Not the longest list this week – but some of the stuff I didn’t finish is quite long. Also the Euros are on and there was Formula One and MotoGP at the weekend. And the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders documentary on Netflix… and that’s all before you get to the wonderful weather!
As I said yesterday, in a rare turn of events, I read all of the physical books I took on holiday with me, and this was one of them – an airport sized paperback version in case you can’t tell from the photo.
This is a potted history of how Formula One came to its current moment – massively popular and finally breaking America for the first time, in part thanks to the Netflix series Drive to Survive. This takes you through the many evolutions of the sport, to explain how the sport evolved into the sport-entertainment behemoth that it is today. The authors are journalists from the Wall Street Journal – who have previously broken down (in book form) the global success of the English Premier League. This is not a history of who won what and when – it’s a look at the evolution of the sport, the key characters and moments and particularly the business of F1.
Now regular readers will know that I’m a big motorsports fan, and Formula One is the series that I’ve been watching the longest* and I know a fair bit about it because I live with a massive petrol head who has been a subscriber to F1 Racing/GP Racing for about 20 years. I’ve watched with interest over the last few years the changes that have happened in the sport since Bernie Ecclestone was deposed from his throne as puppet master in Chief and new fans have arrived in the sport – including my own sister, who despite growing up in the same household as me, has never previously been interested in the sport – and still doesn’t watch the races, she just watches Drive to Survive when it comes out.
And this is a book aimed at fans like my sister (although maybe not my sister, because she’s heard me tell some of these stories before!), who are new to the sport and want to understand a bit more of the history and the personalities. I didn’t learn a lot that I didn’t already know, but I wasn’t expecting to – and it was all put together incredibly well and in a really readable way. I was interested in what stayed in and what got left out – I’m not sure Graham Hill got a mention, and neither really did the trend of the driver pool becoming ever more dominated by sons of previous drivers.
But that’s not what this book is here to do – it’s going to talk you through how the sport started, how Bernie Ecclestone took control of it and made himself a billionaire, the geniuses who have designed the cars that changed the sport – and how it all came together at the perfect moment when the series of Drive to Survive covering the 2019 season hit Netflix just before Covid hit and the world shut down. It briefly touches on the way fears that some people have about the Netflix-isation of the sport, but doesn’t go into the realms of speculation about what might happen next – for which I am thankful!
Him Indoors hasn’t read it yet – and I await his verdict when he does, because he knows the history more than I do and will undoubtedly spot some errors – but the only glaring one I spotted was late on when they described the famously Finnish Valtteri Bottas as Estonian – which given how his most famous Drive to Survive moment is probably the one where he’s naked in a Sauna (and he’s posted another Sauna videos on Instagram just three days ago as I write this) and he’s the latest in a long line of Finnish F1 drivers (many of them quirky) and Estonia to my knowledge has never had an F1 driver is a bit of a howler, but I’ll forgive them (as long as they fix it in the paperback!)
My copy came from the airport bookshop, but it’s out now in hardback if you’re not at the airport – my hometown Waterstones has click and collect copies available so you should find it pretty easily – as well as on Kindle and Kobo.
*I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the three things I watched on TV with my dad when I was little were Formula One, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Worzel Gummidge. How many episodes of Worzel we actually watched I don’t know, but it stuck in my head. The other two, we watched a lot.
An eclectic selection this month. There are two Lumberjanes that I somehow didn’t get when they first came out, the two books I bought on the way to Lagos, the first Cesare Aldo which I ordered second hand after reading the first on holiday in April, a non-MaisieJacqueline Winspear and a Lauren Willig that I preordered ages ago and seems to have only just become available in paperback in the UK.
