Gift suggestions

Buy Me a Book for Christmas 2018

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It’s that time of year again.  Well actually it’s a bit late (again) but what’s new.  This year at least I have the cast iron excuse of the Washington trip to explain my tardiness.  Anyway, here’s my annual look at which books I’d like to find under the Christmas tree this year.

Non Fiction

I mentioned Nick Offerman and Megan Mullaly’s book in yesterday’s gift suggestion post – but another Parks and Rec alum has a book out that I want to read too.  I tried to get Retta’s So Close To Being The Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know from the library while I was in the US without any joy at all and I still *really* want to read it.  It’s her autobiography, and a lot of the reviews that I’ve seen are variations of “I chose it because I loved her in Parks and Rec but didn’t know much more about her than that, and it turns out she’s just as smart and funny as you’d hope.

Another book that I didn’t have any luck getting hold of while I was in America is Beck Dorey-Stine’s From the Corner of the Oval, which his her memoir of how she ended up as a stenographer in the Obama White House after answering an ad on Craigslist.  As you may remember, I read a lot of books on US politics before I went to DC, but my favourite ones – that left me wanting more – were the more personal memoirs rather than the more serious “proper” analysis, so this looks right up my street.

On the history front, there have been a lot of great new books out this year.  Fern Riddell’s Death in Ten Minutes, about the suffragette Kitty Marion has been sitting in my online shopping cart since it came out waiting for me to get the to-read list down a bit, as has Agnès Poirier’s Left Bank: Art, Passion and the Rebirth of Paris, 1940-1950. I also love reading about Old Hollywood, and one of my podcast discoveries of this year has been You Must Remember This (which has been going for ages, I’m just late to the party) and Karina Longworth, who writes and presents it, has a new book, Seduction: Sex Lies and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood, out this Christmas which I also really want to read.

Regular readers here know that I love a good group biography and often use them as jumping off points to find new topics and people to find out more about.  There are two that I’ve got my eye on this Christmas: firstly there’s Michelle Dean’s Sharp, which is about women writers with opinions, from Dorothy Parker through Nora Ephron.  Slightly older is Outsiders: Five Women Writers Who Changed The World by Lydall Gordon, which came out last autumn and so is now in out in paperback.

Even older still is Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, which has been on my radar for ages as a classic about the space race that I should really read but which jumped up my list earlier this year after he died and then again after I did the Air and Space Museum and the Air and Space Museum annexe while I was in Washington.  It still boggles my mind that that we explored space back when we had so much less technology than we do now and the people who were prepared to strap themselves to a giant rocket absolutely fascinate me.

Fiction

The non-fiction part of this list is always the easier one for me to write – because there are so many hardback books that I really want to read, but can’t justify buying, whereas so much of my fiction reading starts off in paperback or is available from the library.  And most of my kindle purchases tend to be fiction (they seem to get better discounts than non-fiction) as well so things just don’t hang around on my to-buy list as long. That said, there are a few novels that I’ve got my eye on.

I’ve been quite lucky with reading new romances as they came out this year, but the the lists of best of the year are out now, and Alexa Martin’s Intercepted is the one that keeps popping up on all the lists that I haven’t read.  I didn’t get a chance to buy it while I was in the US (and had no suitcase room for it anyway) so maybe if I’m really good Santa will bring it for me on the 25th.

On the crime front, I quite fancy reading A Talent For Murder, by Andrew Wilson, which is a mystery with Agatha Christie as the detective.  I have a somewhat mixed record with books like this – including a slightly love-hate relationship with the Josephine Tey series – hence why I haven’t bought it for myself yet (because it’s in hardback and expensive for something I don’t know if I’m going to like) but if someone were to buy it for me that would be different…

Curtis Sittenfeld had a collection of short stories out this year – You Think It, I’ll Say it – which I would love to read.  I’ve really enjoyed her novels (Eligible was one of my top picks of the year a couple of years ago)  I’ve also had Lucia Berlin’s short story collection A Manuel for Cleaning Women in the shopping basket for ages .  I don’t often buy short story collections for myself so either of these would be a real treat.

