Tag: books

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: Mona of the Manor

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I wonder how many of you predicted that this would be today’s choice when you saw the list yesterday? Yes, it is breaking a rule because it’s the tenth in a series, but I think you absolutely can read this one standalone, although obviously you’ll get more out of it if you’ve read the others.

It’s the 1990s and we’re in the English countryside. Yes, this is filling in a gap in the series and we’re finally going to find out what Mona got up to in Britain after she inherited a stately home from her husband. Of course it’s all a little more complicated than that, but that’s the bare bones of how she ended up running a hotel – of sorts – in order to keep the bills paid and avoid having to sell up. At the start of the novel, while Mona and her adopted son are looking forward to a visit from the San Francisco contingent, they welcome a couple from the US and it all gets a little complicated and they have to sort it all out before Michael arrives.

Not going to lie, reading this was a treat that I had been saving myself and I just couldn’t wait any longer. I love this world and I love Maupin’s writing, and it was lovely to go back in time and get some more of them in their younger glory. And there are some nice nods in this to earlier books – and some bits of 90s culture that Maupin would have had to disguise or fictionalise at the time (if he’d known about them) but can now just put in there. This isn’t as interwoven with the events of the time as the original few books were – but that’s only to be expected when they’re no longer being written contemporaneously with the events themselves. If you like the series, I don’t think this will disappoint. If you’ve never read them before then it’s not a bad place to jump in – but you could always just start at the beginning and slot this in in its chronological spot in the series.

You should be able to get this in any good bookshop – I think they’ve even put the paperbacks out in new editions to match this one, which is nice but also annoying because now my set matches even less. I’ll cope though I’m sure! And of course it’s on kindle and kobo too

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: April 29 – May 5

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Did I go on a bit of a binge of Ovidia Yu’s Crown Colony/Su Lin series, why yes. Should I have been reading other things? Probably. Am I sorry? Not at all. And it was a pretty busy week too. And it’s only getting busier over the next few weeks too, so we’ll see how that goes.

Read:

The Truth by Terry Pratchett

The Mimosa Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu

The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham

Diva by Daisy Goodwin*

The Cannonball Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu

Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham

The Mushroom Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu

Mona of the Manor by Armistead Maupin

Started:

n/a

Still reading:

Sovereign by C J Sansom

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Seven books bought – mostly because of writing the offers post – and one preorder arrived.

Bonus picture: Sunday gardening. This bag doesn’t look that big on the photo, but it’s actually huge, and yet despite that the garden doesn’t look that much better. Never mind.

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

books

Books in the Wild: Tuscany edition!

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Of course I went wandering in the bookshops while we were in Italy. Why wouldn’t it. And here is the first part of the results of my market research. This is one is in Pistoia and is part of a chain. I went into a couple of them and they were all in charming buildings. Now whether that’s because they like that aesthetic or because Tuscany is full of amazing buildings, I don’t know. Anyway, I appreciated the pretty locations.

Can I start with how much I love the fact that romance is called pink literature? Crime is called yellow literature so it just made me smile. And this bookshop had loads of them – in Italian and English.

There are also plenty of examples of English covers being used in translated editions in the romance and in the woman’s fiction sections – Lucy Score, Colleen Hoover, Taylor Jenkins Reid and more.

I’m not quite sure why the translated Mia Sosa is in the English language section, but there were plenty of options for the English-reader abroad – with a strong long in Italian-set books – Elena Ferrante, Hotel Portofino, Murder Under a Tuscan Sky, Italian-set romance novels, non fiction books about Italy.

And finally is it even a bookshop these days without a TikTok/BookTok mention somewhere! Of course it’s not…

Happy Saturday.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: April 22 – April 28

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We’re hurtling towards the end of April and I’m still not entirely sure how that happened. Anyway all the usual end of month stuff coming up, but for once I have already finished all the new releases this month that I had got from NetGalley. I’m not sure when the last time that happened was, and when you add to that the fact that I’ve also finished the May requests too and it’s really unusual. What I haven’t done is got the list of ongoing books down – because I got a bit distracted by the exciting new releases. Still you win some, you lose some!

Read:

Tied up in Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh

The Breakup Tour by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz*

Funny Story by Emily Henry*

The Lifeline by Libby Page*

Fake Flame by Adele Buck*

Vanishing Point by Patricia Wentworth

Miffed in Maine by Patti Benning

Started:

Sovereign by C J Sansom

Still reading:

The Mimosa Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu

Diva by Daisy Goodwin*

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

No books bought. Another minor miracle.

Bonus picture: it’s wisteria season again! There were loads of them in Italy, but they’re also coming into bloom on the building I walk past on the way to work.

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

books, bookshops

Bookshop visit: Óbidos Part 2

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Last week I said there was more from Óbidos and so here it is!

This is the Livraria do Mercado, which is a bookshop and an organic market. I have no idea what the proportion of books to produce is when it comes to sales, but in terms of the look of the place, it’s mostly books!

I also have no idea what how the prices for the produce stack up compared to in the other stores, but it seemed to be good quality and I know I’d be happy to buy my veggies in a bookshop – after all I’ve done my fair share of book buying in supermarkets over the years, and this is definitely the better way around!

It’s mostly Portuguese books (obviously) but they have also got a section with foreign language novels – including lots of Portuguese authors in translation and, in English at least, some very random secondhand books!

You’ve already seen this one, but this is the book exchange – and this is all English books (or the vast majority anyway). It’s run by volunteers who have moved to the area and raises money for local charities. As you know, I picked up a few books while I was there!

