Category: week in books

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 27 – September 2

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Finally finished The Templars this week – it was interesting, but really not my favourite period of history, so it felt like a bit of a slog.  You live and learn!

Read:

Maybe For You by Nicole McLaughlin

Video Killed the Radio Star by Duncan MacMaster

Yes We (Still) Can by Dan Pfeiffer

After You With the Pistol by Kyril Bonfiglioli

Rivers of London: Water Weed 3 by Ben Aaronovitch et al

Anyone for Seconds? by Laurie Graham

The Templars by Dan Jones

Started:

n/a

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance

Two ebooks bought.

Book of the Week, detective, mystery, Series I love

Book of the Week: The Mystery of Three Quarters

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This week’s BotW is the new Poirot continuation by Sophie Hannah – which happened to come out last week too so for once my review is actually timely!  Regular readers will know that I love Golden Age mystery novels (witness last week’s reading list which included the complete short stories of my beloved Peter Wimsey and a Patricia Wentworth novel) and also that I have a mixed record with continuations of beloved series, so the fact that this is popping up here today is Good News.

Cover of The Mystery of Three Quarters

As he returns home from lunch one day Hercule Poirot is accosted by an irate woman who threatens him with a lawsuit because she has received a letter from him accusing her of murder.  Poirot has written no such letter but is unable to convince her.  Soon after a young man appears who has received a similar letter.  The next day two more strangers proclaim their innocence to him after receiving letters.  So who is writing the letters in Poirot’s name – and why are they so determined to accuse people of the murder of Barnabas Pandy?This has got an intriguing premise and a solution that I didn’t see coming. I read this across the course of 24 hours and was annoyed that it was over so fast. This is the third Poirot novel from Hannah and I have read the first (The Monogram Murders) but not the second (The Closed Casket) and reading my review of the first one back, I had some concerns about whether it felt enough like a Poirot story – and this one pretty much did to me. I think making the narrator not Poirot is a very good decision – as is not falling back on Poirot clichés like “leetle grey cells”. And as the narrator is a Hannah invention rather than Captain Hastings that also means that there’s freedom to analyse Poirot’s quirks and processes in a different way rather than trying to continue in someone else’s voice.

And maybe that’s why this works for me more than most of the Wimsey continuations do. I’m yet to read an Albert Campion continuation so I’ll see how one of those falls between these two continuations to work out whether that is what makes continuations work better for me. And after this I’ll definitely be looking out for The Closed Casket to read when I get a chance.

My copy of The Mystery of Three Quarters came via NetGalley, but you should be able to find it in hardback in all good bookshops and on Amazon as well as in Kindle and on Kobo. The paperback isn’t out until next year – although I suspect this will have an airport paperback edition if you’re yet to go on your holidays.

Happy reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 20 – August 26

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Another busy week…

Read:

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1: Cosmic Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis

The Mystery of Three Quarters by Sophie Hannah

Lord Peter Wimsey: Complete Short Stories by Dorothy L Sayers

The Case of William Smith by Patricia Wentworth

Toucan Keep a Secret by Donna Andrew

Staged to Death by Karen Rose Smith

Started:

Yes We (Still) Can by Dan Pfeiffer

Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance

Maybe For You by Nicole McLaughlin

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Two ebooks and two book-books bought.

Book of the Week, non-fiction

Book of the Week: The Birth of South Korean Cool

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It was very easy to pick this week’s BotW – I raced through Euny Hong’s the Birth of South Korean Cool and found it absolutely fascinating.  It had been on my to-read list for a while after I heard it recommended on one of the podcasts that I listen to – so long in fact that I can’t remember which podcast.  But where ever the recommendation came from – it was a really good one.

Paperback copy of the Birth of Korean Cool

The book’s subtitle is “How one nation is conquering the world through pop culture” and that is exactly what the book sets out to prove – and it makes a compelling arguement.  Euny Hong moved to South Korea in 1985 when her father got a job at a South Korean university.  He and her mother had left 20 years previously to go to graduate school and, like many of their contemporaries had never gone back.  The South Korean government was trying to get them back as they worked on their plan to transform the country from a third world military dictatorship into a first world democracy.  Euny grew up as South Korea remade itself – on a scale that I really hadn’t quite comprehended.

