Tag: books

Authors I love, books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: November 1 – November 7

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Such a busy week. And sort of more like the old days in some ways, in that I stayed three nights down in London – except that the nights were in a Travelodge not a Youth Hostel (the hostels are still doing one booking one room and the only room they had left had 8 beds so the hotel was cheaper!) and there were two parties in the evenings. Less like the old days in that I managed to fall over on Wednesday lunchtime and turn one ankle over and graze the opposite knee, leaving me with one ankle larger than the other, a limp and the laughter of the builders who saw it happen ringing in my ears. Still at least my tights weren’t ruined – that would have made my embarrassment even more acute. It turns out there is something to be said for expensive opaques after all. Any way, all the partying had a bit of an effect on the reading. Never mind, at least nothing is broken. Oh and if you missed them last week – don’t forget the Mini Reviews from October!

Read:

The Witness at the Wedding by Simon Brett

Crazy Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

A Surprise for Christmas edited by Martin Edwards

Isn’t it Bromantic by Lyssa Kay Adams

A Cup of Joe by Annabeth Adams

Started:

The Stabbing at the Stables by Simon Brett

These Names Make Clues by E R C Lorac

Still reading:

Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson

Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne*

Nothing – except for an ebook copy of The Unknown Ajax, which I already own in paperback, hardback and audiobook so can hardly be said to count…

Bonus photo: I could have used a picture of my injured ankle, but no one wants to see my Foot of Many Colours, so instead, here’s my Sunday night out at Jools Holland – a gig I booked two years ago and that should have happened a year ago but also the reason why I didn’t finish These Names Are Clues on Sunday…

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

 

Authors I love, books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 25 – October 31

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So I’m getting there on getting that still reading list down. The sticking points are the ones with physical copies – and the fact that my bag is full enough for the commute without adding one of them in. Excuses, excuses. And as today is the first of the month, a bumper crop of posts this week – we have Book of the Week tomorrow, mini reviews on Wednesday and October Stats on Thursday. Check me out with the organisation. I both love and hate when the first of the month falls on a Monday.

Read:

Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi*

All The Feels by Olivia Dade

The Black Pages by Nnedi Okorafor

Stealing the Crown by T P Fielden

The Hanging in the Hotel by Simon Brett

Pirate King by Laurie R King

Index, A History of the by Dennis Duncan*

2043: Merman I Should Turn to Be by Nisi Shawl

Started:

The Witness at the Wedding by Simon Brett

Crazy Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

Still reading:

Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson

Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne*

A pre-order arrived – but I don’t think I actually bought anything…

Bonus photo: a misty Tuesday morning in London last week – as previously mentioned, this is Fitzroy Square – sometime home to the offices of Maisie Dobbs in Jaqueline Winspear’s series.

Fitzroy Square in London

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

 

Authors I love, books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 18 – October 24

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Am I reading the Fetherings series at a pace that looks like it could be a classic Verity Binge? Why yes. Should I be reading other stuff? Almost certainly. Do I care? Well, slightly, but not enough to exert any will power! Another busy week as well – with two more trips to the theatre (!) and a bit of socialising too. How did I use to fit all this in?!

Read:

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman*

The Torso in the Town by Simon Brett

One More Christmas at the Castle by Trisha Ashley*

Murder in the Museum by Simon Brett

Peggy of the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent Dyer

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Marilyn Monroe by FX Feeney

Started:

The Hanging in the Hotel by Simon Brett

Stealing the Crown by T P Fielden

Still reading:

Index, A History of the by Dennis Duncan*

Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson

Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne*

Pirate King by Laurie R King

I mean I was going to say that I bought less books than last week, but that might be a lie, as I put in two more preorders, the Chalet School on the list was a preorder that I ended up reading straight away and another preoreder arrived to. And on top of that it was a good week for cheap kindle books…

Bonus photo: This is from &Juliet on Monday night, which was truly the most astounding musical I have seen in a long time. I have a lot of thoughts, upper most of which is that I need to go again because David Bedella was off when we saw it!

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

 

Authors I love, books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 11 – October 17

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Did I finish all the books I had on the go from last week? No. Did I make progress on them? Yes. Did I spent a weekend in London doing activities rather than on my sofa reading? Absolutely. I regret nothing. I’ve absolutely had a blast.

Read:

A Time to Die by Hilda Lawrence*

Death on the Downs by Simon Brett

Fear in the Sunlight by Nicola Upson

The Visit by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is Your Time by Ruby Bridges

Started:

The Torso in the Town by Simon Brett

Still reading:

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman*

Index, A History of the by Dennis Duncan*

Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson

Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne*

Pirate King by Laurie R King

One More Christmas at the Castle by Trisha Ashley*

Four actual books because I went into many bookshops and ended up buying stuff in the British Library shop, Skoob books and Foyles. And a few ebooks as well earlier in the week. What can I say. I just can’t help myself.

