Quite a tough decision on what to pick for BotW this week – there were several contenders. But in the end I’ve plumped for Lissa Evans’ Crooked Heart, which I devoured over the weekend while we were away for an extended jolly for my birthday. This was another book which had ended up at the bottom of my to-read pile and resurfaced because of the Big Box Up and I’m so glad that it did.
Mine had an extra cover on it – the actual cover is prettier.
Crooked Heart tells the story of Noel, who is evacuated to Hertfordshire in 1940. Noel is an unusual 10 year old. He’s been brought up by an old lady and is precocious and smart beyond his years. He ends up with Vera – a 36 year old single mum struggling with debt, a recalcitrant and secretive son and her demanding mother. Vera is sure there is some money to be made out of the war, but the trouble is that she’s not very good at making a plan and sticking to it. But Noel is a different proposition. He’s smart, he’s calm and he might be the answer to Vera’s problems. But of course they’re not the only people making money from the war, and there are dangers other than air-raids in Noel’s new life.
I really enjoyed this. Noel and Vera are engaging characters who make a good team. Vera is almost a proto-Del Boy – but with Noel to help she has the chance of her deals actually going right. In some ways Noel reminded me of William in Goodnight Mr Tom (that’s a good thing) – Noel has had more advantages in his education and home life that William did, but he’s still a little boy who has had to grow up too fast and deal with things that children aren’t meant to deal with. And one of the themes of Goodnight Mr Tom is finding your own family and your own place in life and there’s a lot of that here although Vee is very different to Tom.
It’s a heartwarming romp through the grey, greyer and uglier areas of life on the home front. I could easily have read another 100 pages of Vee and Noel, but actually the ending is a brilliant touch. I haven’t read any of Lissa Evans’ books before, but my little sister still has a copy Evans’ first novel, Spencer’s List, on her shelf which I bought for her back in the day 15 years ago, so I’m going to have to borrow that off her and read it. Coincidentally someone posted a trailer on Facebook for the upcoming film Their Finest on the same day as I read this – and that’s based on Evans’ previous book Their Finest Hour and a Half, which I totally need to read now as well.
You can get a copy of Crooked Heart from Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles or on Kindle or Kobo. And it looks like there might be a (slightly retitled) tie-in edition of Their Finest Hour and Half coming out too.
This week’s pick comes from the bottom of the to-read pile – which is now the top because of the unfortunate fireplace situation. I acquired a little stack of Persephone Print books from a friend a year (and the rest) ago and some how they ended up getting relegated to one of the piles behind the sofa arm. What a mistake to make. Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Making of a Marchioness, although not perfect, turned out to be a little gem.
The Making of a Marchioness is a story of two parts. Both are about Emily Fox-Seaton, a well-born lady in her early 30s (so on the shelf for the era – this was published in 1901) who has very little money and who supports herself by running errands for people better off than herself. In part one, she gets invited to visit a country house to help out and during the course of her stay her fortunes change. The second part chronicles how she adapts to her change in fortunes.
Now, in order to explain my feelings about this book, I’m going to have to give some spoilers. Sorry. So, if you don’t want to be spoilt (so to speak) then don’t read below the photograph that’s coming up. But if you like a Cinderella story, but one that’s populated by really quite unromantic people who aren’t all beautiful or clever, than this might well be the book for you. The latest Persephone edition, although not quite as pretty as mine is £9.00 on Amazon and Foyles as I write this or in the edition that I own for £14 from Waterstones, but the total bargain is the ebook because both Kindle and Kobo have a free versions.
I do love these Persophones – plain unassuming grey cover and then a beautiful design inside.
And now the spoilers. I did warn you.