I’ve been hearing about Julie Murphy’s Dumplin’ for years now and haven’t got around to reading it, but the movie version is out on Netflix now so perhaps there might be a tie-in edition that someone could buy me for Christmas?  Also not new is Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan, the last of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy.  I’ve read the first two books and I still haven’t seen the film (it came out in the UK after I went to the US and had already left cinemas in the US when I arrived) and a dose of the insanity of the superrich is exactly what I’m usually in the mood for in the lull between Christmas and New Year!

Also sitting in the shopping cart, hoping that one day I’ll be able to justify buying them is Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Archivist Wasp and a selection of my favourite Terry Pratchett novels in the beautiful cloth-bound hardback editions.  I don’t currently have copies of many (any?) Pratchetts – as my dad has the family set – but I would love Going Postal, Making Money, Mort and Monstrous Regiment.  The trouble is that I know as soon as I get one, I’ll want the whole set…

Let me know which books you’re hoping to get for Christmas in the comments, and Happy Reading.

 

Gift suggestions

Christmas Book Ideas 2018

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Yes I know.  It’s only 10 days until Christmas Day and I’m late posting this again.  But to be honest, you wouldn’t expect anything less from me would you?  I’m only writing one post this year though – but there are plenty more ideas in my posts from the last couple of years if you need them.  Some of these are books that I’ve read, some are books that I want to read and have heard good things about.  Coming tomorrow: the books that I want for Christmas!

Fiction 

First of all, if you have a Peter Grant fan in your life, the new Rivers of London book, Lies Sleeping, came out in hardback midway through last month.  (If you don’t have a Peter Grant fan in your life, you could try to convert them, but do start at the beginning with Rivers of London or it’ll all make no sense to them).  I’m working my way through Carl Hiaassen’s books at the moment – and if you’ve got someone who likes darkly funny mystery-thrillers, then that would be a good place to go – I’m reading Star Island next – about a drug-addled starlet and her double – but Skin Tight is excellent, if gross.

Novels based on real people can go either way, but I think they make a solid choice for book gifts – because you sort of know what you’re letting your giftee in for.  I’ve got Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott on my to-read shelf, which looks like a promising choice as a gift.  It tells the story of the events that led up to Truman Capote’s professional and social suicide, a decade after In Cold Blood Made him a literary star.  The only reason I haven’t read it already is the fact I couldn’t take it with me to Washington!

I read Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys over the summer – and although it’s set on the French Riviera in the summer, I don’t think a spot of sunshine in the middle of winter is a bad thing.  If you’re buying for someone who likes historical fiction and mysteries, this would be a good choice.  For some reason I’m struggling to think of a really good comp for it – but it’s a bit Lauren Willig, Beatriz Williams-y, but with more tension.

And it was a Book of the Week back in the summer, but Helen Hoang’s The Kiss Quotient would make a good pick for someone looking for a romance to get lost in.  What’s not to love about a gender-flipped Pretty Woman, with a heroine with Asperger’s?

Non Fiction

I’ve heard good things about Megan Mullaly and Nick Offerman’s book, The Greatest Love Story Ever Told, which as the title suggests tells the story of their love story – and how a carpenter and an actress fell in love and made it work, despite their differences.  If you have someone to buy for who loves Parks and Rec (and especially Ron and Tammy 2) then this could be the genius Christmas book you need to buy.  Although I hear it’s even better on audiobook… In other celebrity memoirs that might make good gifts, 2018 has been very much the Year of Tiffany Haddish and her book The Last Black Unicorn would make a good Christmas gift for the film fan in your life.