Bonus photo: one of the real life things I did was the Paddington exhibition at the British Library which I thoroughly thoroughly recommend. And the theatre was good too.

A model Paddington sitting outside the door to Windsor gardens

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

 

Book of the Week, cozy crime, detective

Book of the Week: The Body on the Beach

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Despite all the books I really ought to be finishing, I started a new series last week and it was fun so that made my choice today easier – because the other option was V for Vengeance and not only have I written about Kinsey Milhone before, I’m nearing the end of the series and I feel a series I love post on that in my future!

Carole Sedden is sensible. She makes sensible decisions about what to do with her sensible retirement from her sensible house in the desirable but slightly insular village of Fethering on the south coast. She doesn’t want to get drawn into the petty rivalries of her neighbours or draw too much attention to herself. Her new neighbour Jude is clearly not a sensible person. She wears clothes that waft and encourages visits to the pub and day drinking. Carole isn’t going to encourage her. Except that Carole found a body on the beach while she took her dog on it’s morning walk, the police can’t find the body and don’t believe her and a woman has turned up at her house and waved a gun at her. She’s not quite sure why she told Jude about it, but soon the two of them are investigating the (potential) murder and Carole is doing some very un-sensible things indeed!

So I was recommended this as a “if you like Richard Osman try this” series* and I would say that that’s not a bad call. They predate the Thursday Murder Club series by about twenty years and the protagonists are not quite as old, but this is a fun and clever mystery with two interesting central characters and a cast of eccentric secondary characters. I love Simon Brett’s Charles Paris series, and they have a similar sense of humour in the writing style, although Carole is nothing like the probably alcoholic, grass is always greener, not as successful as he would like Charles. But if you like Charles, definitely try these.

The Body on the Beach is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment and also available on Kobo. If you want a paperback, you’ll probably have to dig around a bit or go second hand (or both!

Happy Reading!

*yes I am aware of the irony of reading this start to finish whilst not having finished the new Richard Osman, but there are a lot of these in the series and I’ll have to wait another year for the next Osman.

Authors I love, books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 4 – October 10

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Am I making progress at finishing the books I started on holiday? Well sort of, but not in anyway you can tell from this post. Is it stopping me starting other new stuff? Absolutely not. Is the list of books on the go getting out of hand? Just a touch. Did I also end up listening to sections of audiobooks I’ve listened to many times before? Yes absolutely (Gaudy Night, Crocodile on the Sandbank, Busman’s Honeymoon). Welcome to my (reading) life. 

Read:

V for Vengence by Sue Grafton

Death of a Tin God by George Bellairs*

The Littlest Guide by C R Mansell

The Body on the Beach by Simon Brett

Lila by Naima Coster

Started:

One More Christmas at the Castle by Trisha Ashley*

A Time to Die by Hilda Lawrence*

Still reading:

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman*

Index, A History of the by Dennis Duncan*

Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson

Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne*

Pirate King by Laurie R King

Bonus photo: I’m attempting to develop green fingers. I’m having mixed success, but have a picture of my downstairs window sill, where I’m attempting to sprout (is that the right word?) a baby spider plant from Cecil the Spider Plant, and an aloe vera that I’ve managed to keep alive for long enough that I’ve just ordered a fancy pot for it to live in – which is tempting fate to an extraordinary degree.

A baby spiderplant in water and a small aloe vera plant on a window sill.

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

 

Book of the Week, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: Ambush or Adore

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I’m going to start this review with an apology: Ambush or Adore is a fan service piece from Gail Carriger, so really it will only work for you if you’ve already read a lot of Gail Carriger’s works. But it was also the only book I read last week that made me cry and it was the book I enjoyed the most. So sorry to the rest of you – but you have mini reviews coming up tomorrow to help ease your pain and if reading this makes you want to read some of the Carrigerverse I will provide pointers on that at the end.

Agatha Woosnoss is the greatest intelligence gatherer of her generation, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her. In fact, so skilled is she that you probably wouldn’t be able to find her in the room to look at her, even if you knew she was there. Pillover Plumleigh-Teignmott is a professor of ancient languages at Oxford. He’s also probably the only person who has always seen Agatha, even if she doesn’t realise it. Ambush or Adore spans more than forty years and follows these two from school through Middle Age, so you can see what happened to them after Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Academy crashed.

