Seven in August

Dear Miss Lake by A. J. Pearce

The last of the four Emmy Lake chronicles. It’s July 1944. Woman’s Friend magazine has decamped to the countryside to avoid the doodlebugs. Along with her work as agony aunt, Emmy throws herself in to country life and, after an unexpected phone call, has a stint as a war correspondent. All the time, she is fearful for the safety all those she loves especially husband Charles.

You could read them in any order but best to start with Dear Mrs Bird.

May I also draw your attention to A. J. Pearce’s Substack newsletter, Notes of Cheer, which is lovely and booky and indeed very cheering.

 

Two Georgette Heyers, from the Christian Aid Book Sale:

 

Devil’s Cub

When Mary finds out that the infamous and devastatingly handsome Marquis of Vidal is planning to run away with her young sister, she sets out to save Sophy’s reputation – without losing her own. Easier said than done …

 

Powder and Patch

Philip wants to win the hand of the more sophisticated Cleone who wishes that he would acquire the polish she admires in other men. When he returns from Paris duly polished (and powdered and patched and shod in red high heels … ) Cleone realises that you have to be careful what you wish for.

 

 Lost Property

by Helen Paris

I started off by being totally on board with this.

Dot Watson’s story is related in chapters headed with the labels put on lost items in Transport for London’s lost property office. It’s a great setting for a novel.

I was especially taken by the first label as, when I lived in London, I knew the 73 bus route well (don’t think I left anything on one though).

 

It was fascinating to find out how the office worked and some of the sharp observations made me laugh eg:

‘Occasionally we have to go to Transport for London “Awaydays” to stare at flip charts and listen to Lynx-doused lads in their machine-washable suits say ‘not a problem’ ad infinitum.’

But although the book is set now, ‘Dot’, a thirty-something employee in the office, began to feel like a time-traveller from several decades ago and her sad Eleanor Oliphanty back-story was dragged out. The labels device far outstayed its welcome as far as I was concerned with some chapters seeming superfluous.

Sorry, I really wanted to like it more than I did.

 

The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer

In which our hapless hero, smitten by a girl he meets in a bar (who’s reading a book called The Satsuma Complex), gets involved with some very dodgy people. I know of Bob M mainly through Would I Lie to You on TV, in which the most outrageous escapades from his childhood, brilliantly told, turn out to be true. Here (I assume … ) he lets his imagination off the leash.

 

Forever Home by Graham Norton

Blackly funny with some memorable characters (looking at you, Moira) and a great plot. I see that it’s to be a TV series.

 

Keeping Distance by V. E. H. Masters

Maddie regrets her good deed in allowing Mason to move in with her temporarily when lockdown happens and she’s stuck with him as he becomes increasingly controlling. When she hears from a friend of an empty cottage she can borrow in the Scottish Borders, she makes a run for it – illegally, as travel restrictions are still in place. She believes that she’s done everything she can to cover her tracks so that Mason can’t find her … 

Next to the cottage is a farm where it’s lambing season and, Cal, the farmer is struggling to cope with his work load. England to Scotland, city girl to country girl – it’s a journey both literally and metaphorically for Maddie. A great read, evoking so well the Borders countryside (it’s a love letter to farming too) and those strange years of 2020/21, along with Maddie’s palpable anxiety to begin with and her taking a chance on a new love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seven in July

 

I read seven books in July.

 

 

The Girls by John Bowen

I picked up this book from a bookshop table, attracted by the front cover – and then even more attracted by the back cover where a review by the Washington Post said:

‘[For] those who feel Barbara Pym-ish on some days and Stephen King-ish on others’

Barbara Pym, author of mid-20th-century novels of English life is one of my very favourite writers. I haven’t read Stephen King (have seen the film Misery …) but I get the gist.

And I would say that review is spot-on.

This is a reissue of a book first published in 1986. I like the authorial writing style and the mix of (very) black-edged comedy, crime and relationships.

Recommended.

 

 

Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer

I bought four GHs in the Christian Aid Book Sale this year.

‘Kate’ is left a penniless orphan but is swept up by her very grand Aunt Minerva who, it turns out, has a very gruesome motive for inviting her niece to live with her. If I thought I was getting a cosy Regency after the macabre-ness of The Girls I was soon disabused of that …

 

 

The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer

Because of a family quarrel, the Darracott heir is only now meeting the relatives he will be supplanting. But ‘Ajax’ is a delightful Yorkshireman who ultimately charms the whole family and saves it from disgrace.

 

 

Nightshade by Michael Connelly

A police procedural set on Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles. A good read – my first Michael Connelly.

 

 

Christmas at the Island Hotel by Jenny Colgan

This is the fifth in Jenny Colgan’s ‘Mure’ series and the only one I’ve read. Enjoyable cosy quick read, set on a fictional island somewhere north of Shetland. Probably won’t read the others though as reviews suggest the main characters’ back stories vary and there are other inconsistencies.

