Verity Reads Books (lots of them)

We’ve made it to the middle of the week, and today I’ve got a follow up to my post from 2021 about novelised versions of real people’s lives (not to be confused with the one about real people solving crimes from a couple of months back. This has taken quite a while to pull together because I’ve read a few that I really didn’t like and didn’t want to write about to get to this point, but this is still a two I liked and one I didn’t situation, but the one I’ve written is a not for me situation as opposed to being a terrible book!

Jackie by Dawn Tripp*

I’ve read a fair few books, fiction and non-fiction, about Jackie Kennedy, so I was interested to read Dawn Tripp’s novel. Unsurprisingly most of this deals with Jackie’s life with Jack and immediately after, but it does a pretty good job of creating a real woman behind the myth and capturing the different aspects of her personality to make you understand why she made the decisions that she did and how she dealt with being at the centre of one of the most notorious moments in American twentieth century history. I have definitely read a lot worse versions of this story. I’m looking at you Jackie and Maria Callas novel.

Peggy by Rebecca Godfrey with Leslie Jamison*

This is a novel about Peggy Guggenheim, covering moments of her life almost in snapshots in a first person stream of consciousness style that feels like it’s trying to be as avant-garde as the art that she is famous for collecting. Now I really struggled with this – despite having read Judith Mackerell’s The Unfinished Palazzo (about her and some other owners of the building that became the home of her art collection) and so having some knowledge of her life I found it hard to follow not just because of the stream of conscious writing style but because of the way it handles dialogue as well as the jumps through time. I know Peggy to have had an interesting life, but being inside her head the whole time with her thoughts makes it hard to see her actions in any context and is exhausting. This was clearly a mammoth labour of love and writing for Rebecca Godfrey who died before it was completed, and an epic task for Leslie Jamison to take over and finish it, but it’s clearly not one for me.

The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin

This is the story of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the shy daughter of an ambassador who married the world’s most famous man of his day – Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly across the Atlantic. Anne also becomes a pilot and flies alongside her husband as his navigator as they explore the world. But the pressure of being the world’s most famous couple is hard to withstand – and tragedy hits their family as well (for those of you who have read Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie took elements of what happened to the Lindberghs when creating the Armstrongs) and Anne will have to figure out who she is in her own right. I found Anne a bit of a challenge at times in the early part of the story, but it’s fascinating to watch her grow into herself and obviously she had an incredibly eventful life that put her at the heart of some really key moments in history.

Happy Humpday!

Book of the Week: Red Land, Black Land

October 14, 2025October 14, 2025 veritywilde

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

October 13, 2025October 13, 2025 veritywilde

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.

not a book, streaming

Not a Book: Matchroom

October 12, 2025October 12, 2025 veritywilde

Happy Sunday everyone, I’m back with a streaming recommendation this week for something that may have gone under your radar, especially if you’re not in the UK.

Matchroom are a sporting event and sports promotion company that was founded by Barry Hearn in the early 1980s. Barry started out in snooker, managing Steve Davis and then moved into snooker promotion founding Matchroom and then taking the company into boxing and darts. Barry’s son Eddie is now in the business with him, and the premise of the series is that you’re getting a look behind the scenes at the company.

Of course it’s not that simple. The subtitle of the show is The Greatest Showmen and Barry and Eddie are very, very aware of the cameras and the storylines, as you might expect for men who work in the world of boxing and also who live in Brentwood, the home of that original British manufactured reality series The Only Way is Essex – and yes, we do get some cutaway shots of the exterior of Sugar Hut just to remind you of that. And don’t forget the Only Fools and Horses call backs just to remind you that they (well Barry) have come from nothing and made it big. Barry is talking about retirement, Eddie is desperate to take over, but there are other options inside the company for Barry than his son, who may be hungrier and scrappier than Eddie.