And what I realised after I took this photo is that – despite the fact that there is one Winspear in here so it should have jogged my memory, I forgot to include the final Maisie Dobbs in it. Now is that because I genuinely forgot or because my brain didn’t want to admit that I’d walked down to Waterstones Piccadilly on release day to buy it – and it a hardback at full price too. Thank goodness for a £10 Waterstones loyalty card reward. Even if that means I’ve already spent a lot of money there. And it’s not even the only bookshop I use…
Last week was a bumper week of new romance releases, and Annabel Monaghan’s new book was one of them. And this choice may not be a surprise to those of you who study the reading lists each Monday.
Ali’s mum died two years ago, a year later her husband left her and she’s been trying to keep her head above water ever since juggling her kids and her career as a professional organiser. But the first time she put proper clothes (ie not joggers and a baggy t shirt) on in months to take the dog to the dog park she meets a man who she is fairly sure is flirting with her. And the more she gets to know Ethan, the more she likes him. But he’s only in town for the summer, so it’s just a summer romance – isn’t it?
As you may remember, I really loved Nora Goes off Script – but I didn’t like Monaghan’s follow up last year the same way. This however was a lovely return to what I wanted. It’s pretty low stakes and low conflict between the romantic leads, but there is plenty of stuff to work through for the heroine to get her happy ending. And I was rooting for her the whole time. My only real complaint is that I wanted more comeuppance for Ali’s ex husband for being so horrid and dismissive of her. But she’s definitely the winner in the end – and she does it for herself too, not because Ethan makes it happens for her – which is my biggest gripe with the Legally Blonde musical vs the film and I can rant at you about that all day if you set me going!
I had a copy of Summer Romance pre-ordered (although I also got approved for it on NetGalley on release day!) and it’s out now on Kindle and Kobo for your summer enjoyment.
Well that was a week. I’m trying to get ahead on my summer reading so I can recommend some of them but there’s just so much good stuff. And yes I did buy the final Maisie Dobbs, on release day, in hardback – but I am trying to pace myself with it so it’s not over too soon. And given that it is a hardback and I don’t want to wreck it, that may be easier than if I had bought the kindle version!
I’m hoping I’m getting into my summer reading stride. Of course it could all go terribly wrong – and it frequently has in the past – but I’m choosing to be optimistic. I think the weird and unpredictable weather has helped with this, because when it’s not sunny outside it’s nice to read summer-y books to hope that the nice (but hopefully not too boiling) weather is coming soon.
Most read author: Margery Allingham because of the ebooks
Books bought: 5 books and 6 ebooks and one preorder
Books read in 2024: 171
Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 740
I’m going to call this the month of Kindle Unlimited, because it’s true really. I’ve read so much from there this month for various reasons, but it’s really justified its subscription price.
Bonus picture: another Lagos picture. Not that you can really tell!
*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including 8 this month!
Honestly this post has made me laugh. I had a whole thing written about this book and I was just waiting for it to publish so I could grab a good picture of the cover. And then I read the whole sample while I was doing that and had a whole conversation with a friend about whether I could break my rule about how much I pay for kindle books to buy it so I could keep reading. The verdict was no, so I bought the paperback instead which hopefully I’ll get so I can read this over the weekend. And yes, the paperback was more expensive than the kindle but it’s a real thing I can own forever if I want. Anyway, this is a new book from the author of The Other Typist, but where that was historical suspense-y, this is a romance novel being described as “You’ve Got Mail for a new generation” and if that and my poor impulse control doesn’t convince you to buy it then I don’t know what will!
After last week’s post with the notable sequels this summer, it seems only fair to also do the other books I’m looking forward to this summer – or expecting to see all over the place – because it’s nearly June and a lot of them are about to appear.
Let’s start with Welcome to Glorious Tuga by Francesca Segal, which is out on June 6, has a tortoise on the cover and is about a zoologist who takes up a fellowship on a remote island ostensibly to study an endangered species, but actually also because she has a secret that connects her to the island. It has blurbs from Marian Keynes, Nick Hornby, Jessie Burton, Naomi Alderman and more so I feel confident in predicting you’ll be seeing this around a lot this summer.
