Nightshifts all this week. Nightshifts all next week. Take a guess at what I’ve been reading. Yup. No literary fiction in sight! There are some very good books among them and I’ve managed to get away from the cozy crime a little too!
Read:
The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett by Chelsea Sedoti
The Wicked City by Beatriz Williams
The Prime Minister’s Secret Agent by Susan Elia MacNeal
Shunned No More by Christina McKnight
The Ballad of Sean and Wilko by Paul Charles
Headgirl at Vivians by Patricia K Cauldwell
Kennelmaid Nan by Elinor M Brent-Dyer
Started:
Seven Minutes in Heaven by Eloisa James
Still reading:
First Women by Kate Andersen Brower
Shock and Awe by Simon Reynolds
No books bought. I’m actually quite proud of myself for resisting the urge to order a tonne of Kindle books in the early hours.
A busy week at work, with four and a half commutes means lots of reading done, which is nice. I finally finished American Wife – which took me a while because it was my bedtime book – and made some inroads to my NetGalley list (it’s so easy to find and request stuff on there).
Read:
Copy Cap Murder by Jenn McKinlay
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
Waiting for an Earl Like You by Alexandra Hawkins
The Mystery of the Painted Dragon by Katherine Woodfine
The Riviera Express by TP Fielden
Verity Fair: Custard Creams and Pink Elephants by Terry Wiley
Circle of Influence by Annette Dashofy
Started:
The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett by Chelsea Sedoti
Still reading:
First Women by Kate Andersen Brower
Shock and Awe by Simon Reynolds
I didn’t buy any books this week – although I did pick up a big stack of books that I ordered a few weeks ago for a bargain price. Two steps forwards, one step back!
So it turns out that I read almost nothing but cozy crime this week. I realised this was happening on Friday and decided to roll with it and work my way through some advance copies I had waiting on the kindle.
Read:
A List of Cages by Robin Roe
Cropped to Death by Christina Freeburn
The Semester of Our Discontent by Cynthia Kuhn
River City Dead by Nancy G West
The Art of Vanishing by Cynthia Kuhn
Tell Me No Lies by Lynn Chandler-Willis
Fatal Brushstroke by Sybill Johnson
Started:
Copy Cap Murder by Jenn McKinlay
Still reading:
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
First Women by Kate Andersen Brower
Shock and Awe by Simon Reynolds
Three ebooks bought this week – but no actual books, I’m not sure whether that’s progress or not!
Most read author: None – I read books by 25 different authors this month!
Books read this year: 25
Books bought: 12(ish) books – all bar 2 on my birthday trip and 1 ebook
Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf: 493 (I don’t have copies of all of these!)
New year, new stats post. Not many tweaks this year – but one is more visible than the others – and it’s my lovely #ReadHarder Bingo card down the bottom here. I’ll be crossing more books off every month – or hoping to. I’ve also made a #ReadHarder shelf on my Goodreads profile if you want to see more details about which books are the ones that tick boxes for the challenge. Some books count for more than one category, and some categories I have (already) read more than one book which counts (I have 5 which would fit the published betwen 1900-1950 category!), so I’m not filling out the form yet, I’ll save that for the end of the year and try and pick some (at least) books I haven’t already talked about!
I’m actually quite surprised how many I’ve already ticked off.
*Includes some short stories/novellas/comics (2 this month)
I started the week (unexpectedly) doing a bit old 50 and out cull – nothing was capturing my fancy. But it has got a few books off the virtual to-read pile.
Read:
The Flying Classroom by Erich Kästner
Danny Dingle’s Fantastic Finds: The Super-Sonic Submarine by Angie Lake
A Thrilling Term at Janeways by Elinor M Brent Dyer
Miss Treadway and the Field of Stars by Miranda Emmerson
Murder of a Chocolate Covered Cherry by Denise Swanson
Started:
Shock and Awe by Simon Reynolds
Still reading:
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
First Women by Kate Andersen Brower
I didn’t buy any books this week – but I acquired quite a lot because the arts department upstairs at work is moving offices and everyone seems to be having a clear out of there shelves – meaning lots of books up for grabs. Oops.
Well the week started with my birthday (yes I know, I was celebrating last week. We take birthdays seriously in my house) and although I read a lot of American Wife and First Women I didn’t finish them, and I also spent a lot of the second half of the week reading about the handover of power in the US, the end of the Obama administration and the start of the Trump one. So not a lot of books got finished.
