Read:

Red Land, Black Land by Barbara Mertz

A Deadly Night at the Theatre by Katy Watson

Summers End by Juneau Black

Kris Kringle by Patti Benning

The Dogs of Venice by Steven Rowley

Hattie Steals the Show by Patrick Gleeson

Started:

Nightfall in New York by Katherine Woodfine

From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming

Still reading:

Abdication by Brian Inglis

You Had to Be There by Jodie Harsh*

Ritual of Fire by D V Bishop

Pet Shop Boys, Literally by Chris Heath

One on a trip to Market Harborough, about five more mostly second hand over the internet, and another two ebooks. Whoops

Bonus picture: exotic (and not so exotic) brassicas. I loved the colours.

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

Book of the Week, memoirs, new releases, non-fiction

Book of the Week: I Shop, Therefore I Am

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Lets just take a moment for the fact that my pick this week is a book that came out last week so I am actually topical and sort of on time for once. Lets mark it, because it happens less often than it ought to, considering the number of advance copies I have of things!

Cover of I Shop, Therefore I A,m

I Shop, Therefore I Am is Mary Portas’s second memoir – I haven’t read the first, but I think this picks up where the first one ends – with Mary starting a new job in charge of window displays at Harvey Nichols. During her time there (which starts in the late 1980s), it transformed from a department store somewhere mostly patronised by older ladies from the Home Counties and in the shadow of their neighbour down the road Harrods, to a headline making store at the cutting edge of the fashion industry.

I grew up watching Absolutely Fabulous (not quite when if first came out, but not *that* long after that) and part of the joy of reading this is getting to see the impact that that show had on the store. But it’s also fascinating to see the mechanics of how the shop worked at a time which (in hindsight) was basically the heyday of the high street. I worked in retail for my first Saturday job was in a clothing store, but the behind the scenes of that was nothing like this – I was at a much lower level but also the clientele was very, very different. I also really liked Mary Portas’s writing style and her voice. She balances the day to day of what she was doing with fun gossipy insights into high fashion and celebrity. And she also seems incredibly normal and down to earth with it that it’s easy to forget that she was moving in really high powered circles until she suddenly mentions how upset they were when Princess Diana died because they all saw her in the store all the time, or when she gets Naomi Campbell to do her instore fashion show.

This is a really good read that would work whether you remember the time that Mary is talking about or not, but I think you’ll get different things out of it depending on whether you remember the time before internet shopping or not! It would also be a great Christmas book for someone who is interested in fashion.

My copy came from NetGalley, but it came out last week and I’m expecting to see it in all the bookshops ahead of the festive rush, especially because it made a bunch of the anticipated book lists earlier in the year. And of course it’s also in Kindle and Kobo.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: September 28 – October 5

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After the very solid end to September, October started very slowly on the reading front – much like September did and this week’s list is mostly being held up by novellas. But that’s OK sometimes right? Especially as last month had none. I’ll just keep telling myself that. In my defense, the Brian Inglis is long and I am making good progress on it and I went to the theatre as well. Anyway, moving on. Onwards to next week…

Read:

Jingo by Terry Pratchett

Twilight Falls by Juneau Black

Fires to Come by Asha Lemmie

An Inconvenient Corpse by A G Barnett

A Bally Awkward Body by A G Barnett

In the Soup by A G Barnett

I Shop, Therefore I Am by Mary Portas*

Started:

Red Land, Black Land by Barbara Mertz

Summers End by Juneau Black

Still reading:

Abdication by Brian Inglis

You Had to Be There by Jodie Harsh*

Ritual of Fire by D V Bishop

Pet Shop Boys, Literally by Chris Heath

Three books bought – writing the offers post is always risky…

Bonus picture: People spotting outside the Noel Coward. My photos are all terrible, but that’s David Tennant, Frank Skinner and Elliot Levey

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

Book of the Week, new releases, non-fiction

Book of the Week: Entitled

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I mean, I’d be shocked if any of you are surprised by today’s pick if you saw yesterday’s reading list, because I am somewhat predictable BUT this really lived up to the hype and is worth reading.

Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York is a joint biography of Prince Andrew, Duke of York and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson. It’s written by Andrew Lownie, whose previous book was The Traitor King (which I also read on a holiday!) but has also written about The Mountbattens and Guy Burges. Lownie says in the introduction that he asked the Duke and Duchess to participate in the book – who then tried to prevent the book from happening. He says he approached more than three thousand people as part of the process of writing this book, of whom only around a tenth responded. All of which is to say that he wants you to know that he’s really tried to get the whole picture about the couple. It’s a joint biography but it’s also a look at the way that the couple remain incredibly intertwined nearly 20 years after their divorce. Andrew of course was forced to retire from public life after his disastrous Newsnight interview in 2019, where he tried (and failed) to answer questions about his relationship with the paedophile former financier Jeffry Epstein.

Now you may have seen the headlines generated first by the serialisation ahead of publication, and then the think pieces afterwards about what it means for the future of the couple. Or of course the headlines this week when Sarah Ferguson was dropped by a series of charities after an email from her to Epstein emerged from after the time when she said she had cut all contact with him. And you may think that given all that, what is the point of reading the book, surely all the best bits are already out there.

Well. Yes, the biggest revelations are already out there, but I think reading the book really brings home the scale and volume of it all. And although a lot of the focus of scandal in recent years has been on him (and indeed the serialisation headlines), her behaviour is worth reading about too – according to this she’s a charming people person and great sales person, locked in a cycle of spending, debt and then grift and deals to try and bring it round to a point where she then repeats the pattern.

In The Traitor King, Lownie made a persuasive case that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were active and willing participants in the Nazi intrigues that surrounded them as part of a concerted effort to benefit themselves and improve their positions and I think it changed significantly the way that the couple are viewed. This isn’t changing the way that the Duke of York is perceived – it’s putting all the pieces together and adding in the background information to really cement the idea that he’s up to his neck in scandals around sex and money. And between the two of them – in Lownie’s telling – they present a big challenge for the British monarchy to deal with at a time when there are less and less “working” Royals and also perhaps less public fondness for the institution as a whole.

I bought my copy of Entitled at the airport but you should be able to get this basically everywhere – as long as they haven’t run out of copies. And at Birmingham last week, they only had copies in one of the bookshops (and as I said on Saturday I didn’t manage to get it in any of my pictures!) and not many of them. But I’ve seen it in any bookshop of any size that I’ve been into since early August, and it’s obviously in Kindle and Kobo and audiobook too – although those e-versions have already had a edit, which is a good reminder to us all that ebook files are changeable, and your hard copies are not – once you’ve bought the original version I mean!

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: September 22 – September 27

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So as you saw on Saturday I’ve been on holiday, and so the list is appropriately holiday-y. My goal for the holiday was to read the same number of books from NetGalley as other books and across the week and a bit I basically did that (once you exclude the audiobooks) so I’m pretty pleased with that. Go me. For once a target I achieved!

Read:

Entitled by Andrew Lownie

Island Calling by Francesca Segal*

Mrs Pargeter’s Past by Simon Brett*

The American Duchess by Anna Pasternak

Murder on the Mountain by Ellie Alexander

Love Queenie by Mayukh Sen*

The Crichel Boys by Simon Fenwick

The Last Camel Died at Noon by Elizabeth Peters

Villains in Venice by Katherine Woodfine

Peggy by Rebecca Godfrey with Leslie Jamison*

Started:

Twilight Falls by Juneau Black

Abdication by Brian Inglis

You Had to Be There by Jodie Harsh*

Still reading:

Ritual of Fire by D V Bishop

Pet Shop Boys, Literally by Chris Heath

Three e-books bought.

Bonus picture: a delightful view across to Tenerife on Saturday afternoon.

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