Nine in July

I read nine books in July plus two ongoing as I said in my previous post. Which are still ongoing …

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

This is a glorious and gloriously written book I believe I shall return to again.

‘On a dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the Thames, the regulars are entertaining themselves by telling stories when the door bursts open and in steps an injured stranger. In his arms is the drowned corpse of a child.

Hours later, the dead girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life.’

‘On a dark midwinter’s night …’ – who could resist such an opening? Fabulous. It pinned me to my chair until the last word.

Burying Bad News (The Much Winchmoor Mysteries Book 3) by Paula Williams

Read on Kindle. Cosy crime. Cosy to read that is; probably it’s not a cosy feeling when you find a severed head – or for that matter you have your head severed …

Kat Latcham, reporter/barmaid/dog walker, gets involved in the aftermath of an argument between two warring neighbours. Along with a touch of humour and a dollop of romance this is a satisfying read. But I’d recommend that, as with St Mary’s Mead and Midsomer, you give Much Winchmoor a miss when you’re making holiday plans.

 

Notes From a Big Country by Bill Bryson

I’ve read this before, probably more than once. But I’m finding at the moment I’m not always up for a new read however enticing but want to sink into the comfort of the tried and tested. This is a collection of columns BB wrote for a British magazine when, after twenty years of living in Yorkshire, he moved back to the US at the end of the 1990s – and sees the country of his birth in a different light.

The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo

Read on Kindle. Can’t remember which book blogger mentioned this title but thanks very much whoever you were. I loved it. The Observer described it as ‘the love child of Jonathan Franzan and Anne Tyler’. I was sceptical about the Anne Tyler bit because that’s a very bold claim for AT fans to get on board with …

However, I was totally won over; it is Anne Tylerish albeit with graphic love scenes and lots of swearing.

Marilyn and David have the most stable marriage ever and are still crazy about each other after all these years – which is probably why their four grown-up daughters’ lives tend to be dysfunctional and secretive. How can their relationships ever live up to that of their parents’?

A first novel – I certainly hope there will be more.

 

And talking of the tried and tested … my next (re)reads are (if you were to twist my arm to choose two) my favourite Anne Tylers:

 

Ladder of Years

‘One warm summer’s day at the beach, forty-year-old Cordelia Grinstead, dressed only in a swimsuit and beach robe, walks away from her family and just keeps on going.’

 

Saint Maybe

‘When eighteen-year-old Ian Bedloe pricks the bubble of his family's optimistic self-deception, his brother Danny drives into a wall, his sister-in-law falls apart, and his parents age before his eyes. Consumed by guilt Ian finds the hope of forgiveness at the Church of the Second Chance.’

 

 

A Debt for Rosalie by Anne Stenhouse

A My Weekly Pocket Novel. It came out on 23 July and was available in selected WH Smiths and supermarkets for two weeks. However, if you ring DC Thomson 0800 904 7200 hopefully they will have some still for sale.

Rosalie has taken a job as the chef at Maldington House, a private hotel, following the collapse of her business and the end of her relationship with Steve (these two facts being unfortunately connected). And just when she’s getting on nicely with David, the dishy hotel owner, Steve turns up like a bad penny.

There are serious issues discussed here, albeit with a light touch, and a great sense of place.

 

Our Castle by the Sea by Lucy Strange

I adored Lucy Strange’s first book The Secret of Nightingale Wood, set just after the First World War.

Our Castle by the Sea takes place during the Second World War. Pet and her older sister Mags have been brought up in the cottage by the lighthouse in Kent where their father is keeper. With a war raging at sea, and their German mother interned, life becomes very grim for the girls especially when it becomes clear that there is a saboteur in the village.

Terrific, although for me not quite so tear-inducing as Nightingale Wood.

 

Fulfilment by Anne Stormont, the Skye Series Book 3

Read on Kindle. The third in the trilogy about Rachel and Jack, following Displacement and Settlement. It was good to catch up with the two main characters as they continue to work out their relationship – which is complicated by the mental health issues ex-policeman Jack has following a horrific attack on him. You could read this even if you haven’t read the others as you can pick up on earlier happenings – but much better to start at the beginning and follow Rachel and Jack on their complicated journey to their <spoiler alert> happy ever after.

There’s a great sense of place – whether that’s in Skye where Rachel and Jack live or in Israel where Rachel goes to visit her brother; they are Jewish through their mother’s side of the family. She also goes there for work reasons as she has been putting together an anthology of writings intended to help promote peace in that part of the world. With that and with Jack wanting to help youngsters who’ve had a bad start in life there are important and topical themes explored here along with the love story. Highly recommended.

Apologies for any oddities of spacing etc in this post – Blogger has a new 'interface' I am still getting to grips with.

My Life (maybe)

My Life (maybe) – according to the books I read in 2016

Describe yourself

The Lost Woman

How do you feel?

