not a book

Not a Book: Freddie Mercury

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Oh boy. I’m not even sure I can explain how excited I was about seeing the Freddie Mercury auction exhibition at Sothebys. Honestly. It was the one thing my sister and I wanted to do together this summer and it absolutely was everything we were hoping it would be.

I may have mentioned before that I am a big Queen fan, and I’m also too young (or not old enough?) to remember them when they were still performing. So I’ve done pretty much all of my fandom through the music and the documentaries (and the musical), which meant that when Mary Austen announced that she was selling basically everything Freddie had left her it was a Big Deal. Mary was his girlfriend during the early days of Queen and was one of his closest friends for the rest of his life. And now for about a month, you can go and look at what is up for sale.

I saw the David Bowie is… exhibtion at the V&A back in the day and had always vaguely wondered why there had never been an equivalent exhibition for Queen. This auction sale is the answer: Freddie himself kept hold of all of his stuff- and passed it on to Mary and she’s been looking after it ever since. Things like the jacket from the Bohemian Rhapsody keep when he sings “I see a little silhouetto of a man”:

And basically every other outfit you’ve ever seen him wear on stage, in a video or at a public appearance. The only exceptions I can think of are the yellow jacket from the Wembley 86 tour and the harlequin leotards. But everything else is here. The “prawn” costume from Its a Hard Life, the leather jacket from Radio Gaga, the suits from Barcelona and Great Pretender, the winged cat suits. The cat waistcoat.

And then there’s all the ephemera – white label pressings of singles and albums, hand written lyrics, photographs and contact sheets, the tour handbooks, the paperwork for Live Aid. My sister and I were wandering the the rooms with our mouths hanging open. It’s truly astonishing.

Then there’s the art and furniture. I’m going to predict that this is going to be popular not just with the Queen fans and music collectors but also the art collectors. Freddie was an art and design student and he loved beautiful things and had an eye for it. He was buying pieces from Sothebys himself back in the day. So there’s a Picasso and a Chagal and a wall of Goya drawings. Plus beautiful pieces of Japanese art and so much more. However much they think it’s going to make, I think it’ll be more.

So if you’re in London before the start of September, this is very much worth a visit. And it’s free.

Happy Sunday.

books, Forgotten books, series

Mystery Series: Nancy Spain

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I’ve actually named this post for the author of the series because it feels too complicated to do anything else. Today I’m talking about Nancy Spain’s post-WW2 detective (well sort of) novels that feature Natasha DuVivien and Miriam Birdseye – particularly the four that have been republished by Virago in the last couple of years.

Written in the late 1940s and early 1950s the books follow a madcap theatrical duo who stumble across murders in the course of their (more or less) glamorous lives. Miriam is an actress and Natasha is a dancer and as I said in my BotW post about Death Goes on Skis it’s more about the satire and the black humour than it is about solving the actual mysteries. Depending on your reading tastes there’s a lot that she’s satirising here – school stories, mysteries set in theatres, etc. But there’s also a lot of hiding in plain sight queer representation that Nancy Spain snuck in there.

I think they’re going to divide opinion – I enjoyed them, but mum gave up on them I think because they were too much of a mishmash of mystery and also Evelyn Waugh-y satire. And your reaction to that sentence may determine whether these are going to work for you at all!

Virago have done reissues of but there are others in secondhand/collectible only that I haven’t read. You should be able to get hold of the Viragos in bookshops with a reasonable sized fiction section.

Happy Reading!

books

Rec Me: Romances with musicians

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I was at the Proms earlier this week, and at The Chicks last month and it’s given me a yearning for some romances with musicians. The Chicks made me want one with backing musician who is secretly in love with his lead singer, who only sees him as a friend, and the Proms made me wonder about whether there are any orchestra-y ones – but I’m not sure what that would involve. I read one the other month with a concert pianist, but it took a turn into romantic suspense that wasn’t what I wanted it to do! So maybe it’s a soloist and the conductor of the orchestra they’re guest performing with? A bit like Sebastian and Veronica from Sadlers Wells but without the ballet or the bit where he ignores her for years because he doesn’t think she should have put her career over his performance. Even though he would have done the same if the situation was reversed. Not that I’m averse to ballet related romances either if that’s all I can get. Or opera. But no eating disorders or fat shaming. That’s all I ask.