Another book I’m confident to predict is going to be all over the place is the new novel from Kevin Kwan, the author of Crazy Rich Asians. Lies and Weddings follows a former model and future earl with a cash flow problem and on the hunt for a rich woman to seduce at his sister’s wedding to solve it. But nothing goes to plan and the write up promises money, murder, sex and lies in locations like Hawaii, Marrakesh and Beverley Hills. Expect to see this on a lot of sun loungers from late June.
Heading into July, I think Chris Brookmyre’s The Cracked Mirror might be the poolside book for the crime readers. The blurb promises a mashup of Agatha Christie and something more hard boiled as an elderly lady who solves murders in her village crossed paths with an LAPD homicide detective who will do whatever it takes to get to the truth. I’m interested to see this – although given my reading preferences I’ll need it to be closer to the Marple end of the gruesome scale!
In August we have a new Rainbow Rowell novel which is always exciting. Slow Dance is the story of star crossed best friends who everyone thinks should be together except each other. Emma Straub and Gabrielle Zevin have blurbed this one if that helps you figure out where we’re at – but it feels like it’s been a while since a proper Rowell adult novel so I’m excited.
And finally jumping back to the near future and something that I’ve already started, there’s a new novel coming from Kirsty Greenwood in late June. I used to review (occasionally) for Kirsty’s old site Novelicious in the early days of this blog, and she writes romantic novels that are also very funny. The Love of My Afterlife has a heroine who wakes up in the waiting room for the afterlife only to run into the most handsome man she’s ever met – and he seems to be into her. Then whoosh – he’s gone again and Delphie is offered a ten day return to earth to try and get him to fall in love with her and win a second chance at life. I’m about halfway through as I write this and it’s so much fun!
And that’s your lot – but I’m fairly confident that even if you don’t read them yourself, you’ll spot at least a couple of these four out in the wild over the next few months!
As I said yesterday, it was a busy week last week, but I did have time to finish The Reunion – which I started before the Lagos trip, but couldn’t take with me because I was too far through to make it worth it. And given how much I enjoyed it, it was an obvious choice for today’s pick.
Liv is an actress working in LA. As a teenager, she was star of a wildly popular TV show – Girl on the Verge – and she spent a lot of her teenage years having to live up to and in the shadow of her character on the show. Now it’s twenty years since the show’s premiere and a streaming service is getting the original cast back together for a reunion episode. The fans are excited to see some unfinished business from the original finale resolved, but for Liv, it’s about seeing Ransom Joel again. He was her character’s love interest on the show – and her best friend and confidante in real life. But as the show ended he told her he needed space from her and left her reeling. Once they’re back on set together, they fall back into their old habits – but can this time have a different ending?
If you watched any of the WB shows back in the day, you’ll understand what this is trying to evoke – and there have been enough old tv shows getting reunions like this since the advent of the streaming services that it all feels pretty plausible. I was a teenager in the heyday of these sorts of series so I was a total sucker for the premise of this, but The Reunion has the worrying words “a novel” on the front – which can sometimes mean “we’ve written a blurb that suggests it’s a romance novel, but don’t get your hopes up for a happy ending” so I was slightly apprehensive going into this. But I think in this case, “a novel” is warning you more that this is about Liv and how she grows and develops as much as it is about her relationship with Ransom. There is not a lot of tension in their relationship – and when there was an issue, I had the culprit pegged pretty fast. But I still enjoyed it – I’m at a place at the moment where I don’t really want high angst and drama in my reading, so a meander through the life of an actress and a reunion of a show that reminded me a lot of the sort of thing that I used to watch was pretty perfect for me at the moment.
This looks like Kayla Olsen’s first book in this sort of area – I see some dystopian future type stuff on her good reads page, but nothing else giving these sorts of vibes – so I hope she does more because this was a really nice way to spend a few hours. My copy of The Reunion came from Foyles (in store, although they claim to have no click and collect copies at the moment), but it’s also on Kindle and Kobo.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 