I really, really, liked the first part of the book – with Emily winning the Marquess by being herself and realising what she was doing. Emily is an immensely likeable character who is cheerful and uncomplaining and just generally indispensible. Part two, where we see her adapting to life as a Marchioness is really very Gothic and melodramatic and I didn’t like it as much – perhaps because it was so different from the first part of the book. Emily’s obliviousness to the machinations of the unsuitable heir and his wife (and her maid) started to annoy me a little after a while and I just wanted her to buck up and write that letter to her husband (away in India on government business) or confide in Lady Maria who would have sorted it all out. The two parts were originally published as separate books, and I can’t work out if I would have liked the second part more or less if I’d read the first part in isolation and then come across its sequel.
What is true of both parts is that they are very well written and without the overblown romantic transports of many similar novels. And the way it portrays marriage is also very different from other novels of the time. Emily is not on the prowl for a husband in part one, she’s content to try and live her life without a man (even if she is worried about old age and poor health) but when she does get married, her husband is not a romantic hero – in fact he’s really not sure why he settled on Emily at some points – and their relationship is very stiff and Victorian (and Edwardian). There are some slightly dated attitudes in here – but I’ve read much (much) worse and it’s on the nicer end of the attitudes and problems of its time.
Anyway, I really enjoyed reading an adult novel by an author that I only knew for her famous children’s stories like The Secret Garden – and I’m really looking forward to reading more of the Persephones on my to-read pile.
Now 2017 is well underway, and I’ve told you about my obsessions, the state of the (enormous) pile, and my #ReadHarder ambitions, it seemed like a good time to finally work out what my favourite books published last year were. I know. Everyone else did this weeks ago, but I didn’t want anything really excellent that I might have read at the end of the year to get missed out. And yes, fractured elbow. It’s my excuse for everything.
Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld
“Fred!” the nurse said, though they had never met. “How are we today?” Reading the nurse’s name tag, Mr. Bennet replied with fake enthusiasm, “Bernard! We’re mourning the death of manners and the rise of overly familiar discourse. How are you?”
Considering how much I loved this book, I have said remarkably little about it on here. I recommended it in the Christmas gift post and back in the Summer Reads post, but it wasn’t a Book of the Week – because I was expecting to be reviewing it elsewhere. And I don’t think that adequately conveys how much I adored it. But Sittenfeld’s modern reworking of Pride and Prejudice is my favourite book of last year.
If the quote at the top makes you laugh or smile (even if it’s only inside because you’re too cool) then you need to read this book. I’ve read a lot of Austen retellings, reworkings, sequels and the like and this manages to strike a perfect (for me) balance of retelling the story but modernising it so that it feels relevant to today. Lizzie (nearly 40 rather than 20) and her sisters are trust fund babies in Cincinatti, but the money is running out, their father has medical problems and their mother has a shopping problem. Darcy is a surgeon, Bingley a reality TV star (don’t let that put you off) and Lydia and Kitty are obsessed with Crossfit. I want to read it again – but my copy is still out on loan. The paperback isn’t out until June, but you could pre-order from Amazon or Waterstones and have a lovely treat in the summer, the Kindle and Kobo versions are £5.99 at time of writing or you could go nuts and buy the hardback from Amazon, Foyles or Waterstones – Waterstones was cheapest when I was writing – doing it on click and collect for £7.50 which is a total bargain for a hardback. I don’t think you’ll regret it.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
The Underground RailroadAs I said in my BotW post last month, this book is going to win all the prizes and will be on English Literature sylabuses in years to come. Cora’s story is incredibly tough to read – and it’s partly the contrast between the realism of the terrible things that are happening and the magical realism of making the Underground Railroad a real, actual railway with stations, and trains that makes this such an incredible read. And the writing is beautiful. As you all know, I don’t read a lot of “literary fiction” – and I don’t have a lot of success with books that have been nominated for awards, but I’m so glad I read it – and I’ve been singing its praises to my literary fiction-reading friends. Still only in hardback I’m afraid, but bizarrely the paperback comes out the same day as Eligible – even though this was released six months later than the Sittenfeld. Odd. Anyway. In hardback from Amazon, Foyles, Waterstones, on Kindle and Kobo or pre-order the paperback on Amazon or Waterstones.