Hit me with your suggestions in the comments pretty please!

books, books on offer

Recommendsday: August Kindle Offers

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It’s the second Wednesday of the month again – so you know what that means! Yes, hide your wallets, I’m about to tempt you into some serious buying action with the current crop of Kindle offers. After all, given that I end up buying stuff when I write it, it’s only fair that you buy some too…

First up – one of last month’s BotWs and also very new release Business or Pleasure is 99p as is You with a View (which was in last month’s Quick Reviews) and Annabel Monaghan’s latest book Same Time Next Summer (as mentioned in the Summer Romances post). Another recent BotW Christina Lauren’s The True Love Experiment is 99p as is Elissa Sussman‘s Funny You Should Ask

If you’re after Murder mysteries rather than romance, then The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz from his Hawthorne series 99p and Rev Richard Coles’s Murder before Evensong still 99p. The Murder Game – Tom Hindle’s second book after Fatal Crossing – is 99p as well and I really must get around to reading it!

Another one I need to get around to reading (but not crime as far as I know) is Small Miracles, which is 99p, I presume because it has arrived in paperback but there is also a sequel is arriving in the autumn, because I saw a proof copy in the office last week. I have Meryl Wilsner’s debut Something to Talk about somewhere in the backlog – Mistakes Were Made ahead of her next one, which is out in September. Also in romances on offer presumably ahead of the next release is Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, which I read recently along with the next in the series, Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail.

In authors I have recently enjoyed, The Storied Life of A J Fikry – from Gabrielle Zevens who wrote Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – is 99p. I’m still waiting for news on what Brit Bennett is going to write next, but I’ve seen Vanishing Half around a fair bit recently and that’s also 99p.

I wrote about Mary Balogh’s Survivors Club series not that long ago and this month Remember Me from her Ravenswood series is on offer. It only came out in June and is book two in the series. I of course still need to read book one! As you may have noticed in the weekly posts; I still need to finish The Other Side of Mrs Wood, but its £1.99 at the moment and I think if you liked

If you want some none fiction, Adrian Tinniswood’s The Long Weekend is 99p – I read it back in the pre blog era but if you like history this is the story of the aristocracy and their house parties through the years.

This month we have an increasing number of weird looking Peter Wimsey editions so I don’t even know if I can recommend them at the moment. Oh copyright expiry, how you confuse things! But Cotillion is the 99p Georgette Heyer this month,

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: Forget Me Not

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The romance run is back – this time it’s another contemporary featuring the wedding industry. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best one I’ve read recently (and I think this is the fourth in the last few months alone)

Ama is a wedding planner who doesn’t believe in happily ever afters. She started planning weddings for her mum – who has been married more than a dozen times – and therein is the reason for AMA’s lack of faith in true love. Her business is going well – and she’s just been booked to organise the wedding of an Instagram star and her fiancée. The only trouble is it means working with Elliot. Ama broke Elliot’s heart two years ago and they haven’t spoken since. But how difficult can it be to get through one wedding together without kissing or killing each other?

Well the answer is obviously very, because it’s a romance novel. This also has split point of view with Ama in the present and Elliot doing the before of their relationship. I bought this off the back of reading the sample, but for me it didn’t deliver on everything I was hoping – mostly because I’m not sure this had quite decided if it was romance or chick lit and so for me it fell in between two stools. But the wedding planning part of it is great – I could absolutely see the influencer wedding that Ama was organising. And given that I read it in about 36 hours flat it is pretty readable too.

My copy was on Kindle but it’s also on Kobo and there’s also a paperback – although I haven’t seen it in stores yet. It only came out in early July and it’s Julie Soto’s debut so we’ll have to wait a while for another but I would definitely give it a read when it appears.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: July 31 – August 6

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I said last week that this week was going to be a busy one, and it really was. So very, very busy. But mostly in a good way so that’s positive. Anyway, we’re into August now, and the height of British Summer – which for me last week meant getting rained on *and* bitten to death by an unknown insect, but probably mozzies. I have a really strong reaction to bites, so I spent the second half of the week looking like a plague victim with oozing welts on my arms. Delightful. Fingers crossed this week is better!