And it’s full of egos, rivalries and shouting matches. Get Eddie in front of a microphone – at a press conference or in a radio studio and he’ll start an argument with someone. At times he seems like a man who could argue with his own shadow without realising that he is doing it. People say that women are bitchy, but the levels of petty and grudge holding in this are off the scale. I like snooker, I can take or leave darts but boxing is one of the few sports that I don’t watch, so I watched the actual fighting sections through my fingers (or even looking away at some points). But even if you don’t like any of the sports involved, I think it’s pretty worth watching – for the pettiness, but also to spot the bits where something real pokes out from under the puff piece, and to watch Eddie and Barry trying to control their edits – and whether it works!

We watched all six episodes across two and a bit nights – and I would happily watch another series, although given how the fights featured in the series went for the Matchroom stable, Eddie may not be up for series two!

Have a great Sunday.

The pile

Books Incoming: Mid October edition

October 11, 2025October 10, 2025 veritywilde

Genuinely I’m quite pleased with me this month. Honestly, I am. So all we have on the pile this month are my airport purchases – Entitled I’ve already read and is off the pile and Him Indoors is still reading Fast Money, so I haven’t got to that yet. I’m hoping it will be as interesting as The Formula was last year. Baking Spirits Bright is the sequel to Six Sweets Under which inexplicably dropped in price the other week and which I picked up to tick off Vermont in *next* year’s 50 States challenge. And then finally there is one missing from the photo which was an impulse purchase in Market Harborough this week but I managed to leave it in a bag in my parents car and haven’t got it back yet. It’s a new-to-English book by the author of Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, called Days at the Torunka Café, and they had a signed edition, so how could I possibly resist. I’m mentioning it now because it would be cheating not to, and there’s no guarantee I won’t forget it next month. I also bought a Spot book, but that wasn’t for me so it doesn’t count!

series

Mystery Series: Shady Hollow

October 10, 2025October 10, 2025 veritywilde

Happy Friday everyone, and today I’m back with a post about a slightly unconventional mystery series – the Shady Hollow books by Juneau Black because book six, Mockingbird Court, came out on Tuesday.

This is a cozy crime series with a difference – it’s set in a small town with all the usual small businesses and our detective is a newcomer to the town who has just started a job as a reporter at the local paper. But the difference is that everyone in the town is a woodland creature – Vera Vixen the reporter is a fox, police deputy Orville Braun is a bear, there’s a Owl who runs the bookshop, a panda who runs a restaurant. You get the idea and if you think about it too much, none of it makes sense. But as someone who grew up playing with Sylvanian Families toys, I can totally get on board with it.

Apart from the whole talking animals thing, they follow the cozy crime series pattern in a fairly standard way – each book has a different murder, there’s a running story line with a romance for Vera and there are friendships and tensions in the community that develop as the series goes on. Juneau Black (who is a pen name for a duo of authors) have created a of belief system for the animals that plays a role in their lives and creates events for the animals to focus on – and for murders to occur at. And like so many non animal cozy crimes, being a reporter gives Vera a reason to be digging into crimes and – spoiler alert – dating a police officer provides her with more details than she could get alone creates tension when it needs to when she’s butting up against the officials.

The new book is Mockingbird Court and is set in the run up to the town’s Harvest Festival. According to the blurb, a famous author who is suspected of murder back in the big city sneaks into town, claiming to be innocent. Vera starts investigating, but finds that she may even be implicated herself. I’ve enjoyed reading the five previous books in the series and I’m looking forward to reading this one when the Kindle price drops to something sensible!

These are available on Kindle and Kobo as well as in paperback, although I’ve never seen the paperbacks in the shops in the UK but that might be different in the US

Have a great weekend everyone.

Book previews, new releases

Out Today: Mrs Pargeter’s Past

October 9, 2025October 10, 2025 veritywilde

The latest book in Simon Brett’s Mrs Pargeter series is out today, and as I read it when I was on holiday the other week, I have a bonus review for you today!