The Barista’s Guide to Espionage by Dave Sinclair
The Barista’s guide to EspionageYes I know. You’re sick of my Fahrenheit obsession. Well tough. Their books made up nearly 20 percent of my 5 star books last year, so they were bound to figure here. Sorry, not sorry. Anyway, this story about Eva Destruction – James Bond and Stephanie Plum’s lovechild – was another BotW and I defy anyone not to enjoy Eva’s battle to try to stop her evil supervillain ex-boyfriend from taking over the world. It’s an action thriller film in book form but with a smart woman doing the saving not a suave bloke in a suit (he tries, but she’s better than him). Get it on Kindle or in paperback.
Death of a Nobody by Derek Farrell
From Eva Destruction to Poirot on Poppers, the second Danny Bird book is the second Fahrenheit book on this list. The first book (Death of a Diva) is funny, but this book feels like a series hitting its stride. It’s got a great, off-beat cast, zingy one-liners, lashings of sarcasm and an up-and-coming gastro pub with a rising body count and a gangster breathing down Danny’s neck. I’m recommending this to my friends who read cozy crime who want something that’s not cupcakes, bakeries or crafting. I can’t wait for book three. Get it on Kindle or in paperback. You can thank me later.
Grunt by Mary Roach
Grunt by Mary RoachAnd this is why I’m glad I wrote this post so very late. This was the last book I finished in 2016 and it was one of the very best – definitely the best non-fiction book I read last year. It was BotW last week – so there’s no need for me to say anymore about it really because it’s less than a week since I raved about it at you. I think it’s going to be this year’s go-to pick for a non fiction book to give as a gift. Buy it (paperback!) from Amazon, Foyles and Waterstones or on Kindle.
Welcome to the first BotW post of the New Year, which is also the last Book of the Week from 2016. You know what I mean – I read it last week before the end of the old year, but the post gets to you in the New Year. Talking about last week and the old year, I hope you enjoyed my festive frenzy of posts. December stats is coming tomorrow (I thought better one post 3 days late, than three posts one day late each) now you’ve all had time to appreciate my New Years Reading Resolutions, and see my early failures in yesterday’s Week in Reading where I confess to a bit of a free book spree. Any how, back to the point.
I don’t think I have a lot of books with green covers, not sure why!
This weeks BotW is Mary Roach’s Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, which is not about guns and weapons, but about the scientific and technological developments which have come about because of war and conflict. Topics include clothing regulations and design, shark repellent, submarine escapes and genital reconstruction. It’s absolutely fascinating. This is non-fiction writing at its best – informative and well researched, it wears it lightly and is incredibly readable. You learn a lot without realising it as Mary wends her way through military installations and research centres asking the questions that you wouldn’t dare to.
I’m not a science reader – if you’ve been here a while now, you’ll know that my non-fiction reading tends to be history, biography or a bit feministy. But I’ve been hearing about Mary Roach’s books for a while now – as they’ve been recommended on Book Riot’s Get Booked podcast as well as this getting a review on their All the Books podcast too – and I thought it might be a good way to widen my reading horizons slightly. Popular opinion seems to have Stiff as her best book – but I’m not big on death and so was wary of a book about dead bodies – so Grunt seemed like a better place for me to start. And if this is not Mary Roach’s best book, I can hardly imagine how good the others must be. I might even have to get over my squeamishness about cadavers and read Stiff.
Him Indoors got really fed up of me pausing the TV to read bits out loud to him and I’ve already got a queue forming for my copy. I bought my copy on my post-Christmas jolly to Foyles, but it’s also available on Kindle or from Amazon and Waterstones. You’re probably going to need a bookshop with a relatively large non-fiction selection (ie probably not a train station bookshop or a small WH Smiths) but it seems to be fairly orderable. It’s not terribly cheap anywhere I’m afraid, but it’s worth it.
What else could I pick for a Christmas book this week except for a book set at Christmas-time? Exactly. It has to be a Christmas book in Christmas week. And I’ve read a lot of Christmas books this year – don’t believe me? Check out my Christmas books post.