Across chapters on schooling, han, kimchi, K-Pop, K-Drama and more, Hong looks at all the work and planning that went in behind the scenes and the (relatively) long game masterplan from the South Korean government to transform itself from the inside out.  First published in 2014, some of the details in this about the relationship with North Korea have obviously dated a little, but that is not the main focus of the book and doesn’t affect the central thesis so it didn’t cause me any problems.  I was staggered at the lengths and the risks and the investment that the government went to – I can’t imagine the British government doing anything similar – let alone the American one.  But it paid off – it is paying off – and now armed with all the information and background from this book I’ll be watching more closely to see how the Korean revolution continues to unfold.  I’m not a big pop music listener, but the Korean revolution has even got to me – I’ve been buying some Korean beauty products for a couple of years!

I got my copy secondhand because it seems to be out of print in the UK, so if you want a physical copy that may be your only option – unless you have an amazon.com account where they still seem to have stock.  It is available on Kindle and Kobo though – but it’s £9.99 at time of writing, so you might want to add it to your watch list and see if there’s any variation going on.  I’m off to try and find some K-pop playlists so I can match up the names in the book with some songs.

Happy reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 13 – August 19

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A working weekend and a trip to see The King and I (it was brilliant – Kelli O’Hara is amazing) affected the reading list this week.  But still not bad really.  I’m mostly working on finishing stuff that I’ve started at the moment as well.

Read:

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

Jewish History: A very short introduction by David N Myers

The Birth of Korean Cool bu Euny Hong

Star Dust by Emma Barry

The Lawrence Browne Affair by Cat Sebastian

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea by Alyssa Mastromonaco

Started:

n/a

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Two ebooks and a book-book bought.

Book of the Week, Children's books, Classics, Fantasy, Young Adult

Book of the Week: Howl’s Moving Castle

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Two children’s books in a row as BotW? This is totally within the normal range of what I do and what you expect from me. And this is another book that I started during my weekend at boo conference and then got distracted away from by the purchase of more books at said book conference and then by other books on the kindle. So sue me!

cover of Howls Moving Castle

Howl’s Moving Castle tells the story of Sophie, a teenage girl who is turned into an old lady by a witch while she is working in her family’s hat shop. One of the conditions of the curse is that she can’t tell people that she’s been cursed and Sophie doesn’t want her mother or sisters to see what’s happened to her, so she runs away to the hills, where she runs into the moving castle belonging to the Wizard Howl and makes it her new home in the hope that the curse can be lifted. Howl is a temperamental, vacillating young man who is on the run from something and only seems to do things that help himself but Calcifer, his fire demon promises to help her if she can help him with the curse that ties him to Howl. Also living in the castle is Michael, Howl’s apprentice, who, it turns out is in love with one of Sophie’s sisters. And so they move around the countryside, and Sophie tries to figure out how to get her old (young) body back.

That’s the short version of part of the story and doesn’t really do it justice. Before I read the story, I was actually worried that I wouldn’t like it as much as I liked the film of the book which I saw in the cinema back in my high-cinema visiting university days. Now the two are the same basic story: about a teenager who is cursed to look like an old lady and who seeks help from the wizard with the moving castle, but beyond that there are a fair few differences. The movie has a design aesthetic that leads to some differences from the book and it is missing some of the subplots from the book, but it turns out I really liked them both.

I don’t often read the book after I’ve seen the movie, but this time it worked out really well. In fact, this is the opposite experience to what usually happens with me, books and movie adaptations – because quite often I really hate the movie versions of books I’ve loved, so maybe I need to do this more often?! There are a couple more books featuring Howl, which are now on my reading list – and I’m trying hard to work out if I read any Diana Wynne Jones books back when I was the right age for them because I really liked her writing and the style felt somewhat familiar to me.

