I was sunning myself in the south of France all last week, so this is very much a holiday reading list. I had a fabulous time – and read some really good books, of which more to follow…
Read:
Before We Kiss by Susan Mallery
Until We Touch by Susan Mallery
Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovitch
The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective by Susannah Stapleton
The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
An Act of Villainy by Ashley Weaver
The Van Apple Girls Are Gone by Felicity McLean
Fumbled by Alexa Moore
The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey
Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett
Started:
Seduction by Karina Longworth
Crowned and Dangerous by Rhys Bowen
Still reading:
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr
And no books bought. Mostly because our baggage tag got messed up and I spent the whole time we were waiting to leave running around trying to get our mis-tagged suitcase off a flight to Amsterdam and onto our flight to Nice. Not the most relaxing way to start a holiday…
Bonus photo: Monaco baby! Here’s the finishing line and pole position marker from the world’s most famous street circuit. Him Indoors and I are both big motor racing fans, so we walked the circuit as well as stared at the yachts, obscenely expensive cars and designer shops. Luckily for us they were still dismantling things after this year’s race, so we got a bit of a sense of the whole thing.
So it was a bit of a week. Very, very busy at work with the state visit of Donald Trump and really quite tired. So not as much reading as I had hoped. Some good stuff there though.
Read:
Wrong To Need You by Alisha Rai
Hurts To Love You by Alisha Rai
The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas
The Vinyl Detective: Flip Back by Andrew Cartmel
When We Met by Susan Mallery
Started:
The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective by Susannah Stapleton
Before We Kiss by Susan Mallery
Still reading:
The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr
Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett
Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovitch
No books bought! Hurrah!
Bonus photo: a pile of books lent to my sister by here class of year 5s. I’ve read half of them. I officially have the reading taste of a 10 year old girl!
Four nights away from home last week for work and reading time affected accordingly. But I had a good week, even if it did involve getting up at 4.30am for days in a row. This week is Donald Trump’s state visit, so I’m expecting work to be super busy and my reading list to reflect my need for nice relaxing reading!
Read:
The Liar in the Library by Simon Brett
An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole
A Gentleman’s Honour by Stephanie Laurens
Hate To Want You by Alisha Rai
The Hollow of Fear by Sherry Thomas
Riverdale Season 3: FCBD
Doctor Who: Thirteenth Doctor FCBD
Mrs Pargeter’s Package by Simon Brett
Started:
Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett
The Vinyl Detective: Flip Back by Andrew Cartmel
Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovitch
Still reading:
The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr
One book and one ebook bought.
Bonus photo: the orchestra at Man of La Mancha on Tuesday night. They sounded magnificent. I had reservations about other bits of the show, but the music and the orchestra playing it was magnificent.
Another super busy week. Really super, super busy with work and with a bank holiday weekend away on the south coast to see one of my favourite theatre companies do their most acclaimed work to celebrate their twentieth anniversary.
Read:
A Dangerous Collaboration by Deanna Raybourn
A Secret Affair by Mary Balogh
Journey to Munich by Jacqueline Winspear
Swing Vol 1 by Linda Seijic
Trainwreck by Sady Doyle
An Unsuitable Heir by KJ Charles
Secret Weapons #0 by Eric Heisserer
Our Favourite Thing is My Favourite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris
Started:
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr
An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole
Hate To Want You by Alisha Rai
Still reading:
A Gentleman’s Honour by Stephanie Laurens
The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey
The Hollow of Fear by Sherry Thomas
Bonus photo: the set for Spymonkey’s Cooped which was my aforementioned bank holiday weekend treat on Saturday. If it’s coming anywhere near you, you should totally go see it.
So, yes. It’s been one of those weeks. I’ve been super busy and Doris Day died so I’ve been rewatching her films rather than reading. Oh and it was the Eurovision Song Contest which is one of my favourite weeks of the year. What can I say. The reading
Read:
Thanks Obama by David Litt
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
The Condor Crags Adventure by Elinor M Brent Dyer
Archie Vol 1 by Mark Waid
The Bride Test by Helen Hoang
Started:
A Dangerous Collaboration by Deanna Raybourn
The Hollow of Fear by Sherry Thomas
Still reading:
Trainwreck by Sady Doyle
A Gentleman’s Honour by Stephanie Laurens
The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey
One book bought – but it’s the new Vinyl Detective novel, so sorry, not sorry. And thank you Foyles for hanging on to a copy for me after I asked you on Twitter! I picked it up on my way to the Phoenix Arts Club for their Eurovision party after work on Saturday night.
Bonus picture: My frozen Margarita at the aforementioned Phoenix Eurovision party on Saturday night!
Another busy week – because it was the local elections so I got to work on the coverage! But those train journeys meant some good reading time – and then there was a bank holiday weekend at the end. Not bad going at all.
Read:
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujaya Massey
Second Time Sweeter by Beverly Jenkins
A Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole
A Duke in Disguise by Cat Sebastian
Web of Love by Mary Balogh
Out of Time by Katy Monger
Intercepted by Alexa Martin
First Comes Marriage by Mary Balogh
Daily Grind by Anna Zabo
Started:
Lighting the Flames by Sarah Wendell
An Unnatural Vice by K J Charles
Thanks Obama by David Litt
Still reading:
Lies, Damned Lies and History by Jodi Taylor
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Trainwreck by Sady Doyle
Four books – that copy of Bonfire of the Vanities I mentioned in last week’s BotW post and the first three cozy crimes in a series that I spotted in the Oxfam bookshop when I was on my lunchbreak on Friday! Oh and two graphic novels at the Comic Book shop on Free comics day too..