I’m midway through (as you know from the Week in Books posts) Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood – which I’m really enjoying when I’m sufficiently caught up on my podcasts to have some free listening time.  It tells the story of Lockwood’s own life growing up up in the Mid-West with a Catholic priest for a father (he got the call after he was already married with kids) and what it’s like when you have to move back in with your parents when you’re married yourself and 30.

If you want to buy someone something historical, I’ve got my eye on A Lab of One’s Own, about pioneering suffragist scientists in the First World War.  I heard the author, Patricia Fara, interviewed on History Hit earlier in the year and it sounds like a good choice for the end of this cententary year of the end of the Great War.

For Kids

I’ve had a bit of a struggle coming up with fresh children’s ideas this year – because most of my non-adult reading has been series that I’ve already talked about (at length) like the Wells and Wong books or old Girl’s Own stories that you really can’t give to children today.  The good news is that Katherine Woodfine has started a new series – following Sophie and Lillian from the Sinclair Mysteries as they turn their hand to spying.  The first book, Peril in Paris, sees them heading across the channel.

I’ve also bought the first in the Rosewood Chronicles series, Undercover Princess,  and The Secret Key, the first in the Agatha Oddly series, for some of the younger readers in my life, and am busy resisting the temptation to keep them both for me.  I would also suggest Howl’s Moving Castle if they haven’t already read it, because I loved it when I finally got around to reading it this year – more than a decade after I first saw the film version (which is also good, but different).

So there you go.  Coming up tomorrow – the books that I’m hoping might appear under the Christmas tree this year.  I hope Santa is reading.

Happy Shopping!

American imports, non-fiction

Book of the Week: Bad Feminist

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Another week gone and we’re nearly at Christmas and the end of the year. I’m way behind on Christmas this year: on present shopping, on decorating, on festive reading. I feel like I’ve dropped a few baubles this year. Hey ho. One thing I can do is a pick my favourite book of last week – Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist – although I can’t promise that this will be the longest post ever!

Cover of Bad Feminist

Bad Feminist is a series of essays that sets out Ms Gay’s views on gender and race and why it’s ok to have messy, complicated views on issues. It is broad ranging in topics – which include the way that women’s bodies are viewed through to 50 Shades of Grey via competitive Scrabble tournaments. First published in 2014, a few things have changed since Bad Feminist came out – it is pre #MeTop, from before Donald Trump was elected president and before Bill Cosby was jailed. But that’s ok because there’s a lot here for you to think about and even the bits that feel a bit dated* give you pause for thought. It can make you hoot with laughter and it will make you cry.

I had heard a lot about this book, and indeed it’s been on my list of books to read for a long time, but due to the size of the pile and my attempts not to spend too much money on books, it’s taken a while to get to this. I read Ms Gay’s short story collection first in fact, because a review copy came my way. I follow her on twitter and I knew going in that I don’t always agree with her, but that she always has something worth listening to and considering whether you need to adjust your opinions. And as expected, I didn’t agree with everything, but it gave me a lot of things to consider and insight on life experiences that are different from my own and that is always worth having.

My copy of Bad Feminist came from the library but it’s also available fairly easily from the shops and as an ebook in Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!

* I know, how can something only four years old feel out of date? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the American political news cycle. I have recently had first hand experience of it and can testify that it’s really something and can chew a story up and spit it out in a remarkably rapid period.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: December 3 – December 9

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So jet lag was really kicking me around a bit this week, and on top of that I was trying to get my head around my “normal” job after nearly three months away.  So I’m quite pleased that the list looks as good as it does!

Read:

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

The Proposal by Jasime Guillory

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear

The Essence of Malice by Ashley Weaver

Rivers of London: Action at a Distance 2 by Ben Aaronovitch et al

Simple Irresistible by Rachel Gibson

Started:

The Cinderella Deal by Jennifer Crusie

Still reading:

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Fear by Bob Woodward

No books bought.  Not restraint, just lack of opportunity!