 

 

The Trad Wife by Carrie Hughes

Many millions of people follow Faith on social media as she documents her apparently perfect life on a ranch in Utah – handsome husband, five adorable children, grows lavender, makes cheese etc. Etc.

Mel, desperate to make money to support herself and her daughter, is delighted when an approach to Faith for an interview leads to an invitation to visit.

Accepting the invitation is something Mel very much comes to regret. No spoilers – but there are several heart-stopping moments before the satisfying ending.

 

 

From Peach Street to Lobster Lane by Felicity Cloake

I've read One More Croissant for the Road in which Felicity Cloake (cookery writer for The Guardian) intrepidly cycles and eats her way around France in search of the perfect croissant, giving them marks out of ten.

This is her third cycling expedition – an account of cycling across America to find out just what is American cuisine. Cycling in the land of ten-lane freeways and big weather is brave to say the least. Among much else, she discovered that, outside the cities, the global chains do not hold sway and that the ethnic mixes that make up the States have resulted in some fabulous food.

In this book, she chooses to rate pies, some savoury but mostly sweet (in fact, mostly too sweet).

I love her writing style and for taking me vicariously on her food adventures.

I’ve now acquired, but have yet to read, her second food trip, Red Sauce Brown Sauce – around Britain to discover the perfect breakfast. (I don’t yet know what her verdict is on sauces but for me it’s: pass the HP please.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five in June

 

I read five books in June.

 

Mrs Porter Calling by A J Pearce

‘A feel-good novel about the spirit of friendship in wartime Britain.’ The third in The Wartime Chronicles series – the fourth Dear Miss Lake has just been published. I love books set in the Home Front, books set in wartime London and books set in magazine publishing houses, so this ticked three boxes.

Obviously, in this time and place, the characters face very serious situations, but it’s all done with a light and delightful touch.

From her uncle, the eponymous Mrs Porter has inherited Woman’s Friend magazine – a cosy weekly which specialises in answering readers’ problems. But the glamorous and entitled Mrs P finds their problems ‘mis’ and dreary and makes the staff run Vogue-type articles on eg perfume that would cost the ordinary woman half a week’s wages.

 

The Glass Maker by Tracy Chevalier

Tracy’s books are always so interesting and informative because she researches such different subjects each time – Vermeer, trees, fossils, church kneelers and Victorian mourning to name but a few. This time it is glass making on the Venetian island of Murano: she visited there several times and tried her hand at this difficult skill (sadly, a skill and an industry that has been mostly overtaken by modern production methods).

The main character, Orsolo, and some of her family barely age over the five-hundred-year span of the story. This feat is explained by the ‘timelessness’ of Venice and is pulled off brilliantly. Told this way, you can see the history of glass making since the 1500s without having to meet a new set of characters every generation.

 

False Colours by Georgette Heyer

‘Gossip, scandal and an unforgettable Regency romance.’ The main character here is the dashing Kit, on leave from the diplomatic service – and he needs all his diplomacy skills to sort out the tangled lives of his extravagant mother and wayward twin brother, and his own feelings for that brother’s betrothed.

An enjoyable read if not one of my favourite GHs.

 

A Christmas Party by Georgette Heyer

My first GH crime novel – and, sadly, my last. Set in the 1930s in a snowbound country house, the book has none of the sparkling writing and gorgeous characterisation I like so much in her Regency novels. (I was warned of this by diehard Regency fans ... ) 

The solution to the murder of the house’s owner was satisfying but, jings, it was a bit of a plod to get there.

 

Broken Threads by Michal Hussein

This memoir from the host of Radio 4’s Today programme details her ancestry, which includes an Irish grandmother and a grandfather who played a part in the bloody transition ‘from Empire to Independence’.

It’s fascinating – I wish, though, that I’d read it in print and not on Kindle because eg there are many names beginning with A and I would like to have been able to refer back easily to get a grip on them, plus the e-form is hopeless when a book has lots of reference notes.

Six in May

I read six books in May.

Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives by Lucy Mangan

A book about books – what’s not to like? I enjoyed Bookworm which covered Lucy Mangan’s childhood years of not wanting to do much else other than read (a girl after my own heart then).

Of course, though, adulthood does have its compensations – an income to buy books and a house (and a specially built ‘shed’ in the garden, of which I am very jealous)’) to put them in. Oh, and a husband who’s equally bookwormish, and a child who provides a reason to reread favourites and to find new ones.

So this book ranges wildly and wonderfully (as anybody’s reading material should) from Library Lion to 1990s bonkbusters such as Lace, to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with much (much) in between.

I had the pleasure of seeing her recently being interviewed under the auspices of the wonderful Toppings bookshop in Edinburgh and got this lovely signed copy.

 

 

Free, Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

Read for book group. I knew next to nothing about Albania; it was so interesting to hear about its recent history through the eyes of Lea Ypi, born there in 1979 and now a professor at the London School of Economics.