I bought my copy of Howl’s Moving Castle on Kindle, but it’s also available on Kobo (and it’s 99p on both platforms at time of writing) and in paperback (from Amazon, Book Depository or places like Big Green Books) and audiobook. I think it should be easy enough to buy from a bookshop with a good sized children’s section (not a supermarket because it is no where near new) I suspect it will also be available at some libraries too. And if you haven’t seen the film, you really should watch it too.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 6 – August 12

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Actually did quite well this week.  Finished one from the long runners and a couple of others that had been going for more than a week, so I’m getting there.  What I need to do now is have a proper sit down with the Templars and get that finished…

Read:

Together We Rise by the Women’s March Organisers

If Only They Didn’t Speak English by Jon Sopel

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Whatever’s Been Going on at Mumblesby by Colin Watson

Vinyl Detective: Victory Disc by Andrew Cartmel

Miss Bunting by Angela Thirkell

Lumberjanes Vol 8 by Shannon Watters et al

Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

Started:

The Birth of Korean Cool bu Euny Hong

Jewish History: A very short introduction by David N Myers

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea by Alyssa Mastromonaco

One book bought, and one pre-order arrived.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: July 30 – August 5

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A steady week’s reading – but not as much progress on the long-runners as I would have liked – probably because I spent 2 nights away from home and away from the physical book pile which most of them are on.

Read:

Bingo Love by Tee Franklin

Autumn Term by Antonia Forest

The Governess Game by Tessa Dare

Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole

Cloche and Dagger by Jenn McKinlay

Cat Among The Herrings by LC Tyler

The Victorian Guide to Sex by Dr Fern Riddell

A Lady’s Code of Misconduct by Meredith Duran

Started:

Vinyl Detective: Victory Disc by Andrew Cartmel

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea by Alyssa Mastromonaco

Miss Bunting by Angela Thirkell

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

If Only They Didn’t Speak English by Jon Sopel

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

After the excesses of the book fair, this week I was very restrained and didn’t buy anything!

Book of the Week, Fantasy, reviews, romance

Book of the Week: Thornyhold

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A short but sweet post today for BotW because it’s super busy here.  I also didn’t read as much as usual during the week, so I had trouble picking a book to write about before I headed off for my weekend of bookwormery at the book conference.  Anyway, the best of what I read before the weekend was Mary Stewart’s Thornyhold.

Cover of Thornyhold

Thornyhold tells the story of Gilly, who has a mysterious godmother figure who shows up at intervals throughout her childhood and who then leaves her a house, just as Gilly is most at need of it.  Thornyhold is deep in the woods, isolated and has the potential to be really creepy.  But Gilly never really feels scared by the house – although she’s not really sure about some of the people associated with the house.  But there’s something magical about Thornyhold – possibly literally – and soon she’s caught up in trying to figure out exactly what her aunt wanted her to do with her legacy.

This was my first Mary Stewart book and i understand that it’s not 100 percent typical of what she does.  I spent a lot of the book waiting for some big gothic tragedy to happen – because that’s what it felt like was bound to happen.  But actually it’s much more straightforward than I was expecting.  It is quite gothic – but ultimately it’s more of a romantic story and after the initial tragedies in Gilly’s stories, it’s working it’s way towards a happier resolution for her than I was expecting.  I don’t know why I was expecting disaster and it all to end badly, except that there’s a lot of tension in the writing and I’ve read so many books where things like this end badly, I couldn’t quite let myself hope that it was all going to be ok!  There is actual romance in this, and it comes in quite late on and doesn’t get quite as much time spent on it as I would have liked, but it was still fairly satisfyinging in the end.  As always with this sort of book I wanted a bit more of the “after” of all the resolutions – even another couple of pages would have helped, but I can’t complain too much.

I’m fairly sure I’ll be reading some more Mary Stewart – but given the state of the to-read bookshelf at the moment, it may be some time.  This one had been sitting waiting for me for a while and the pile has only grown since I bought it! My copy of Thornyhold was a secondhand paperback, but there’s a shiny new paperback edition should you feel so inclined and it’s also available in Kindle and Kobo for £1.99 at time of writing.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: July 23 – July 29

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Not as much read as usual this week- because I spent a long weekend at a book conference and it was lovely.

Read:

We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehesi Coates

Dark Days by James Baldwin

Dirty Like Me by Jaine Diamond

Thornyhold by Mary Stewart

Catherine Goes to School by Joanna Lloyd

Lucille: House Captain by Janet Grey

Started:

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Autumn Term by Antonia Forest

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

A Lady’s Code of Misconduct by Meredith Duran

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

If Only They Didn’t Speak English by Jon Sopel

I don’t want to talk about how many books I bought this week. I went to a book conference. I bought exactly as many as you would expect me to buy!