And that’s it! Have a great weekend and I hope you have a comfy spot and a good book to read in it!

books, mystery, series

Mystery series: Hawthorne and Horowitz

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Happy Friday everyone, I said last Friday that I thought that we were about to go on a bit of a run of crime series posts, and here we are with it

I’ve mentioned this series before, but as the fifth book is out now – and I’ve read it – the time seems right to do a bit of a recap. This is Anthony Horowitz’s mystery series where a fictionalised version of himself is working with Nathanial Hawthorne, an ex-policeman turned private investigator, to write what turns into a series of books about murder investigations Hawthorne has worked on. Book-Horowitz fits in these true crime books alongside his other work – writing novels, working on TV series, promoting his work – and often this leads to more crimes to investigate.

Hawthorn is a mysterious character – we are told the circumstances surrounding his departure from the police force, but not by him and any details about his life he does give up to BookHorowitz are done grudgingly or when his hand is forced. BookHorowitz is a Captain Hastings figure – stumbling through cases, drawing all the wrong conclusions but often thinking he is doing better than Hawthorne.

The first four books in the series have been written in the first person – but the new book is a bit of a departure, with BookHorowitz fulfilling a publishing contract by writing about one of Hawthorne’s prior cases, and giving us sections in the third person from the “book” and then first person sections as BookHorowitz goes through the process of finding out the details about the case – and about some new developments in the backstory.

Once I get going with these (and that usually means I need to actually sit down and get at least 50 pages in), they’re incredibly easy to read, and I really appreciate the meta-ness of it all as Horowitz weaves the fiction into his real biography. And I love how bumbling he makes himself – it’s fun and funny to read. As I said last week, I’m still hoping that he’ll write another Magpie Murder, but I’ll happily accept more in this series!

I would definitely start at the beginning if you’re going to read these – you don’t need to have read the others to follow the new one, but you’ll definitely get more out of it if you do. And they should be fairly easy to get hold of – the new one was in the airport bookshop last week and I fairly frequently see them on the tables in Waterstones and Foyles. And obviously they’re on Kindle and Kobo and audiobook too. Just watch out – because we’ve had a couple of different cover designs now, so you might find a few different styles out there if you’re looking at the paperbacks.

Happy Friday everyone.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: April 15 – April 21

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We’ve been on holiday, but it was a sightseeing and doing things sort of holiday, not a lying on a sun lounger one, so the book list isn’t quite what you might expect from a holiday week. But I had a wonderful time and I don’t care. No idea what I’m writing about tomorrow though. I’m sure something will come to me though. It usually does. Given that Taylor Swift has a new album out I should probably have tried harder to finish The Breakup Tour right?

Read:

When in Rome by Ngaio Marsh

Busted in Boston by Patti Benning

The Lantern’s Dance by Laurie R King

They do it with Mirrors by Agatha Christie

The Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

The Darkest Sin by D V Bishop

Started:

Diva by Daisy Goodwin*

The Mimosa Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu

Still reading:

Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz*

The Breakup Tour by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

None. So that’s something right?

Bonus picture: Tuscany. Just wonderful

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

books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Books with Farms or the countryside

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Last week we said goodbye to one of my aunties. She spent her whole life living on farms and in the countryside, so it got me thinking about books set in farms or in the countryside, so that’s what I’m theming today’s Recommendsday around.

Firstly I’m going to mention an Enid Blyton book, The Children of Willow Farm, because when I read this as a child, it was how I imagined life on the farm my aunties lived on was like when they were little. I’m going to admit I haven’t read it as an adult, and I know that a lot of people say Blyton doesn’t stand up when you go back to it as an adult, but I don’t care.

Also in the same sort of era in terms of when they were written are the James Heriot books – that’s spawned the tv series All Creatures Great and Small. I’ve read or listened to a few of them and they are a glimpse into a Yorkshire of times gone by. Do note if you’ve seen the most recent TV series that it’s based on the characters not the plots once you get past the first couple of seasons.

You could also have Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm from this era – I really loved it – and it’s got a great TV movie adaptation featuring young Rufus Sewell in it that’s just been repeated on BBC Four and should be on the iPlayer if you want a dose of Sexy Seth. Even older is Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd, which has as its heroine a lady farmer. I read it back in my school days when I was assigned extra reading by by English teacher and I found it much less annoying than a lot of the rest of that list.

A few years before that particular bout of assigned reading I read Flora Thompson’s Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy which are all about country life at the end of the nineteenth century – and set not that far away from where the actual bits of my family who were farmers really were.

If you want countryside-set murder mysteries, then I’ve written a whole post about the Lady Hardcastle series – and I think we’re due another one in the not too distant future too. If you want romance, there are a good few of the older Katie Fforde’s and Trisha Ashley’s set in various parts of the English countryside – Ashley is usually Lancashire and Fforde the Cotswolds.

And that’s all I’ve got. But I’ve enjoyed thinking about options for this and it made me smile too which I needed

Happy Wednesday everyone.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: April 8 – April 14

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It appears that reading the Lucy Worsley Agatha Christie biography has started me on a Christie re-read/listen. And then having read one of the Ann Grangers I had in hand the other week, I then promptly mainlined the other two – there is another one coming out this year – but not until the autumn so now I have to wait. I did however make some excellent progress on reducing the long runner list – more than you would guess from the list too. I will get there in the end! Interestingly though, I still don’t know what I’m going to write about tomorrow. We’ll see what happens…

Read:

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie

Rooted in Evil by Ann Granger

The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie

Deleted in the District by Patti Benning

A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie

A Matter of Murder by Ann Granger

Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date by Ashley Herring Blake

How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang*

Started:

Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz*

Still reading:

The Breakup Tour by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

The Lantern’s Dance by Laurie R King

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

One ebook (for little sister) and two book-books. Restrained!

Bonus picture: my new house plant. Aren’t these leaves amazing?

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