Read:

Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer

Four Weddings to Fall in Love by Jackie Lau

Forget Me Not by Julie Soto

The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer

The Chopping Spree by Diane Mott Davidson

A Fire at the Exhibition by T E Kinsey*

Started:

Dating Dr Dil by Nisha Sharma

The Problem with Perfect by Philip William Stover

Still reading:

The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes by Kate Strasdin*

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

The Other Side of Mrs Wood by Lucy Barker*

The Crane Wife by C J Hauser*

One preorder arrived and that was it. A positive start to the month, but I still have the Kindle offer post to write so it probably won’t last!

Bonus photo: Sunday afternoon ironing with one of my favourite classic films on the TV. Yes there are some issues with Pillow Talk but I still love it to bits.

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

audio, not a book

Not a Book: I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue

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Every now and again I write about a radio programme instead of a film or a show or a TV programme, and this is one of those weeks – although as I went to a recording in a theatre does it also count as a show? Anyway, the new series of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue starts on Radio Four this week, so I get to tell you about my night out watching them record two episodes in my home town back in June.

I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue started in the 1970s as a parody of TV and radio panel games and has been running ever since. My parents were very much Radio Four people – and it was one of the 6.30 in the evening programmes that I started listening to when I was getting ready for bed when I was little (along with Just A Minute and The News Quiz) and I’ve been listening to ever since. There aren’t many of the original panel left now – it’s Jack Dee giving the panel silly things to do instead of Humphrey Littleton for example, but they’ve managed to replace them with people as funny as the originals.

I tried to figure out a way of describing what’s going on, but I couldn’t do it justice, so I’m just going to settle for giving you this clip from One Song to the Tune of Another because it’s always been one of my favourite rounds and it just sums up the whole show:

There are no winners, some of the games make no sense at all (Mornington Crescent for example) and despite the fact that there are singing games there is always at least one panelist who cannot sing at all (at my recording it was Milton Jones). As children we used to play the completely unconnected word game in the back of the car on the way home from after school lessons – with much complaining from my mum as my sister and I descended into lavatorial humour. Basically it’s one of the silliest ways you can spend half an hour and I’m really looking forward to hearing what makes the cut for the broadcast episode as each recording was at least an hour long.

If you’re in the UK you can listen to I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue on BBC Radio 4, or on the BBC Sounds app – the Northampton episodes start tomorrow, and several of the episodes in the series are already available. If you’re outside the UK, I’m hoping it appears on Sounds for you – but it may also be on some of the other podcast providers too.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

books, stats

July Stats

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Books read this month: 30*

New books: 21

Re-reads: 7 (all audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 11

NetGalley books read: 7

Kindle Unlimited read: 3

Ebooks: 2

Audiobooks: 7

Non-fiction books: 0

Favourite book this month: Really hard to chose – either Seven Year Slip or Business or Pleasure

Most read author: if you don’t count the Georgette Heyers in the audiobook re-reads, then it’s Kate Carlisle – with the latest Fixer-Upper mystery and one of her Bibliophile mysteries

Books bought: 11 ebooks, 10 books and two pre-orders arriving. Oops

Books read in 2023: 221

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 699

I need to do better on the non-fiction front, but apart from that, I’m doing ok on the variety front but perhaps not so much on the purchasing one…

Bonus picture: the Albert Memorial after the Proms the other night. What a sunset. And so much gold leaf…

*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including 1 this month

books

Series Redux: Meg Langslow

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The latest book in the series is out this week – the brilliantly titled Birder, She Wrote so considering I did a complete reread of the series finishing earlier this great, how could I not point you at my series post for Donna Andrews’ brilliant Meg Langslow series today? Exactly. It would be criminal. Nb The Good, The Bad and the Emu may still be the best title.

Happy Friday everyone!