If you don’t know what Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Academy was (or how it was able to crash) this book probably isn’t going to be for you. Yes it’s a slightly star crossed friends to lovers story across the decades but really this is for the fans. It starts with the flight home at the end of Reticence, skips back to the end of Manners and Mutiny and fills in the gaps of what happened to two members of the Finishing School posse across the course of the entire Parasol Protectorate and Custard Protocol Series. There are guest appearances from everyone’s favourite vampire* and some of the other finishing school crew. There are references to the ones you don’t see. There are nods to the events of the series. It has pretty much everything I wanted and I loved it. As I said at the top, it made me cry with all the heartache and yearning but it’s also incredibly tender and there is such a satisfying resolution to it all.

I had my copy of Ambush and Adore preordered but you can buy direct from Gail Carriger as well as from Kindle and Kobo and the audiobook will arrive some time in the near future.. There is no physical edition at the moment, but it will be included in a hardcover omnibus of the Delightfully Deadly series that it’s a part of early next year. If you have not read any Gail Carriger before and now fancy reading about a steampunk Victorian Britain with vampires, werewolves and a society of lady intelligencers, you have two options: chronological order or publication order. I’ve written a whole post about the series, but in short chronological order puts the Young Adult Finishing School series first, publication see you start with Soulless and the Parasol Protectorate series, then go backwards to Finishing School and then forwards again to Prudence, which is set a decade or so after the end of the Parasol Protectorate. I prefer chronological because you get some delightful reveals, but that may also be because that’s the order I read them in. How can I really tell because things are only a surprise once! Whatever you try it’ll be fun.

Happy Reading!

* Lord Akeldama of course. Who else could possibly be.

Authors I love, books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: September 27 – October 3

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Another busy week in reading and “real” life too. Some interesting stuff read here – and less progress on some of the books that I started on holiday than maybe there should have been. That can be a goal for this week. In case you missed it, the September stats are here and Mini Reviews are coming up on Wednesday.

Read:

Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L Sayers

The Blitz Detective by Mike Hollow*

The Visitor by Dodai Stewart

Say You’ll Stay by Susan Mallery

Hacked by Duncan MacMaster

Ambush or Adore by Gail Carriger

Speed Grieving by Allison Ellis

Started:

V for Vengence by Sue Grafton

Pirate King by Laurie R King

Still reading:

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman*

Index, A History of the by Dennis Duncan*

Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson

Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne*

Bonus photo: After last week’s photos from our holiday, today I’m going for some autumnal Britain – this is somewhere you’ve seen before here – as the leaves start to change and with a slightly stormy sky.

A small river/large stream and surrounding trees and fields

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

 

Authors I love, books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: September 13 – September 19

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Lots of interesting reading last week. Not quite sure what I’m going to write about tomorrow yet either!

Read:

Misfits by Michaela Coel*

The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer

The Cult of We by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell*

Bombshell by Sarah MacLean

Death Treads Softly by George Bellairs

Yes, And by Kristi Coulter

Started:

Traitor King by Andrew Lownie

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman*

Death in High Provence by George Bellairs

Still reading:

A Line to Kill by Anthony Horowitz*

A little Kindle buying spree and a couple of physical books too. But that’s ok. It happens!

Bonus photo: a Tuesday night theatre trip! Only my second show back but it was wonderful on all counts

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

 

Book of the Week, Forgotten books, mystery

Book of the Week: The Secret of High Eldersham

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Back with another murder mystery again this week. It’s another British Crime Classic, but it’s a new to me author so that makes variety right?!

Scotland Yard are called in to investigate the murder of the landlord of a pub in an East Anglian village known for its insular nature and hostility to outsiders. Samuel Whitehead was a stranger to the neighbourhood, but somehow he seemed to be making a reasonable go of it – right up until the point that someone stabbed him in is own bar around closing time one night. Detective Inspector Young is struggling to make inroads in the case, so he calls on a friend and amateur sleuth, Desmond Merrion, to help him solve the murder.

This is the first book by Miles Burton that I’ve read, but it has a number of recognisable Golden Age crime tropes – east Anglia and it’s villages being a bit strange (see also: a fair few Margery Allinghams, but particularly Sweet Danger, Sayers’ The Nine Tailors, the Inspector Littlejohn I read the other week) and of course the gentleman amateur detective. Burton’s Merrion has a military background – but this time it’s the navy, which is useful because there is a lot of sailing in this plot. It’s a bit uneven in places – the focus of the narrative switches abruptly to Merrion from Young, Mavis the love interest is a little bit of a one dimensional Not Like Other Girls character and the secret is, well. But if you’ve read a lot these sort of classic murder mysteries it’s worth a look – to see how someone different tackles all these things. I would read some more of these – partly just to find out what Merrion turns into and see if he evolves the way that some of the other similar characters did (but particularly Campion). The British Crime Library have republished at least one other of these so I’ll keep an eye out.

My copy of The Secret of High Eldersham came via Kindle Unlimited, but it’s also available as a paperback – which you can buy direct from the British Library bookshop as well as the usual sources.

Happy Reading!