Seven in June

I read seven books in June … and one journal, and am halfway through two, quite different, very long books of which more anon.

The Year After You by Nina de Pass

Read on Kindle.

A Young Adult novel mostly set in a Swiss boarding school for girls and boys. For a lifelong Chalet School fan that was a good place to start … However, this was published in 2019 and the characters are thoroughly contemporary.

Cara is English-born but following her mother’s second marriage she’s been living in Californa. After a fatal accident one New Year’s Eve, Cara, consumed by grief and a guilty secret, is sent to school in the Swiss Alps. Can she put the past behind her with the help of her new friends Ren and, especially, Hector?

I found it well written, very moving, with a great sense of place, and characters to root for. I’ll be interested to see what this young debut author does next.

Eliza for Common by O. Douglas

Umpteenth comfort read. Never more needed than now.

Castle McNab: Richard Hannay Returns by Robert J. Harris

The Thirty Nine Steps is one of my favourite books (yet to be given a really satisfactory rendition in film, in my opinion) and this is a spin-off.

Set post WWI, Hannay and his comrades come together to rescue a man who is on a secret visit to Scotland – a man who has recently been their greatest enemy, none other than Kaiser Wilhelm. Chases up hill and across moorland ensue and there’s an amusing take on the scene in TTNS when Hannay had to pretend to be a political candidate.

Great escapism.

Noir from the Bar: 30 Crime and Mystery Shorts by Simon Bewick et al

These specially written stories have been donated by the authors (from all over the world, some previously published, others new) to help raise funds for NHS charities.

Inevitably, some are better than others – two read more like précis of novels than short stories. I particularly enjoyed The Flight by Olga Wojtas, channeling the widow of an East End villain in Malaga, and the atmospheric Tiger’s Eye View by Roz Watkins set in the Himalayas. My favourite was the first one, Night Butterflies by Zoe Sharp, an author I hadn’t heard of before but who I see has a great-sounding series I must add to my wish-list reading …

Remember – all profits from the book, available on Kindle and as a paperback, go to NHS charities.

Death on Coffin Lane by Jo Allen

The third in the very enjoyable DCI Satterthwaite Mystery Series.

Cody Wilder, a controversial American academic with a dark past, is in the Lake District to present her latest findings on William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy. When the body count around her mounts up, Jude Satterthwaite and his team, including his lover DS Ashleigh O’Halloran, try to find out more about Cody whose greatest talent, it seems, is making enemies. There’s a great juxtaposition between the beauty of the Lakeland scenery and the dark and twisted minds of those who bring blood and mayhem to the area. Looking forward to number 4!

In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum

Read for my book group who were all gripped by the story of Marie Colvin – this biography reads like a thriller, with a glamorous, hard-partying main character whose personal life echoes the drama of her career. Seemingly fearless, Colvin entered the lairs of such figures as Yasser Arafat and Colonel Gaddafi, able to connect with them in a way her male colleagues couldn’t. Among other incredible stories, there’s an arduous and dangerous snowy journey to escape from Chechnya and a less successful escape attempt in Sri Lanka which ended with her becoming blind in one eye.

Written by a fellow war correspondent, the book draws on Marie’s own diary and on conversations with her friends and family who were devastated but perhaps not surprised when she lost her life in Homs, Syria in 2012.

In the last few years, with leaps in technology and with social media, there’s been a tendency for news editors not to send reporters into war zones. Safer for them, of course, and no doubt a relief for their nearest and dearest but, on the evidence of this book, a big loss for the rest of us.

Death Comes to Cornwall by Kate Johnson

I do seem to have taken to crime this month. This is the first in a new series – cosy crime with more than a dash of romance.

Molly Higgins takes full advantage of the annual shooting of a TV drama, Dr Wenn Investigates, in her village to acquire several temporary jobs, as she’s the breadwinner for her alcoholic mother and her little sister.

The previous year she had a relationship with the programme’s dashing villain Conor Blackstone that ended amid misunderstandings. After a fraught start this year, together they try to find out who’s behind the bludgeoning to death of a member of the film crew.

The second in the series will be on my Kindle ere long.

The journal I read was the latest edition of the wonderful Slightly Foxed. As to the two very long books – I’ll let you know about one when I’ve finished; as to the other, here’s a clue.

Seven or so in September

I read five or so books in September.

Dadland: A Journey into Uncharted Territory by Keggie Carew

Bought in Christian Aid Book Sale. This is a book like no other I have read. 

It’s partly a memoir of Keggie (Kathleen) of growing up with her three siblings, her mother and her larger-than-life father, Tom. (Both parents had extraordinary family histories – and later, after they divorced, there was the much-hated Stepmother.) 

And it’s partly her piecing together Tom’s time as an undercover agent with the Jedburghs, a branch of the Special Operations Executive, in the Second World War and afterwards. She vividly portrays his time with the Resistance in France, and in Burma helping to conspire against the Japanese oppressors.

