books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: September 5 – September 11

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 Now that is much more like it. Lots of reading done this week and some good stuff in there. I suspect the Coulson Whitehead may take me a while to read – the writing is beautiful but by golly is the story tough. 

Read:

The Pursuit by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg

You’re the One that I Want by Angela Britnell

Pumpkins in Paradise by Kathi Daley

The House in Quill Court by Charlotte Betts

Michelangelo’s Ghost by Gigi Pandian

Clockwork Gold by Jenny Schwartz

Murder in G Major by Alexia Gordon

Louisiana Longshot by Jana Deleon

A Kim Jong-Il Production by Paul Fischer

Started:

 The Underground Railroad by Coulson Whitehead

 Dancers in Mourning by Margery Allingham

Primary Colors by Anonymous 

Still reading:

N/a

The only book I bought this week is Margaret Atwood’s new graphic novel Angel Catbird. Check me being better at impulse control!

Book of the Week, reviews, women's fiction

Book of the Week: The Madwoman Upstairs

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This week’s BotW was a tough decision, with two books in serious contention.  But in the end I’ve picked Catherine Lowell’s debut novel The Madwoman Upstairs.  The other contender, Brenda Bowen’s Enchanted August, also gets an honourable mention – and if you’re looking for a rich people problems summer holiday book, set on an island in Maine (and inspired by Elizabeth von Arnim’s Enchanted April) this would make a good read for you – I’ve already lent it to my mum. But I digress.

My copy of The Madwoman Upstairs
This week’s fetching photo was taken on the train, where I read 300 pages in two trips!

The Madwoman Upstairs tells the story of Samantha Whipple, the last remaining descendant of the Bronte family, starting at university and trying to avoid the attention that her family name has always brought her.  She had an unconventional childhood, brought up by her eccentric father, who died in a fire, and who, it’s rumoured, left her a treasure trove of secret Bronte documents.  As far as Samantha knows, the mysterious Bronte literary estate doesn’t exist – or if it does no one’s told her about it.  Then she receives a copy of a Bronte novel, annotated by her dad, and finds herself caught up in a literary treasure hunt, set by her father.  She sets out to solve it, helped – or hindered – by her handsome but cantakerous and combative personal tutor.

I’m not a big Bronte fan.  I’ve read Jane Eyre once, tried to read Wuthering Heights several times and never made it, and gave up on the TV adaptation of Tennant of Wildfell Hall.  However I seem to be reading increasing numbers of Bronte-themed/based books – and really enjoying them.  This isn’t quite up their with The Eyre Affair, which is my all-time favourite, but I liked it even more Jane Steel (a BotW a few months back) – which was promising at the start but faded a little.  This keeps the pace going to the very end – which left me having a spoiler-filled moment on Litsy (I added spoiler tags don’t worry) because I had Thoughts I needed to put out there.  It’s really fun and quite funny – although I wouldn’t precisely call it a “a light-hearted literary comedy” as some of the tag lines would have it* – I was thinking more darkly comic in places.

I’ve already lent this out to a friend – I suspect my mum may want to read it as well, and I think this would generally be a great book to read as the schools go back, starting as it does with Samantha arriving at university.  But equally if you’re off on a late summer break, this would keep you engrossed and smiling on the plane (or on the beach).

I was lucky enough to have an advance copy which was paperback, but sadly it’s only out in hardback at the moment.  You can get a copy from Amazon, Kindle, Kobo, Waterstones, Foyles – or pre-order the paperback for a nice treat you’d forgotten you’d bought when it arrives in April – on Amazon and Waterstones.

Happy Reading

*I see the paperback cover – and the current ebook cover feels much lighter and less gothic than the cover I had, which fits with the light-hearted comedy idea much better than the one which I have.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 29 – September 4

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Not a very disciplined week – I kept starting new books and didn’t manage to finish them all.  Naughty Verity.  I’ve got copies now of a couple of books on my Autumn Preview wishlist, but I’m trying to resist the urge to start reading them immediately until I’ve got the ongoing list down a touch!

Read:

Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell

After Dead by Charlaine Harris

Curious Minds by Janet Evanovitch and Phoef Sutton

When Everything Feels Like The Movies by Raziel Reid

The Rise and Rise of Tabitha Baird by Arabella Weir

Started:

The House in Quill Court by Charlotte Betts

You’re the One that I Want by Angela Britnell

The Pursuit by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg

Still reading:

A Kim Jong-Il Production by Paul Fischer

The Jennifer Crusie got unexpectedly 50-paged-and-out (although i read the end to see if it went the way I thought it was going to – it did), hence its disappearance from the list.  I bought three second-hand books to get some free postage from Amazon, but apart from that, I was very restrained and good!

Book previews, books

Autumn New Release Preview

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Why hello there.  It’s September.  The schools are going back and the nice weather won’t last.  So to ease your pain, I thought I’d tell you about some upcoming books I’m looking forward to or have been fortunate enough to have already enjoyed.  But if that’s not your bag, here’s my books about schools post from two years ago if you feel the need to start the academic year with a boarding school book or two! So, in no particular order (well not by date anyway) here we go:

Where Am I Now? by Mara Wilson (22 September)

Recognise the name?  Yes, it’s that Mara Wilson – who played Matilda and was in Mrs Doubtfire – now all grown up, she’s written a collection of essays and it’s getting a lot of buzz.  It’s hard to find out what it’s about – from what I can work out it’s part memoir, part life lessons – but I’ve seen lots of good buzz about it – and the early reviews on Goodreads are really positive.  Plus I’ve always wanted to know what she did after she left films.  I’m hoping this will answer some of my questions.  Pre-order on Amazon, Kindle, Kobo, Waterstones, Foyles.

Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple (6 October)

Today Will Be Different follows a day in the life of Eleanor Flood, who knows she’s a mess but wants to tackle the little things to try and get back on track.  Unfortunately today is the day that life is going to get in the way.  I’m a little trepidatious (is that a real word or one that I got from Buffy/Clueless?) about this one.  Will this be Good Semple or Bad Semple?  I loved Where’d You Go, Bernadette, but I detested This One Is Mine to the point that if I hadn’t enjoyed …Bernadette so much I would have DNF’d it.  I like the plot summary and several of the book podcasts I listen to are excited about it, so I’m hoping for the best and going to give it a go. Pre-order on Amazon, Kindle, Kobo, Waterstones, Foyles.

How to Party with an Infant by Kuai Hart Hemmings (8 September)

Single mum Mele is trying to get over her obsession with the father of her daughter by writing an entry for a cookbook writing contest.  Except she’s doing it a little differently and going into “elaborate and shocking detail”. This is a recent addition to the list (and coming out really soon) after I saw it on Book Riot’s What We Read In August list where the contributor said “This made me laugh the way Where’d You Go, Bernadette? did.” and then I had to have it.  Maybe I’ll save it until after I’ve read Today Will be Different in case that’s a disappointment and I need a pick me up! Pre-order on Amazon, Kindle, Kobo, Foyles.

The Wangs vs The World by Jade Chang (3 November)

Charles Wang has lost the fortune he made after he arrived in the US.  Now he’s taking his family on a cross country journey from their foreclosed Bel-Air mansion to New York to pick up his other daughter. But will the journey bring them all back together or will it split them even further apart.  And will they all even make it as far as the other coast, faced with temptations en route?  I just keep hearing about this book.  Everywhere.  So I want to read it.   Pre-order on Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles.