 

 

American imports, Book of the Week, mystery, Young Adult

Book of the Week: A Study in Charlotte

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And I just can’t help myself.  For the second time in three weeks, my BotW is a Sherlock Holmes-related novel: Brittany Cavalaro’s A Study in Charlotte.  But this time it’s Modern Sherlock descendants at a New England Boarding School so it is Completely Different from Sherry Thomas’s A Study in Scarlet Women. Even if the titles would lead you to think otherwise.  Honestly.  It really is.  Let me prove it to you…

Jamie Watson has won a rugby scholarship to a prep school in Connecticut.  He isn’t happy about it – not only doesn’t he want to leave London, he doesn’t really like rugby and the last thing he wants is to be closer to his dad and his step-family.  The only bright spot in this whole situation is that Charlotte Holmes also attends the school.  The Holmeses and the Watsons have been intertwined for generations – every since Sherlock solved mysteries and Watson wrote them down.  But Charlotte seems like more trouble than Jamie can (or should) handle:  she arrived at the school in mysterious circumstances, she runs a poker game at weekends and is rumoured to have a drug problem.  But the thing is, the two of them seem drawn to each other nonetheless.  Then a student is killed.  And not just any student – one who Watson had a very public fight with after he hassled Charlotte. And Holmes and Watson are being framed for the crime.  Charlotte may be the only person who can solve the case – but by investigating it may put them in the wrong place at the wrong time and make things even worse for them.

This is exactly my sort of YA.  There’s drama and peril and some angst here, but it’s not end-of-the-world or dystopian or bleak.  There’s school stuff and a mystery, but the issues are slightly more adult (drug addiction, sexual assault, stalkers) than you get in middle grade school stories and mysteries.  Jamie and Charlotte are incredibly engaging characters – and once again I had fun watching and seeing how Cavallaro had woven in the Sherlock-lore into her modern day characters.

I’ve actually had this on my reading wishlist for a while – Goodreads tells me I shelved this in November 2016 – but it’s not available in Kindle in the UK and it hadn’t come my way at the library or in the bookshops.  Or at least not at a point when I remembered to look for it anyway.  Luckily I found it in the library near my flat in the US and it was part of my marathon library book binge last week.  There are two more books in the series that have already come out and a fourth installment due in 2019.  I’m going to be be making proper efforts to get hold of them.  I might add the next one to my Christmas list…

You can get a copy of A Study in Charlotte in hardback or paperback from Amazon, but I’ve had trouble finding it for sale on any other UK-based vendors.  Which is a real shame because it is really very good.  But if you’re heading to the US anytime soon, put it on your to-buy list!

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: November 26 – December 2

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Well, the reading was going ok until the jetlag got me and my brain stopped being able to concentrate on words on a page and although I started a few things over the weekend, all I actually finished was comics.  Hey ho, fingers crossed it doesn’t last for too long.  As you may have seen in yesterday’s Stats post, I did a good job of clearing the library book pile before I left the US, so at least I have that to be happy about.

Read:

Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear

A Conspiracy in Belgravia by Sherry Thomas

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallero

Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

Star Trap by Simon Brett

An Amateur Corpse by Simon Brett

Rivers of London: Water Weed 4 by Ben Aaronovitch et al

Rivers of Londong: Action at a Distance by Ben Aaronovitch et al

Started:

The Essence of Malice by Ashley Weaver

Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear

Still reading:

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Fear by Bob Woodward

Simple Irresistible by Rachel Gibson

No books bought.  A miracle, achieved only because of lack of suitcase space and willpower not to visit a bookshop at the airport!

Bonus picture: part of Thomas Jefferson’s book collection at the Library of Congress

Some of Thomas Jefferson's books

books, stats

November Stats

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New books read this month: 36*

Books from the to-read pile: 0 – too busy reading library books

Ebooks read: 20

Books from the Library book pile: 27 (including nine ebooks)

Non-fiction books: 0

#ReadHarder categories completed: 9

Pop Sugar categories completed: 13

Most read author: Cat Sebastian (four books)

Books read this year:  346

Books bought: 3 ebooks, 3 ebooks

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf: 566 (I don’t have copies of all of these!)