That aspect is not just the work of her imagination; she did a massive amount of research and also spoke to some of Tom’s colleagues who survived from those days – because, sadly, when she began to want to write this book her seemingly invincible father was suffering from dementia and unable to contribute meaningful memories.

Keggie Carew’s writing is fab – this is as gripping as any war-time thriller should be and as poignant as any family memoir should be, with large helpings of black humour and clear-eyed insights. With its different time frames it can’t have been an easy book to construct but it works brilliantly.

English Passengers by Matthew Kneale

Has been on my shelves for years; a current interest in Tasmania made me pick it up now.

First of all, a quiz question: Who is Matthew Kneale’s mother?

Ans: none other than the amazing Judith Kerr, famous for creating The Tiger Who Came to Tea and the Mog stories, among many other wonderful books.

However, English Passengers is rather more wordy than those, weighing in at 470 pages including an Anglo-Manx glossary. It’s set in 1857 and has thirteen viewpoint characters. 

A motley collection of passengers, brought together in various ways, are on a ship bound for Tasmania, that shield-shaped island below Australia, thought by at least one of those on board to be the true site of the Garden of Eden; plus we also hear from several people already on the island who include the natives who are literally being hunted to extinction, the colonial rulers and a chain-gang of convicts.

Every one of the voices ring true; these all seem like real, individual people. Inevitably some of their stories are the grimmest possible but there is much humour to be found too. The main character is the ship’s captain, the insouciant and wonderfully named Manx smuggler, Illiam Quillian Kewley.

I loved it.

After those two corkers I had a blip, reading-wise. I just wasn’t in the mood for getting to know new characters so I fell back on faithful standbys: three O. Douglases. 

‘O. Douglas’ was the pen name of Anna Buchan, sister of the more famous John. Her domestic novels, several of them thinly disguised autobiographies, were very popular in their day, in the early decades of the 20th century. They won’t be to everyone’s taste now but I know I am not their only fan (there is a Facebook group devoted to her). I have been reading them over and over since I was about ten so they are like family members – you know them so well and recognise that they have faults but you love them very much anyway.

And I enjoyed these latest additions to my collection of girls’ annuals.

Normal service will be resumed – I have some new books I am looking forward to reading in October. Watch this space.

On the shelf ... and on the floor

I have a very nice notebook for the purpose of keeping a list of books I’ve read. Unfortunately I hardly ever remember to use it. So one of my New Year resolutions is to keep it in a more handy place and at the end of December to be able to look back over my reading year.

Even without such a record to refer to I know that there is no system to my reading/re-reading. Occasionally I arrange a pile of books beside my bed and vow to read them in the order in which they are stacked. But then, I’ll be scanning a bookshelf and something – new or oft read – catches my eye and that is what I want to read and no other book will do. Or that month’s book group title has to be put to the top of the pile. Or I like a particular book so much all I want to read is something else by the same author. Or I’ve finished a book and don’t want to start a brand new one late at night so reach for an old favourite. So the bedside pile gets scattered and re-formed any old how.

Now there are also e-books … I have a Kindle app on my laptop with, currently, fifty-six titles waiting for my attention. And of course there are all the books I’ve seen reviewed/have been recommended waiting to be bought/downloaded/borrowed from the library.

In a parallel universe I would have a year (or three) off and do nothing but catch up on all of these.

I can’t remember what I’ve read over the whole year but these, not in any order, are some from the last few months, fiction unless otherwise stated:

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (a re-read)

The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden (a re-read)

Bella’s Betrothal by Anne Stenhouse (Anne’s second Regency novel following Mariah’s Marriage)

The Complete Book of Aunts by Rupert Christiansen (non-fiction)

The London Train by Tessa Hadley

A Capital Union by Victoria Hendry (for book group)

Austerity Britain 1945-51 by David Kynaston (non-fiction, half finished)

 Penny Plain et al by O. Douglas (an O. Douglas (sister of John Buchan) is what I usually reach for as a late-night comfort blanket; her titles are mostly out-of-print but The Day of Small Things has been reissued by Greyladies Publishing. I know them all almost off by heart.) 

Princess Tina Annual 1969 (new addition to collection of girls’ annuals; approx 380 so far; planning to blog on this subject soon)

The Nightingale Girls / The Nightingale Sisters by Donna Douglas

The Home Corner / The Dance Settee and other stories by Ruth Thomas

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell (for book group)

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (for book group)

Face the Wind and Fly by Jenny Harper 

I am currently reading: on Kindle app Carnegie’s Call by Michael Malone, in anticipation of hearing Michael’s motivational talk to the Edinburgh Writers’ Club on 6 January; and in paperback Ruth Rendell’s last Inspector Wexford novel The Vault (I tend to go on a crime-reading spree every January); also enjoying a Christmas present, a huge book on quilts from the American Folk Art Museum.

Now I’m off to rearrange that to-be-read pile yet again and to place the Books Read notebook by its side.

Do you have a reading plan? I would love to know what it is (and if you stick to it).