Queen Bees by Siân Evans (8 September)

I’ve actually already read this – after lucking into a preview copy a month or so back.  This is a collective biography of six famous society hostesses in the UK between the wars. It is not the most massively in depth look at any of them – I wanted a little more detail on some of them – but you get a really good sense of the personalities of the women and the rivalries between them.  If you’ve read anything about society in this era (perhaps some of the Mrs Simpson saga, or some of the many timeslip novels set in the 1920s and 30s which feature real people as well fictional ones), you’ll have heard of some or all of these women – Lady Astor (first woman to take up her seat as an MP) and Emerald Cunard are probably the two most well known – but it’s also peppered with other people of the period – like the aforementioned Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII and then Winston Churchill, The Mitfords and the Mosleys.  This is a period I love reading about (and have read quite a lot about) and I enjoyed Queen Bees and felt I learnt stuff from it.  I’ve lent it out already – and will go and find a proper copy in the shop when it comes out so I can check out the bibliography and references – which were missing from my version – to get some more reading ideas.   Pre-order on Amazon, Kindle, Kobo, Waterstones, Foyles.

The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch (3 November)

This is the sixth book in the Rivers of London series and if you’ve been reading my book based ramblings for any length of time, you’ll know how I feel about PC Peter Grant (see here, here and here ) – and be unsurprised that I’m hopping around with excitement at the prospect of the next book.  I’m trying to take my time reading the latest comics so I’ll be bang up to date for this one, which apparently sees Peter, Nightingale and the crew from the Folly trying to solve a bloody, magical problem in mansions of the super-rich in Mayfair.  I can’t wait.  If you’re not already on this bandwagon, do yourself a favour at start at the beginning. Pre-order on Amazon, Kindle, Kobo, Waterstones.

And there you have it.  Five books I’m looking forward to reading and one I’ve already read as a bonus. It may have got a touch long, but I hope you’ve enjoyed it.  Hopefully none of these will end up on the 50-pages and out pile and I can report back in positive terms in a couple of months time.  Please do recommend any more upcoming releases you think I might like in the comments – you know how much I love making the to-read pile bigger – and let me know if you’ve already read any of these and have Thoughts.

Happy Reading

books, stats

August Stats

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New books read this month: 28*

Books from the to-read pile: 12

Ebooks read: 13

Books from the Library book pile: 3

Non-fiction books: 0 (although I have one started)

Most read author: Margery Allingham – sort of – I read one Campion and there was an Allingham short story in a collection that I read as well.

Books read this year: 234

Books bought: 6 (all actual books)

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf: 459 (I don’t have copies of all of these!)

I was worried that August would be a book buying fest – and actually, in new book terms, I’ve been quite restrained.  Of course I bought 12 Chalet School paperbacks to add to/improve my collection, but they don’t count – because I’ve definitely read all of them before!

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

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: The World’s Wife

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I’m a bit off-piste with this week’s BotW choice – because it’s poems.  It’s not the first poetry to be BotW- because Sarah Crossan’s One was free verse – but Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife is the first poetry collection to get the nod from me.

Copy of The World`s Wife
My copy of the World’s Wife -it isn’t the latest edition which I think is prettier.

The World’s Wife is a collections of poems about the women behind famous men, or in some cases changes famous men into famous women.  It’s on the AS level syllabus these days – I think my sister studied it, although I got stuck with Wordsworth back in my day – so I’m not going to pretend to any profound knowledge or insight.  In fact I feel like I need to read them again already, with whatever the modern equivalent of York Notes is to help me get the most out of them.  But I enjoyed reading them – and I’ve been off down the internet rabbit hole afterwards to find out who some of the men I didn’t know were.