Three books bought, two ebooks pre-ordered as I burned a streak through the library book pile and panicked about whether I would have space in my suitcase for all the books I had bought (Hint: I didn’t, and nearly had to jettison a couple of unread ones at the airport)

This is a day late because I only landed back in the UK on the morning of the 1st and my brain couldn’t cope with counting.  Sorry.

Bonus picture: the Reading Room at the Library of Congress on Thursday.

The reading room at the Library of Congress

*Includes some short stories/novellas/comics (4 this month)

American imports, romance

Book of the Week: Anyone But You

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In case you didn’t notice, I read a lot last week.  I’m quite pleased with me.  Whether I remain pleased with me entirely depends on how far down the library book pile I get before I leave for the UK on Friday.  But despite the multitude of choices,  it was still hard to pick a BotW – not because there wasn’t anything good in the pile, but because there’s a few things on there that I want to write about elsewhere.  Luckily Jennifer Crusie’s Anyone But You was there to help me out – a standalone romance, with no series implications.  But hopefully you’ll be seeing a couple of other posts from the fruits of last week’s reading too.  Anyway, to the review.

Cover of Anyone But You

Nina Askew has just escaped her marriage.  She’s celebrating having freedom to do what she wants and not to try and be the perfect wife supporting her husband’s career any more by getting a rescue dog from the pound.  So what if she’s 40 and her family (and her ex) keep telling her that the divorce is a mistake.  She knows it’s the right thing to do, so she settles down in her new flat with her new dog.  Fred’s not exactly the dog she was expecting to get – he’s old, smelly and looks depressed – but he’s also the reason she meets her downstairs neighbour, Alex.  He’s a hotshot ER doctor, from a family of doctors who think he’s wasting his skills in the Emergency Room.  He’s also funny, smart and sexy and soon the sparks are flying between then.  But Nina can’t get past the fact that he’s ten years younger than she is – and he can’t get past the fact that he can’t give her the life he thinks she’s used to.  Can they sort out their differences for a happily ever after?

You know where this is going, it’s a romance, so obviously they can sort things out.  But this is funny, and sexy and has a great cast of supporting characters – from Nina’s unlucky in love best friend who’s writing a book about her failed relationships, to the septagenarian fitness lover on the top floor and her boyfriend.  Older woman/younger man is not usually a trope that I read, but somehow Jennifer Crusie made this one of my favourite romances that I’ve read recently.  The will-they-won’t-they in this is just so perfectly done – it never feels overplayed or dragged out, so you end up rooting for them all the more.  Some of their misunderstanding could be sorted out by serious discussion – but Crusie keeps it so that they’re not at a point where they can have that discussion – they’re just friends who watch movies together who don’t realise that they’re both feeling the same way.  And although it’s not specifically an autumn or winter-set book, some how with all the movie watching and the dog, it just felt like the perfect book to curl up on the sofa with at this time of year.

I got my copy from the library – it’s quite an old book so it looks like second hand is the way forward if you want a physical copy, but the ebook is quite reasonably priced on Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: November 19 – November 25

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I’m still blazing a trail through the library book pile.  I’m off back to the UK at the end of this week and I’m determined to read as many as I can.  But equally, there are still a few bits of sightseeing I haven’t done yet, so we’ll see how far I actually get!

Read:

Unmasked by the Marquess by Cat Sebastian

Come Hell or Highball by Maia Chance

What Angels Fear by CS Harris

Charlotte Holmes and the Locked Box by Sherry Thomas

Too Wilde to Wed by Eloisa James

Year of the Crocodile by Courtney Milan

Anyone but You by Jennifer Crusie

How to Party with an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings

Death in St Petersburg by Tasha Alexa

The Painted Queen by Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess

Wilde in Love by Eloisa James

Started:

Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear

Simple Irresistable by Rachel Gibson

Still reading:

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Fear by Bob Woodward

One book bought – the third Charlotte Holmes book to take home with me!

Bonus Photo: a panda at the National Zoo yesterday.

A annoyed looking giant panda

American imports, Book of the Week, mystery

Book of the Week: A Study in Scarlet Women

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It’s nearly the end of my American Adventure, so my reading at the moment, as I mentioned yesterday, is mostly books I’ve borrowed from the library here.  I’m prioritising the pile too – because when I was borrowing books I was targetting books that I find it harder/more expensive to get hold of in the UK, so I’ll be gutted if I have to take some of them back unread.  And it also means that for the first time in a few weeks, I had lots of books to choose from for BotW this week, but it was a fairly easy choice – I raced through Sherry Thomas’s A Study in Scarlet Women on Saturday night – and it’s the first in a series.  Ideal.

Cover of A Study in Scarlet Women

So, A Study in Scarlet Women kicks off the Lady Sherlock series – which as you might guess is a gender-flipped Sherlock Holmes retelling.  Charlotte Holmes has never really felt happy with the life expected of a woman in upper class London in the late Victorian era.  And when her father reneges on a deal he made with her about her future, she takes matters into her own hands.  Unfortunately, that means making herself an outcast – and life as an outcast is harder than she thought.  And then there’s a series of deaths that are casting suspicion over the family she has left behind.  Soon Charlotte is investigating – under the assumed name of Sherlock Holmes – with the help of a few new friends, and one very old friend who has loved her forever.

I read this in almost one sitting** and it is so good.  Charlotte is a brilliant heroine.  The analytical mind that serves Sherlock so well creates as whole load of problems for a woman – who isn’t expected to speak up, or demand a life that doesn’t revolve around marriage.  Her deductions are clever, the mystery is great – and she’s much more sympathetic than Proper Sherlock is – she’s motivated by helping her family and her friends in a lot of what she does, not just the mystery solving.  Just a note though I’ve seen this categorized as a romance – which I think isn’t quite right.  I first head about it on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books podcast and Sherry Thomas does also write romances, but for me this is definitely Historical Mystery with a side order of unresolved romance and sexual tension.  Don’t go expecting a resolution/Happy Ever After here.

Side note, I was listening to that edition of Smart Bitches after a night shift on the way back to where I was staying, and the combination of lack of sleep, going to a different station to where I was used to heading to from Waterloo station and being engrossed in this saw me in autopilot mode and getting on the wrong train and ending up in Richmond and not in Barnes.  I have a vivid memory of sitting on the platform at Richmond, freezing cold, watching it get light, waiting for a train back the other way and listening to Sherry Thomas talking about learning English as a second language through the medium of 70s and 80s historical romance novels!

Anyway, back to the book, if you like series like Deanna Raybourn’s Veronica Speedwell or Lady Julia Grey, Tasha Alexander’s Lady Emily – or even some of the interwar-set detective series like Daisy Dalrymple, Phryne Fisher, Dandy Gilver or Rhys Bowen’s Her Royal Spyness – then definitely give this a try, even if you’re not usually into Sherlock retellings.  And if you are a Sherlock fan, then definitely take a look at this.

My copy came from the library*, but you should be able to get your hands on this fairly easy.  It’s available in Kindle and Kobo as well as in paperback from all the usual suspects.  You might need to order it in though.  I already have the second book on loan from the library, and I’ve ordered the third to take home with me even though I have limited space in my luggage home.

Happy Reading

*Although I’ve since found it on my Kindle where I picked it up on offer for £1.49 last summer and then it got lost in the shuffle of books.  Insert comment about the state of my tbr pile here.

**I moved from the sofa to bed about halfway through, but ended up staying up late to finish it.