I think this might be the last Christmas book cover of the year. Maybe.
So my Christmas book of choice this week is the third in Sarah Morgan’s Puffin Island series, Christmas Ever after, which has Christmas twice – once in the UK and once on the island – and an enemies to lovers sort of plot where artistic Skylar’s politician boyfriend hijacks her big exhibition and then runs out on her, leaving unwilling acquaintance Alec to come to her rescue. She ends up meeting his family – who think she’s his first girlfriend since his disastrous marriage, and well, it goes from there. There’s lots of sparky dialogue, sexy times, snow, sexy times, discussions about how relationships would bring out the best in you and not stifle you and romantic times.
This was so much fun. I like fractious relationships with romantic undertones – or ‘I hate you, I hate you, I can’t stop touching your hair’ as Sarah Wendell at Smart Bitches puts it – so this is right up my street and it was the perfect book for me to read on Christmas Eve. It was warm and festive and if my new fireplace had actually been installed (don’t ask) I would have read it tucked up in front of a roaring fire and it would have been perfect. I’ve read the Puffin Island series slightly out of order, but I don’t think it’s been a problem at all – because for me the fun of a romance isn’t who people are going to end up with, but how they get there so I don’t mind knowing in advance who is going to end up with whom because I haven’t read the books in order.
So, in short, lovely Christmas romance, perfect for reading in front of the fire on your Christmas days off (like today if you have a bank holiday too) or on New Year’s Eve if you’re not all Christmassed out by then (or by now!) – or just put it on your list for next December.
You may be relieved to hear that this weeks BotW is neither Fahrenheit Press book or a Christmas book – even though the title might suggest that it could be the latter. It is however the perfect book for curling up with on a sofa on a wintry afternoon.
My second hand copy- the stain on the front was there when I got it, the dent in the top… I’m not sure.
The titular Angel is the spoilt darling of a grocery shop proprietress, who spins fantasies to her school mates about a glamorous house where her aunt is a maid. When she is found out she takes to her bed, refuses to return to school and starts to write novels. These turn out to be bestsellers – at least at first – even if they’re wildly inaccurate, far-fetched and slated by the critics. But Angel doesn’t care – she believes she is one of the world’s greatest writers and nothing and nobody is going to stand in her way.
Elizabeth Taylor (not that one) has created a monster. Angel is dreadful in every way – delusional, deceitful, ungrateful, selfish, vain and more. But you can’t stop reading about her in a sort of fascinated horror. She is oblivious to her faults and to the way that others view her and is able to sail through life in the comfortable delusion that she is clever, witty, brilliant and under-appreciated. You would never want to spend any time with any one like her in real life, but I could happily have spend hours more reading about her antics.
There are a fair few women in books who become writers as a response to straightened circumstances – often with a trusty maid in attendance. But they are almost always portrayed as gentlewomen brought low by financial troubles not of their own making. Angel is not one of these – she starts writing as a way of getting her own way – initially she’s more interested in showing her neighbours that she’s better than them. Then the money enables her to exert power over her mother, who in her attempts to allow her daughter to go further in life by scrimping and saving for a better education for her has created a stubborn tyrant who will brook no opposition. As we follow Angel through 40 plus years we see the changes in British society as it moves from the Victorian era, through two World Wars – and we see Angel rewrite her past and invent new fictions for herself – which she believes even if those around her know other wise.
Although Angel is the centre of this book we also get to see the people she uses up and spits out – her mother, her aunt, a wannabe poetess, her husband, her servants – and the people who manage to survive her onslaught – only really her publisher and his wife. It’s a portrait of a tyrant and it’s very, very good.
My copy of Angel is a lovely Virago Designer Hardback which I got second hand and seem to be quite hard to come by, but it’s also available in paperback from Amazon, Foyles and Waterstones and on Kindle and Kobo. And as it was first published in 1957, you have a fighting chance of being able to find yourself a second hand copy in a charity or second hand bookshop.