I have studied Carol Ann Duffy though – at GCSE.  In the big orange English Anthology, as well as Poems from Other Cultures and Traditions, there was a selection of poems from 3 poets – Simon Armitage, Ted Hughes and Duffy – and you had to study one of them.  Carol Ann Duffy was the one we had to do.  Towards the end of our two years, a local theatre held a GCSE poetry day – with a selection of the featured poets on stage reading from their works and answering questions.  And Ms Duffy was one of them – she read a few poems (I can’t remember which) and was generally very tolerant of 1400 teenagers’ questions she’d probably heard a hundred times before*.  My friend’s question wasn’t answered and at the interval, she wanted to see if she could get an answer, so dragging me with her, we scoured the theatre for the green room, and found it and waited for Ms Duffy.  My friend was much braver than me and she did all the talking, but Ms Duffy was friendly and gracious towards the two of us – and we even ended up with an address to write to her if we had any more questions.  I kept the scrap of paper it was written on for years – although I’ve lost it now – and have never forgotten my brush with the now Poet Laureate.

*Not all of the others were!

 

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 21 – August 28

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Ok, so I’ve actually read more this week than this list suggests – as I did another round of 50 pages and out (see Book Pile post) and got another half dozen books or so off the pile.

Read:

The Venetian Venture by Suzette A Hill

The Counterfeit Heiress by Tasha Alexander

Ready to Were by Robyn Peterman

The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders

A Leader in the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent Dyer

Herring in the Library by L C Tyler

The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy

Started:

A Kim Jong-Il Production by Paul Fischer

Crazy for You by Jennifer Crusie

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell

Still reading:

n/a

I bought a stack of second hand Chalet School books while I was in York visiting my little sister – and the new (well newly rereleased) Trisha Ashley book.  But other than that I was very good.  Honest.  Apart from 3 books in the charity shop.  Oops.  But that was before the second phase of the cull.  I’ll be better now…

books, The pile

Book pile rationalisation

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A Bank Holiday weekend bonus post for you – on my recent “rationalisation” of the to-be-read pile.  When I was little, when mum wanted us to have a tidy up and clear out of our rooms, she would call it a rationalisation.  I think this was mostly because Little Sister and I were extremely loath to throw anything away, so if we thought that we’d have to we’d kick up a stink.  But a rationalisation was different (or so my mum said) we were just looking to make sure we had what we needed – no duplication etc.  She’s cunning my mum.  Thus a clear out for me is always called a rationalisation.  It sounds less scary, less final – more productive.

So my to-read pile has got a little out of hand – even for me, so on a recent Saturday night, after I’d finished the book that I was reading I had a round of the 50 pages and out reading challenge to help get the to-read bookshelf down.  The challenge is fairly self-explanatory – you give a book 50 pages – and if you’re not hooked or don’t care by that point you can give it up and put it on the charity shop pile.  Some of the books didn’t need 50 pages.  This doesn’t mean that they’re bad books, it just means they’re not for me.  Often it means they come under the “Verity tries to kid herself that she’ll read literary fiction” banner.  Because we all know that if given a choice, I’ll go for romance, or crime, or historical fiction, or comic fiction over award winning books.  You’ve seen my Week in Books posts, you know the score.

A pile of books
Some of the 50-pages and out victims – nothing wrong with them, just not for me.

Then I took to the piles behind the sofa.  I did this while The Boy was at work, so he couldn’t see how bad it had got.  I have a magpie’s eye for books.  I’m always picking up more and I have various different sources for them – many are second hand, or review copies – so I often haven’t paid anywhere near jacket price for them.*  I yank them all out, inspect what’s there, hope there aren’t any duplicates in the pile (it has happened) and then have a weed.  What literary fiction have I picked up thinking “I’ll read that some day” and then ignored in favour of pretty much everything else?  Which books are in there by an author that I’ve got fed up of or have overdosed on?  Which ones would I take on holiday with me to read, and then end up ignoring them in favour of the Kindle all week?*** Which are later books in series that I could read if only I pulled my finger out and read the earlier ones?  Which have been sitting in that pile for ages, not getting moved onto the to-read bookshelf because there’s always something I fancy more?  Which, if I’m being really very honest with myself, am I never going to get around to?