Read:
Rivers of London: Night Witch by Ben Aaronovitch, Andrew Cartmel and Lee Sullivan
A Killer Plot by Ellery Adams
Blitzed by Norman Ohler
Privates on Parade by Peter Nichols
Started:
A Thrilling Term at Janeways by Elinor M Brent Dyer
Still reading:
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
First Women by Kate Andersen Brower
I had a mega spending spree in Hay on Wye on my birthday (Monday) buying half a dozen books for myself and another couple as gifts for other people. But beyond that I was very good and restrained.
Quite a tough decision on what to pick for BotW this week – there were several contenders. But in the end I’ve plumped for Lissa Evans’ Crooked Heart, which I devoured over the weekend while we were away for an extended jolly for my birthday. This was another book which had ended up at the bottom of my to-read pile and resurfaced because of the Big Box Up and I’m so glad that it did.
Mine had an extra cover on it – the actual cover is prettier.
Crooked Heart tells the story of Noel, who is evacuated to Hertfordshire in 1940. Noel is an unusual 10 year old. He’s been brought up by an old lady and is precocious and smart beyond his years. He ends up with Vera – a 36 year old single mum struggling with debt, a recalcitrant and secretive son and her demanding mother. Vera is sure there is some money to be made out of the war, but the trouble is that she’s not very good at making a plan and sticking to it. But Noel is a different proposition. He’s smart, he’s calm and he might be the answer to Vera’s problems. But of course they’re not the only people making money from the war, and there are dangers other than air-raids in Noel’s new life.
I really enjoyed this. Noel and Vera are engaging characters who make a good team. Vera is almost a proto-Del Boy – but with Noel to help she has the chance of her deals actually going right. In some ways Noel reminded me of William in Goodnight Mr Tom (that’s a good thing) – Noel has had more advantages in his education and home life that William did, but he’s still a little boy who has had to grow up too fast and deal with things that children aren’t meant to deal with. And one of the themes of Goodnight Mr Tom is finding your own family and your own place in life and there’s a lot of that here although Vee is very different to Tom.
It’s a heartwarming romp through the grey, greyer and uglier areas of life on the home front. I could easily have read another 100 pages of Vee and Noel, but actually the ending is a brilliant touch. I haven’t read any of Lissa Evans’ books before, but my little sister still has a copy Evans’ first novel, Spencer’s List, on her shelf which I bought for her back in the day 15 years ago, so I’m going to have to borrow that off her and read it. Coincidentally someone posted a trailer on Facebook for the upcoming film Their Finest on the same day as I read this – and that’s based on Evans’ previous book Their Finest Hour and a Half, which I totally need to read now as well.
You can get a copy of Crooked Heart from Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles or on Kindle or Kobo. And it looks like there might be a (slightly retitled) tie-in edition of Their Finest Hour and Half coming out too.
I’m not quite sure where my reading time went at the start of the week, but I know where it went at the end because we went away for a long weekend for my birthday. What a treat.
Read:
The Draycott Murder Mystery by Molly Thynne
A Perilous Undertaking by Deanna Raybourn
New York, Actually by Sarah Morgan
Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
Wrong For Me by Jackie Ashenden
Three Men and a Maybe by Katey Lovell
Started:
Blitzed by Norman Ohler
Still reading:
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
First Women by Kate Andersen Brower
I may have bought a few books. But hey, I’m having an extended birthday treat!
Three nights away from home impaired my reading progress somewhat this week, and also my attempts to read my way through the bottom of the to-read pile. Still at least one of the books I did read is eligible for a category on the #ReadHarder challenge, so that’s good.
Read:
The Making of A Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Fountain of Sorrow by Paul Charles
More Work for the Undertaker by Margery Allingham
The Vets at Hope Green, Part 1 by Sheila Norton
Paradise Lodge by Nina Stibbe
Started:
The Draycott Murder Mystery by Molly Thynne
Still reading:
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
First Women by Kate Andersen Brower
Two books bought this week – but one’s in French, so its educational – and the other was for Him Indoors as well as me.
Now 2017 is well underway, and I’ve told you about my obsessions, the state of the (enormous) pile, and my #ReadHarder ambitions, it seemed like a good time to finally work out what my favourite books published last year were. I know. Everyone else did this weeks ago, but I didn’t want anything really excellent that I might have read at the end of the year to get missed out. And yes, fractured elbow. It’s my excuse for everything.
Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld
“Fred!” the nurse said, though they had never met. “How are we today?” Reading the nurse’s name tag, Mr. Bennet replied with fake enthusiasm, “Bernard! We’re mourning the death of manners and the rise of overly familiar discourse. How are you?”
Considering how much I loved this book, I have said remarkably little about it on here. I recommended it in the Christmas gift post and back in the Summer Reads post, but it wasn’t a Book of the Week – because I was expecting to be reviewing it elsewhere. And I don’t think that adequately conveys how much I adored it. But Sittenfeld’s modern reworking of Pride and Prejudice is my favourite book of last year.
If the quote at the top makes you laugh or smile (even if it’s only inside because you’re too cool) then you need to read this book. I’ve read a lot of Austen retellings, reworkings, sequels and the like and this manages to strike a perfect (for me) balance of retelling the story but modernising it so that it feels relevant to today. Lizzie (nearly 40 rather than 20) and her sisters are trust fund babies in Cincinatti, but the money is running out, their father has medical problems and their mother has a shopping problem. Darcy is a surgeon, Bingley a reality TV star (don’t let that put you off) and Lydia and Kitty are obsessed with Crossfit. I want to read it again – but my copy is still out on loan. The paperback isn’t out until June, but you could pre-order from Amazon or Waterstones and have a lovely treat in the summer, the Kindle and Kobo versions are £5.99 at time of writing or you could go nuts and buy the hardback from Amazon, Foyles or Waterstones – Waterstones was cheapest when I was writing – doing it on click and collect for £7.50 which is a total bargain for a hardback. I don’t think you’ll regret it.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
The Underground RailroadAs I said in my BotW post last month, this book is going to win all the prizes and will be on English Literature sylabuses in years to come. Cora’s story is incredibly tough to read – and it’s partly the contrast between the realism of the terrible things that are happening and the magical realism of making the Underground Railroad a real, actual railway with stations, and trains that makes this such an incredible read. And the writing is beautiful. As you all know, I don’t read a lot of “literary fiction” – and I don’t have a lot of success with books that have been nominated for awards, but I’m so glad I read it – and I’ve been singing its praises to my literary fiction-reading friends. Still only in hardback I’m afraid, but bizarrely the paperback comes out the same day as Eligible – even though this was released six months later than the Sittenfeld. Odd. Anyway. In hardback from Amazon, Foyles, Waterstones, on Kindle and Kobo or pre-order the paperback on Amazon or Waterstones.
The Barista’s Guide to Espionage by Dave Sinclair
The Barista’s guide to EspionageYes I know. You’re sick of my Fahrenheit obsession. Well tough. Their books made up nearly 20 percent of my 5 star books last year, so they were bound to figure here. Sorry, not sorry. Anyway, this story about Eva Destruction – James Bond and Stephanie Plum’s lovechild – was another BotW and I defy anyone not to enjoy Eva’s battle to try to stop her evil supervillain ex-boyfriend from taking over the world. It’s an action thriller film in book form but with a smart woman doing the saving not a suave bloke in a suit (he tries, but she’s better than him). Get it on Kindle or in paperback.
Death of a Nobody by Derek Farrell
From Eva Destruction to Poirot on Poppers, the second Danny Bird book is the second Fahrenheit book on this list. The first book (Death of a Diva) is funny, but this book feels like a series hitting its stride. It’s got a great, off-beat cast, zingy one-liners, lashings of sarcasm and an up-and-coming gastro pub with a rising body count and a gangster breathing down Danny’s neck. I’m recommending this to my friends who read cozy crime who want something that’s not cupcakes, bakeries or crafting. I can’t wait for book three. Get it on Kindle or in paperback. You can thank me later.
Grunt by Mary Roach
Grunt by Mary RoachAnd this is why I’m glad I wrote this post so very late. This was the last book I finished in 2016 and it was one of the very best – definitely the best non-fiction book I read last year. It was BotW last week – so there’s no need for me to say anymore about it really because it’s less than a week since I raved about it at you. I think it’s going to be this year’s go-to pick for a non fiction book to give as a gift. Buy it (paperback!) from Amazon, Foyles and Waterstones or on Kindle.