Mrs Pargeter’s Past is the tenth book featuring the widow of Mr Pargeter, who definitely wasn’t one of the biggest crooks in Essex. This time out Mrs P is coming to the assistance of one of her husband’s former associates who has got himself into a touch of trouble because of his gambling problem. This leads us to some more of Mrs Pargeter’s backstory because the nasty characters who Short Head is entangled with are some of the same nasty customers that Mr P had some run ins with. Not that Mrs P knows about that.

I really enjoyed this – Mrs P and her deliberate refusal to acknowledge her husband’s past while making extensive use of his little black book of contacts will never not be funny to me, and in this one Simon Brett has found a way to bring in lots of the regular assistants in their various guises to help out with the mystery. I said when I wrote Major Bricket and the Circus Corpse that Mrs P is at the least realistic end of the contemporary-set Brett oeuvre and it does push on that, but it’s so funny and wry and I have a history with the characters that means that I don’t mind it really at all. Possibly not the place to start your adventures with Mrs P, but if you’ve already enjoy any of the books in the series I think it’ll work for you. I’m still hoping for another Charles Paris though.

books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: October Kindle Offers

October 8, 2025October 8, 2025 veritywilde

It’s the second Wednesday of the month, so as always I am back with the Kindle deals for the month. And it’s a really good month, with quite a lot of new releases among the cheap deals – including several that I have been waiting to drop in price.

I’m going to start with Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy because it is 99p. I really, really loved this when I read it as it came out, and it was both the first book I read that had the pandemic in it but also the first in what is now a lot of books in the current trend of famous people-normal people romances in fiction (especially in romance). Just writing about it again has made me want to go back and re-read it.

Elly Griffiths‘ latest The Frozen People is on offer again – I bought it back when it was on a deal in April and really need to get around to reading it because there is a sequel coming early next year. Talking of sequels, Murder on the Marlow Belle is on offer, book five in the Marlow Murder Club is coming in January and there’s a third series of the TV series coming in 2026 too. The third Molly the Maid, The Maid’s Secret, is 99p as is

Just warning you, this next paragraph contains multiple books that I bought while writing this post. If you’re after some Halloween-themed reading, I have exciting news: Jen DeLuca’s new book Ghost Business is 99p – as are Rosie Danan‘s Fan Service and Do Your Worst, Josie Silver’s Crazy Spooky Love, Jenna Levine’s Road Trip with a Vampire and Lauren Evans’s Casket Case. If you just want autumnal, I think You, Again has the most autumnal cover of anything I’ve recently seen.

T J Klune‘s The House in the Cerulean Sea is 99p, I think because the sequel Somewhere Beyond the Sea came out in paperback at the end of September. The fifth in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, Before We Forget Kindness, is on offer as is Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet which is the first in her Wayfarers series. This summer’s Trisha Ashley is 99p too – A Recipe for Romance was originally published as Chocolate Wishes and is one of her Lancashire books.

This month’s Terry Pratchett is Soul Music – if you haven’t read the story of that time when Music With Rocks In It came to the Disc, then you’re really missing out. If you like your P G Wodehouse, the fourth volume (of five) of Jeeves omnibuses is 99p. The Autumn Chills Agatha Christie collection is 99p (as well as being in Kindle Unlimited)

On the non-fiction front, Otto English’s Notorious (which is waiting on my shelf after buying it on the way to Ghana) is 99p, as is Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik and Kim Gordon (of Sonic Youth)’s Girl in a Band. There are also two of Tim Marshall’s books at 99p – Worth Dying For about the power of flags and Shadowplay about his time reporting on the Yugoslav conflict. And David Hepworth’s Overpaid, Oversexed and Over There about the British invasion of the US music charts in the 1960s is on offer too.

And that’s your lot. I’m not telling you how many books I bought while writing this because I’m trying not to think about it!

Happy Humpday!

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

Book of the Week: I Shop, Therefore I Am

October 7, 2025October 7, 2025 veritywilde

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!

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

October 6, 2025October 6, 2025 veritywilde

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*