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!
Another busy week at work and another goodly pile of books read. And I didn’t do too badly at working my way down that ongoing reading pile. I’m not at work this week, so my aim is to do soe more work on the NetGalley backlog as well as on the actual TBR pile. Wish me luck.
On the Road and off the Record with Leonard Bernstein by Charlie Harmon
The Binding by Bridget Collins
One in a Million by Jill Shalvis
Forbidden by Beverly Jenkins
Twelfth Night: Mary McCartney by Mary McCartney
The High Tide Club by Mary Kay Andrews
A Hope Divided by Alyssa Cole
Started:
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Trainwreck by Sady Doyle
Still reading:
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
The Austen Playbook by Lucy Parker
Lies, Damned Lies and History by Jodi Taylor
Two books bought: the gorgeous Mary McCartney – which is very much a coffee table book, but as I read every word of it, it counts – and the new Cat Sebastian ebook.
Bonus picture: the theatre before Sir Ian McKellen’s one man birthday show on Sunday night!
Not a bad week’s reading, considering it was a really busy week for various reasons. But the Still Reading list is starting to look a little out of control, so I’m going to try and tackle that this week. We’ll see how that goes!
On the Road and off the Record with Leonard Bernstein by Charlie Harmon
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole
Forbidden by Beverly Jenkins
No books bought! Hurrah!
Bonus picture: Misty London on Monday morning. NB: for Maisie Dobbs fans, the square I’m about to walk into is Fitzroy Square where Maisie has her office!
I really enjoyed my reading last week – writing the Diverse Romance post sent me off down a rabbit hole of library loans and kindle bargains and mailing list freebies and they all really lifted my mood. So it’s fitting that one of the authors I mentioned in that is my pick this week for BotW.
Bring on the Blessings is the first in Beverly Jenkins’ Blessings series. It tells the story of Bernadine Brown who, when she catches her husband cheating on her on her fifty-second birthday, takes him for half of his (vast) fortune and uses it to buy a struggling town on ebay with a view to turning it to give foster kids a second chance at life. This story introduces you to Bernadine, the historic black township of Henry Adams, Kansas, and its residents. Bernadine is trying to pay back her blessing from God (the cash from her divorce settlement) by doing some good and paying it forward and giving back is the main theme of a lot of the storylines. As well as Bernadine, there are five foster children from across the country and the families that are going to look after them, as well as various other town residents.
First thing to say: This is not a romance. It has romantic elements, but there is no Happily Ever After for anyone at the end of Bring on the Blessings. What it does have is the set up and first phase of an overarching plot for the series and some incremental progress into resolutions for each of the story threads. I’ve struggled a little bit to figure out exactly which genre it fits in to to be honest, but Goodreads lists its as Romance, Fiction and Christian Fiction and Amazon lists it as Small Town and Rural Fiction, African American Fiction and African American Romance, all of which gives you a bit of a flavour of what is going on.
I absolutely raced through this. The characters are engaging, the plot has enough peril to keep you reading but without being stressful. And I think possibly the cleverest thing about this is the way it weaves all its messages together in a way that doesn’t become overpoweringly About The Message. It may be more overtly religious than most of my reading, but it’s not saccharine or too preachy. It’s also got a wry sense of humour tucked in there as well. I mentioned in my post last week that Miss Bev is a giant of the romance genre and this totally shows why. Addictive reading that suits the romance reader in me, but which isn’t wholly romance. It’s sort of like a whole load of the subplots from a romance novel bundled themselves together into a book. And that’s a good thing. I went straight on from book one to book two (thank you library) which says a lot about how much I was enjoying life in Henry Adams – and how keen I was to find out what would happen next – and I would have gone on to book three, but then I got distracted…
I borrowed my copy of Bring on the Blessings from the library, but it is available on Kindle, Kobo and in paperback in the UK – although I suspect the latter may be a special order job.
It’s been a bit of a week. First of all I was away for three nights for work – and used each evening to go out and do something, which ate into my reading time. In fact I was out four evenings – I finally saw The Favourite on Monday, then Taylor Jenkins Reid talking about Daisy Jones and the Six followed by the hilarious A Night at the Musicals with Le Gateau Chocolate and Jonny Woo on Tuesday, Emilia the play on Wednesday and Follies (again) on Thursday. And then we had dinner guests on Friday. That’s like a month’s worth of social life in a week for me! But I’ve been quite productive on the post front – if you missed it, there’s my Quarter 1 favourites post from yesterday and my Romance Recommendations from Wednesday (which I think you can tell have been influencing my reading this week!).
Read:
I’ll Catch You by Farah Rochon
FIT by Rebekah Weatherspoon
Bring on the Blessings by Beverly Jenkins
A Second Helping by Beverly Jenkins
Come to Dust by Derek Farrell
Always with You by Talia Hibbert
Rafe by Rebekah Weatherspoon
Started:
An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole
Forbidden by Beverly Jenkins
Just One of the Guys by Kristen Higgins
The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins
Operation Atonement by Talia Hibbert
Still reading:
The Binding by Bridget Collins
On the Road and off the Record with Leonard Bernstein by Charlie Harmon
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Five ebooks bought or pre-ordered…
Bonus picture: Taylor Jenkins Reid chatting on Tuesday
Started the week in Portugal and ended it by working all weekend, so this week’s list has some plane reading, some commuter reading and some days off work and taking advantage reading!
Read:
From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey Stein
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Why Not Tonight by Susan Mallery
The Road to Grantchester by James Runcie
First Comes Marriage by Huda Al-Marashi
Eve’s Hollywood by Eve Babitz
It Happened One Christmas by Susan Mallery
Can’t Escape Love by Alyssa Cole
Mrs Martin’s Incomparable Adventure by Courtney Milan
Started:
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Still reading:
The Binding by Bridget Collins
On the Road and off the Record with Leonard Bernstein by Charlie Harmon
No books bought 🙂
Bonus picture: Creepy statue from a Portuguese monastery. If i have to have nightmares, so do you:
