I don’t know of you noticed but it was a bit of a busy news week. Also I want to the baseball, and I came home with a baseball from a player which I sort of caught basically this week’s list is short. Sorry, not sorry.
Read:
S is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Paperback Crush by Gabrielle Foster
The Spotted Dog by Kerry Greenwood
Lucky in Love by Jill Shalvis
Started:
To Obama by Jeanne Marie Laskas
The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish
Still reading:
Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
Fear by Bob Woodward
And I went to Barnes and Noble, so the fact that I restrsined myself to just one book should actually be celebrated. Even if it was an omnibus. And I bought an ebook earlier in the week too. So sue me.
Bonus picture: my baseball from Marlins @ Nats on Tuesday night.
I treated myself to this the day before my flight, and what greater treat to read for part of my flight (I slept and watched two documentary films* too) than the first Daisy Dalrymple book in quite a while. Long term reader may remember my long time love of Daisy – which has spawned my (mostly unsuccessful) quest for more similar sort of mysteries.
We rejoin Daisy and her family as they prepare for a visit from the long lost relatives she discovered in a previous book (Heirs of the Body). As part of the visit they make a trip to the Crystal Palace, where they stumble upon a body. Of course Daisy can’t help but get involved in the investigation. Over the course of the investigation there’s nightclubs, showgirls and Russian emigrés. Meanwhile in the background there’s a chance of a promotion for Alec. Can Daisy solve the crime? And is Alec ready for a new job?
It’s always nice to be back in Daisy’s world and this is particularly fun because there’s a lot of familiar faces showing up here from earlier books, some of whom we haven’t seen for a really long time. It’s not my favourite book in the series, but that was mostly because I wanted a bit more from the actual mystery. But as far as historical cozy crime series go, it’s hard to beat Daisy.
You should be able to get this in ebook from all the usual places like Kindle and Kobo, but I suspect the physical book will be harder to find in bookshops unless you order it in. Do yourself a favour though, if you’re new to Daisy and go back at start at the beginning and Death at Wentwater Court. It’s the sort of series where it’s worth it.
So, the good news is that I made it to Washington DC unscathed. The bad news was that changing time zones threw me a bit loopy and the worst news (for you anyway!) is that I spent my days off sightseeing. So on Friday I walked 20 kilometres around the National Mall and then fell asleep exhausted. Sorry, not sorry!
Read:
The Corpse at the Crystal Palace by Carola Dunn
P is for Peril by Sue Grafton
Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton
R is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Bridges Burned by Annette Dashofy
Started:
Fear by Bob Woodward
Paperback Crush by Gabrielle Foster
S is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Still reading:
Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
Two proper books bought – including that copy of Fear I promised myself in the Washington post – and two ebooks. Positively restrained considering what I used to get up to on nightshifts!
Bonus picture: the Reflecting Pool at about kilometre 13 on Friday!
A good week in reading. In case you missed my post on Saturday, I’m on my way to the USA for a couple of months for work – so normal service may be slightly disrupted while I find my feet. I do have a bunch of posts scheduled to help with the first week, but I can’t write BotW or WiB posts before I’ve read the books…
Read:
Early Riser by Jasper Fforde
Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge
In Glorious Technicolour by Francine Stock
The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump by Robert Sears
Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen
Negroland by Margo Jefferson
This Is Just My Face: Try Not To Stare by Gabourey Sidibe
Star by Star by Sheena Wilkinson
Started:
P is for Peril by Sue Grafton
Still reading:
Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
A couple of books bought – but I have got a long plane ride to deal with!
Finally finished The Templars this week – it was interesting, but really not my favourite period of history, so it felt like a bit of a slog. You live and learn!
Read:
Maybe For You by Nicole McLaughlin
Video Killed the Radio Star by Duncan MacMaster
Yes We (Still) Can by Dan Pfeiffer
After You With the Pistol by Kyril Bonfiglioli
Rivers of London: Water Weed 3 by Ben Aaronovitch et al
Anyone for Seconds? by Laurie Graham
The Templars by Dan Jones
Started:
n/a
Still reading:
The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan
A working weekend and a trip to see The King and I (it was brilliant – Kelli O’Hara is amazing) affected the reading list this week. But still not bad really. I’m mostly working on finishing stuff that I’ve started at the moment as well.
Read:
Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe
Jewish History: A very short introduction by David N Myers
The Birth of Korean Cool bu Euny Hong
Star Dust by Emma Barry
The Lawrence Browne Affair by Cat Sebastian
Who Thought This Was a Good Idea by Alyssa Mastromonaco
Started:
n/a
Still reading:
The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan
Two children’s books in a row as BotW? This is totally within the normal range of what I do and what you expect from me. And this is another book that I started during my weekend at boo conference and then got distracted away from by the purchase of more books at said book conference and then by other books on the kindle. So sue me!
Howl’s Moving Castle tells the story of Sophie, a teenage girl who is turned into an old lady by a witch while she is working in her family’s hat shop. One of the conditions of the curse is that she can’t tell people that she’s been cursed and Sophie doesn’t want her mother or sisters to see what’s happened to her, so she runs away to the hills, where she runs into the moving castle belonging to the Wizard Howl and makes it her new home in the hope that the curse can be lifted. Howl is a temperamental, vacillating young man who is on the run from something and only seems to do things that help himself but Calcifer, his fire demon promises to help her if she can help him with the curse that ties him to Howl. Also living in the castle is Michael, Howl’s apprentice, who, it turns out is in love with one of Sophie’s sisters. And so they move around the countryside, and Sophie tries to figure out how to get her old (young) body back.
That’s the short version of part of the story and doesn’t really do it justice. Before I read the story, I was actually worried that I wouldn’t like it as much as I liked the film of the book which I saw in the cinema back in my high-cinema visiting university days. Now the two are the same basic story: about a teenager who is cursed to look like an old lady and who seeks help from the wizard with the moving castle, but beyond that there are a fair few differences. The movie has a design aesthetic that leads to some differences from the book and it is missing some of the subplots from the book, but it turns out I really liked them both.
I don’t often read the book after I’ve seen the movie, but this time it worked out really well. In fact, this is the opposite experience to what usually happens with me, books and movie adaptations – because quite often I really hate the movie versions of books I’ve loved, so maybe I need to do this more often?! There are a couple more books featuring Howl, which are now on my reading list – and I’m trying hard to work out if I read any Diana Wynne Jones books back when I was the right age for them because I really liked her writing and the style felt somewhat familiar to me.
I bought my copy of Howl’s Moving Castle on Kindle, but it’s also available on Kobo (and it’s 99p on both platforms at time of writing) and in paperback (from Amazon, Book Depository or places like Big Green Books) and audiobook. I think it should be easy enough to buy from a bookshop with a good sized children’s section (not a supermarket because it is no where near new) I suspect it will also be available at some libraries too. And if you haven’t seen the film, you really should watch it too.