I feel like I’m getting repetitive here, because this BotW is another Fahrenheit Press pick. Seriously, my Fahrenheit subscription has been one of my best book-based purchases this year. It was a total bargain (and I got in early so it really was a bargain!) and I’ve discovered older series I was too young for (or not in the right crowd for) first time around and new authors doing interesting things and who I’m hoping I can say that I was there at the beginning for.
And Sparkle Shot falls in the latter camp. It’s Lina Chern’s first book and it’s short but it packs a lot in. The subtitle is “A wannabe cowboy, a handsome cop and the search for a perfect breakfast cocktail” but that doesn’t really do it justice. It is a perfect fit for the Fahrenheit family – Mara fits in somewhere between Sam Jones from Black Rubber Dress and Eva Destruction from Barista’s Guide to Espionage, in that she’s sassy, smart and runs with an interesting crowd which sees her getting tangled up with things she’d rather not be. In this case, her roommate, a stripper who dances under the name of Karma misses a breakfast date with her and then phones in a panic – she’s witnessed a murder and needs Mara to help stop her being the next victim.
Sparkle Shot races along at 100 miles an hour, with boys with guns, girls with guns, wannabe mafia dons, cops and peril. It’s probably technically novella length at 95 pages, but doesn’t suffer from any of my common complaints about novellas. There’s not a hint of underdeveloped story or things feeling too rushed. There’s plenty of plot, there’s backstory, character development and proper tension and proper danger – not just the sort of thing that is a misunderstanding or could be fixed with a simple conversation. It does feel like it could stand a sequel or two – hopefully longer than this because it was over too fast – but even if it’s not more from Mara and her friends, I’m still looking forward to seeing what Lina Chern writes next.
You can buy Sparkle Shot on Kindle or in paperback from Amazon, or you could treat yourself to some Bad Santa Bucks from Fahrenheit themselves and buy a few of their books – the discount gets bigger the more bucks you buy – and given that I’ve already mentioned two Fahrenheit books that have been BotWs and I’ve also recommended Death of a Nobody and Murder Quadrille (this is why I think I’m getting repetitive with my love of Fahrenheit, but honestly, so many good books) that’s five there – even if you only buy the first Sam Jones book and not the series… And if you’re still not sure, both Sparkle Shot and Barista’s Guide to Espionage would be good books to read if you’ve read Stephanie Plum or any of the other Janet Evanovich thriller series and are looking for where to go next. And on that encouragement to buy books I’ll go away before I buy more myself.
I am not a reader of Award-Winning Books. See my posts here and here for proof of this — and I don’t think the situation has improved much in the last two years. But some times you hear so much buzz and chatter about a book that you have to check it out. Particularly when you luck into a copy of said book. And Colson Whitehead’s the Underground Railroad was one of those books. I’d heard everybody on the Bookriot podcasts that I listen to talking about how excited they were for something new from Whitehead – and then about how brilliant it was. It kept popping up in lists of hotly anticipated books. It was an Oprah Bookclub pick. It was on President Obama’s summer reading list.
I apologise for my lousy photography, but I really like the cover – with the train tracks snaking around.
The Underground Railroad tells the story of Cora, a slave on a brutal cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is more terrible than you can imagine, especially for Cora who is an outcast among her fellow Africans. When Caesar, a recent arrival at the plantation suggests that they escape together, they take a terrifying risk to try and get to the Underground Railroad. But it doesn’t go according to plan, and Cora’s journey is fraught with dangers as there are hunters after them, dogging their every move. In Whitehead’s world the railroad is real – actual trains in tunnels under the southern states with a network of drivers and conductors ferrying runaways to safety.
This is such a powerful book. It’s beautifully written, but oh so difficult to read – I’ve had to take it in bite-sized chunks so that I can digest it properly – but it’s worth it. It makes you confront harsh and terrible truths about what people have done to each other and are capable of doing to each other. But it’s also compelling and personal and page turning and clever. Whatever I say here, I won’t be able to do it justice. I still haven’t finished digesting it and I’m going to be thinking about it for some time to come. It’s going to win all the awards – and it deserves to. It’s already won the National Book Award in the US and is Amazon.com editor’s Number 1 Book of the Year. In years to come it’s going to be on English Literature syllabuses. Well, well, well worth your time.
I would expect this to be somewhere prominent on a table or on a front facing shelf in bookshops. It’s in hardback at the moment – and you can get it from Amazon (out of stock at time of writing, which says a lot), Waterstones and Foyles and on Kindle and Kobo. It might make it into the supermarkets, but I’d be surprised. The paperback is out in June. I’m off to read some more of Whitehead’s work.
A quite while back now (September, yikes) I had a little look ahead to some of the books that I was excited about this autumn. And now I’ve read a few of my picks, I thought it was time to give you an update in the form of a bonus post…
Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple(6 October)
I was worried about hating this, but this is neither good Semple or bad Semple – it’s somewhere in between. But the good news here, is that I’ve worked out what I like about Maria Semple’s writing and what I don’t. I don’t like being inside the head of her female leads – they’re self-centred, middle-aged quirky-to-the-point-of-irritation and they drive me crazy. But viewed through the eyes of someone else (more normal) they can be funny and touching. And that’s why I liked …Bernadette – because she’s not there for most of the time and it’s Bee who’s trying to work out what’s going on. This didn’t make me tear my hair out like This One is Mine did, but it did make me vaguely annoyed. So lesson for the future: if Semple’s next book is written from the perspective of a woman with children then I won’t bother reading it.
The Wangs vs The World by Jade Chang(3 November)
Well I liked this, but I didn’t love it. May be I was reading it too soon after Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians, or maybe the fractured elbow was impeding my sense of humour. I think my problem is that there wasn’t a family member that I loved – and I wanted to fall in love with one (or more of them). Each of them has a frustration (or two) about them which stopped me from embracing this as fully as some of the people I’ve heard recommending it have. It’s a good road trip book and it was funny in places, but it wasn’t hilarious. And I really wanted it to be.
The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch(3 November)
I loved this so much. So much. There’s magic, and the super-rich and posh school kids and all sorts of new complications. If you like the other books in the series, I suspect you’ll like this – but the overarching story is not finished yet and there is a frustration that comes with that, along with a delight that there should/will be more from Peter and the Folly. I read it too quickly – once I started reading it that is – and now I suspect I may have a long wait until the next installment appears. I’ll have to console myself with the graphic novels in the interim.
I still haven’t read Where Am I Now? by Mara Wilson(22 September) or How to Party with an Infant by Kuai Hart Hemmings(8 September) because I haven’t managed to get copies of them yet, but I live in hope that one or both of them may appear in my Christmas stocking…
This may well be a slightly shorter than usual BotW post – the dodgy elbow is making typing hurt and I’m not sure I’m at my finest. But I’m going to give it a go because this was hands down my favourite book that I finished last week and it deserves a big old mention here.
This a collection of the best bits of advice from the Dear Coquette blog which I happened upon felicitously at a time when I needed a pep talk and cheering up. It did a marvelous job of both – and there is now a waiting list to borrow my copy. I got told off by The Boy for reading too much of it out loud to him because “there’ll be nothing left for me to read myself”. A few selected quotes also went down a storm on Litsy and on Twitter.
Most of the advice in here is about relationships in their various forms – the book is split into sections – on things like love, family and dating. The Coquette is smart, witty, brutally honest and very, very frank. It’s like the advice you wish your friends would give you, but would be too afraid to hand out yourself in return. I don’t always agree with the Coquette’s world view, but it’s always well argued and thought provoking.
I’m not sure I’ll be lending my copy to my mum (not that she’s asked for it yet) but I can see myself giving this as a Christmas book to a few people who I think might appreciate The Coquette’s view of the world. My copy was a proof copy (which the Coquette said she was mortified it still existed on Twitter!), but you can get a shiny proper hardback copy now – get it from Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles or on Kindle or Kobo. The paperback is out in April.