I’m not good at this part.  But I don’t have time to give all of these 50 pages.  I keep make a new pile of candidates for the 50-pages and out challenge – the ones where there is a realistic chance that I’ll like them enough to keep reading –  and give that a prime spot near the front of the sofa arm..  But some, after careful consideration, I move straight to the charity shop bag.   Then I reform the piles – trying to move some of the older stuff to the top, to sort it into genres and sizes and hide it all behind the sofa again.

A bag of books in front of a bookshelf
One bag of books in front of the to read shelf after the sofa pile cull. The photos meant to be arty…

I hate admitting that I won’t read some of these books, that my eyes are too big for my stomach in book terms.  But having a rationalisation does usually put the brakes on my aquisitions a little bit because I feel so guilty about the big stack of stuff that’s still waiting to be read.  I could – in a very real sense – keep myself stocked up for books for months without having to buy any more, but we all know I don’t have that will power.  So I sort, I give the excess to one of a series of charity shops I like around town, and then I make an effort to try and read from the pile for a few weeks.  Or that’s the idea at any rate…

 

*Which is obviously a good thing or I’d be wasting money hand over fist,** which wouldn’t be good.

**I do sometimes wonder if the to-read pile would be any better if I did have to pay for all my books, and then I remember that when I moved to Essex I took 7 books with me, and when I moved back to Northamptonshire 3 years later I brought nearly 80 back with me – and that was after having held a cull before moving and having got rid of some as I went a long.  So having to pay full price doesn’t stop the book acquisition – even when (as I was at that point) I have a *very* tight budget.

*** It happens.  I take something literary fiction-y on holiday with me to force myself to read it, and then I end up ignoring it in favour of the kindle – reading backlog or buying more books in series – and then bring it home, unread, but well travelled.

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: American Housewife

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I know. I know. This is a day late. And I’m sorry. It’s been one of those weeks. Work has been quietly bonkers, I’ve been exhausted and time got away from me. Rather than rush something out to keep to schedule, I thought I’d take the extra time and do it properly.

So the BotW is Helen Ellis’s short story collection, American Housewife. These a a series of deliciously dark and funny bite-sized  tales, which I mostly read before bed. I’m not a massive short story reader, but they do make good bedtime reading because they have good obviously stopping places. And while these blackly humorous, there’s nothing here that’s going to give you nightmares. That said, Ellis doesn’t give you all the answers, some stories have distinctly ambiguous endings. Or even ambiguous middles.

Copy of American Housewife
I love the cover design – so simple and striking but appropriate for the book

I think my favourite story was the email war between two New York neighbours over their shared hallway. Or maybe the instructions on how to be a patron of the arts. Or the very unusual book club. Basically, there’s a lot of good stories here and I’m spoilt for choice.

If you fancy dipping your toe in the short story pond, this would be a very good place to start. And if you’re a short story fan, this should definitely be on your list. In fact I’d be surprised if it isn’t already. It is a hardback at the moment – and you’ll probably need to look in a proper bookshop for this (ie not the supermarket) or you can order it from Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles. It’s also available on Kindle and Kobo – at the much friendlier price of £2.99 at time of writing.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 15 – August 21

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So I had a bit of a rationalisation this week.  A couple of books are gone from the long serving list because I decided I didn’t want to finish them.  A few more are gone from the pile and not mentioned on here at all because I started them and didn’t like them.  I still have more to do to get the pile under control, but I’m working on it.

Read:

Metro Girl by Janet Evanovich

A Mint Condition Corpse by Duncan MacMaster

Death of Liar by MC Beaton

Thursday’s Children by Rumer Godden

Dead White Female by Lauren Henderson

American Housewife by Helen Ellis

The Man on Top of the World by Vanessa Clark

Started:

The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders

The Venetian Venture by Suzette A Hill

Still reading:

n/a

In the spirit of dealing with the pile, I’ve been very restrained this week – I didn’t buy any new paperbacks at all – and my kindle acquisition was a freebie.  I’m working on being better…