Bonus picture: My view from results duty on Friday!
It’s the last day of the month, and that means a stats post tomorrow, but before we get to that, here’s another Book of the Week post for you! Today’s pick may have taken me a while to finish – but it was an absolutely stonking read. This isn’t the first time I’ve recommended a space race-related book here – Lily Koppel’s The Astronauts Wives Club was a pick a couple of years ago (Editors note: more than four years ago, doesn’t time fly!) so maybe this isn’t a big surprise to you all, but it is a bit of a change from the recent run of BotWs which have been mostly romances and and romance adjacent.
This is pretty much a modern classic of narrative non-fiction. Tom Wolfe tells the story of the American journey into space, starting with the history of America’s military aviators and test pilots, through the selection process to pick the Mercury Seven, then their training and the rivalries within the group and outside. Based on interviews with the astronauts, their wives, the test pilots it will take you through the early days, the competition with the test pilots working on rocket powered aircraft and the friction between the administration and the astronauts who wanted to actually pilot the missions rather than just be cargo and right to the to the end of the Mercury missions. It covers the selection of the second batch of astronauts (the New Nine) but doesn’t go beyond into the Apollo programme and the moon shot, which is probably a good thing, because you’ve grown attached to these guys and, spoiler alert, the Apollo programme did not always go well.
It is incredibly readable, for the most part you don’t want to put it down. But be warned, in the early stages where it talks about pilot training and testing, there is an incredibly high rate of attrition, which meant that I needed to pace myself a bit in reading it and is the main reason it took me longer to read*. I don’t even think you need to have any prior knowledge of the space race really, although obviously it helps. If you saw First Man last year, like I did**, it makes for a great companion piece to that very introspective look at one astronaut’s life, as it takes in the broad sweep of American ambition in space, the competition with the Soviet Union and the public and media attention that focused on the men they hoped were going to restore American dominance in the heavens.
It’s really hard to get a good photo of the Friendship 7 capsule at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, but I tried!
I remember people telling me that I ought to read this back when I reviewed the Lily Koppel, but it took until Tom Wolfe’s death last May for me to get around to adding it to the to buy pile. There has been a new edition since my version – which has a snazzy new cover and, more importantly, an introduction from Scott Kelly, the astronaut who spent a year in space a couple of years back and was (probably still is) the subject of a study into the long term effects of being in space as he has an identical twin brother (Mark Kelly, also a former astronaut who is married to former US Representative Gabrielle Giffords and who himself is making a run for Democratic nomination for one of Arizona’s Senate seats) which enabled almost direct comparison. After reading this, I’ve got a mad yearning for more space books, but also to read more of Wolfe’s works. So I went for a wander on Amazon and discovered that Bonfire of the Vanities is only £2.99 in paperback there at the moment. I may have bought myself a copy. Oopsy daisy. And I have a couple more sitting in my shopping basket, waiting for the tbr shelf to empty out a little. If you have any other recommendations for where I should go next – drop them in the comments.
You should be able to get hold of a copy of The Right Stuff from any reasonable book store, it’s also available on Kindle and Kobo and I suspect that you’d have a good chance of finding a copy of it in any reasonably sized charity or second hand bookshop.
Happy Reading!
*the other reason being my long-standing rule about not taking books I’m more than halfway through on overnight trips, or books I have less than 100 pages to go on the train for the daily commute.
** I saw it at the IMAX at the Smithsonian, having spent an afternoon looking at actual space race artifacts.
After a busy week at work, I spent the weekend working, then watching Maggie Smith do an absolute tour de force in A German Life and then chasing round London supporting my little sister who was running the marathon. So not as much reading done as some weeks. But I had a lot of fun – and most of all my sister did it! She finished the marathon!
Read:
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
The Grave’s A Fine And Private Place by Alan Bradley
Running the Risk by Christina Jones
Stepping to a New Day by Beverly Jenkins
Chasing Down a Dream by Beverly Jenkins
Web of Love by Mary Balogh
Started:
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujaya Massey
A Duke in Disguise by Cat Sebastian
Still reading:
Lies, Damned Lies and History by Jodi Taylor
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Trainwreck by Sady Doyle
Three books bought – but they don’t count because they’re kindle copies of some the Cazalet Chronicles to complete the set so that I can re-read Clary and Polly and Rupert and everyone any time I want!
Bonus picture: Timothy West and Hayward Morse talking to Dr Emma Parker at an event at the British Library on Tuesday night about Joe Orton and What the Butler Saw.
So it turns out that rather than use my week off to finish the books I had already started, I mostly used it to go on a Beverly Jenkins binge. What can I say, my reading brain wants what it wants – and the library was able to oblige. But given that it was Easter week and they’re Christian inspirationals, maybe it was actually quite apt.
Read:
The Austen Playbook by Lucy Parker
Something Old, Something New by Beverly Jenkins
A Wish and a Prayer by Beverly Jenkins
Heart of Gold by Beverly Jenkins
For Your Love by Beverly Jenkins
Due Dilligence by Anna Zabo
Bronzed Betrayals by Ritter Ames
From Duke Til Dawn by Eva Leigh
Started:
The Grave’s A Fine And Private Place by Alan Bradley
Stepping to a New Day by Beverly Jenkins
Still reading:
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Lies, Damned Lies and History by Jodi Taylor
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Trainwreck by Sady Doyle
On the upside: No books bought. So that’s where all my willpower went!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 