Wild

Describe where you currently live

Austerity Britain

If you could go anywhere where would you go

A House in Flanders

Your favourite form of transportation is

From the Alleghenies to the Hebrides

 

Your best friend is

Etta and Otto and Russell and James

You and your friends are

Eligible
 

What’s the weather like?

Stormbird

Favourite time of day

When the Children came Home

If your life was a book

The Road to Little Dribbling

What is life to you?

A Spool of Blue Thread

Your fear

So Many Books, So Little Time

What is the best advice you have to give?

How to Get Hitched in Ten Days

Thought for the day

This Must be the Place

How would you like to die?

Can’t Wait to get to Heaven

Your soul’s present condition

Slightly Foxed

This is a fun idea I saw first on Portobello Book Blog:

https://portobellobookblog.com/2017/01/01/my-life-according-to-books-i-read-in-2016/

Seven in December

I read seven books in December.

Shall we Dance? by Maggie Alderson

There’s always something very glam about Maggie Alderson’s novels and this one is no exception. She is a fashion journalist after all. Here, the main character, Loulou, has a vintage clothes shop in Primrose Hill and is the sort of person who wears high-heeled wellingtons to music festivals. 

Partners in Crime by Agatha Christie

I read every Agatha Christie, most more than once, when I was young (those long winter nights on the farm … ). When our parents downsized, my sister and I divided the collection between us.

I remembered The Secret Adversary as one of my favourites, very exciting – it’s the first Tommy and Tuppence story. I was looking forward to seeing the recent TV adaptation but was sorely disappointed. Why move it to the 1950s? Why rewrite the story to such an extent? Why make Tommy such a buffoon?

As my husband had never read any Agatha Christie (I know – weird) I pressed The Secret Adversary and N or M? on him (these had fallen to me in the share-out) and he liked them so much that he asked for more.

So I bought him two more Tommy and Tuppences, Partners in Crime and By the Pricking of my Thumbs, 1970s Fontana editions.

He liked those too and I reread PiC myself when he finished it. It’s a book of short stories, some very far-fetched but, hey, this is the queen of crime. She gets away with it as far as I’m concerned. Unlike the TV producers.

The Road to Little Dribbling More Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson

Bill travels around Britain (well, England mostly, apart from North Berwick, Ullapool and Cape Wrath), describing his journeys in his witty, informative and often caustic way.

The Lost Woman by Gilly Stewart

Read on Kindle. Set in the Scottish Highlands. Catherine McDonald is trying to turn her family’s home into a hotel but a missing hill-walker brings unwanted attention to the area and some of her family are less than enthusiastic about her plans. Good read, with a great sense of place – as usual from this writer.

So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading by Sara Nelson

Bought in second-hand bookshop, published in 2003. I could not agree with the title more and had every hope that this American author and I would be kindred spirits. Alas no.

A whole chapter was devoted to a true crime book about murder by baseball bat. After reading it she apparently got anxious about her young son playing baseball, and about the possibilities of other sporting paraphernalia being used as weapons. I could win worrying competitions but I’ll skip that one.

I knew we weren’t on the same planet reading-wise though when she was indifferent to /dismissive of two of my very favourite books.

Housekeeping, subsequent Pulitzer prize-winner Marilynne Robinson’s first novel, was ditched after a few pages as ‘too slow’.

Crow Lake by Mary Lawson was newly published when Sara Nelson read it. She found it ‘pretty close to cliché’ and suspected it would be ‘ignored or even trashed’ by other reviewers. Well, perhaps it’s mean of me to, ahem, crow, but with the benefit of hindsight I know that Crow Lake got brilliant critical reviews, became a best-seller and a beloved book for many people, and that it won the Books in Canada First Novel Award and the McKitterick Prize among other accolades.

But each to their own … in the lists at the back of the book there are a few titles I hadn’t heard of that I'll look out for. Maybe we might even agree over some of them.

Plainsong by Kent Haruf

Read on Kindle. I bought this because I read that it was one of Anne Tyler’s top ten books. It’s contemporary, set in a small town in Colorado, and follows various characters and how they are linked to each other.

I appreciated it more than liked it, I think. The characters stayed in my mind but I found the almost reportage style of writing distancing.

People We Love by Jenny Harper

This is the fourth title in Jenny Harper’s very successful Heartland Series of ‘strong women under pressure’, set in a fictional town in East Lothian, Scotland. Here, Artist Lexie is back in Hailesbank, living with her parents, as they all try to come to terms with her brother’s fatal accident. ‘An engaging and delightful read,’ as Alexander McCall Smith says on the cover.

I’m very pleased to have been interviewed by Jenny Harper about writing serials, and about The Ferryboat (my People’s Friend serial now available as a large-print library book which I might possibly have mentioned before):

http://jennyharperauthor.co.uk/kate-blackadder-celebrates-serial-success/

@harper_jenny