Albania, the last Stalinist outpost in Europe, was a difficult place to live in for many reasons – but it was Lea’s home and all she knew. But in December 1990 political upheaval meant everything changed. There was freedom at last which seemed wonderful to begin with but it came with many downsides for everybody and, for Lea, some startling family revelations.

Fascinating.

 

 

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

Something extraordinary happens on a flight from Hobart to Sydney – an elderly woman called Cherry goes down the aisle telling each passenger (including children) and crew members when and how they are going to die.

Thereafter, the book focuses on some of these people and what effect their prediction has had on them (especially when they find out that some of the predictions have come true)  – and we find out Cherry’s very plausible backstory too. Riveting. I particularly enjoyed Leo’s and Ethan’s stories – Leo, the family man with a toxic boss, and Ethan, hopelessly infatuated with his rich, glamorous housemate. I still think about them actually …

 

April Lady by Georgette Heyer

Yay – the Christian Aid book sale was back this year in Edinburgh after a couple of years’ hiatus. Among my (very restrained) purchases were two GHs I’ve never read before. April Lady won’t go into my top five but it was very enjoyable all the same.

 

 

Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson

A joy to catch up with Jackson Brodie again.

A painting has apparently been stolen from the Yorkshire home of a deceased woman but her unpleasant offspring are reluctant to involve the police. Our hero, rather reluctantly, takes on the case – which leads to a stately home, an array of characters straight from the Golden Age of crime writing, and a Murder Mystery Weekend. Hope that’s not the last we see of JB – I’m still cross that the television series was cancelled.

You can’t see from the image but my copy (also purchased in Toppings but this time the St Andrews branch) has sprayed black edges, a special edition for independent bookshops.

 

 

Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers

After I read Small Pleasures by CC a few years ago, I read through her backlist of six books, one after the other.

Shy Creatures, her latest, is terrific. Set in the 1960s, in the environs of Croydon, it was inspired by the true story of a man discovered in a house he hadn’t left in forty years – a man with wild hair and beard and an astonishing talent for art.

Helen, an art therapist (embroiled in an affair with a charismatic married colleague in the psychiatric hospital) becomes entangled in the man’s mysterious past.

Six in August

I read six books in August.

 

Long Island by Colm Toibin

The sequel to Brooklyn. It’s now 1976. Eilis and her husband Tony and their two children live in Long Island, in the same cul-de-sac as Tony’s parents and two brothers. A marriage crisis sees Eilis going back to Ireland and her mother’s house in Enniscorthy for her first visit in twenty years.

No further spoilers. It was such a pleasure to revisit these characters and Colm Toibin’s writing about them. I had the privilege of hearing him talk about the book at the Edinburgh International Book Festival this year (frankly, I could listen to him read the telephone directory). He said he’d loved the film of Brooklyn to the extent that he took some characteristics that Domhnall Gleeson gave to Jim, and brought them out in Long Island.

And that gorgeous lyrical writing? The minute he’s written anything flowery or introspective he deletes it … and pares down and pares down … 

 

A Coronet for Cathie by Gwendoline Courtney

I love to reread my favourite girls’ books. One I know almost off by heart is Elizabeth of the Garrett Theatre by GW and several others of hers are a nostalgic read too. I’d never read this one; it seemed unavailable but has just been reissued by the wonderful Girls Gone By Publishers.

Teenage orphan Cathie learns that, following the death of a previously unknown relative, she is now a duchess and has a castle to live in … The book then turns into more of a school story. Cathie manages to avoid having her lineage known when she attends a day school some distance away – that certainly sorts out the snobs from the nice girls!

And continuing on the comfort reads, a couple of L M Montgomerys – The Story Girl and The Golden Road with their bewitching story-spinning heroine Sara Stanley.

 

 

Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer

Unmarried at thirty, wealthy Annis Wychwood defies convention and sets up her own household in Bath. She unexpectedly finds herself in loco parentis to seventeen-year-old Lucilla whose guardian is the much-gossiped about rake Oliver Carleton.

 

Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield

I’m not that keen on ghost/slightly supernatural stories except if they’re written by Diane Setterfield … Her Once Upon a River is wonderful, even better than this one..

Here, William Bellman kills a rook with a catapult when he’s ten and thereby alters the course of his life. Rising from poverty to become a very rich businessman entirely through his own astonishing acumen, when his child is dying he enters into a kind of pact with the mysterious Mr Black.

Apart enjoying the story, I learnt many things from this book especially about rooks and the over-the-top mourning clothes and accoutrements the Victorians went in for. Highly recommended.

 

 

Seven in January

 I read seven books in January.

 

Bibliomaniac: An Obsessive’s Tour of the Bookshops of Britain 

by Robin Ince

Signed copy, a lovely Christmas present.

When Robin Ince’s stadium tour with Professor Brian Cox was postponed because of the pandemic he decided, as you do, to go on a bookshop tour, by public transport.

As well as giving talks (customized to each venue) he bought books either in the shops or adjacent charity shops, and was given books as gifts – leading to lugging heavy loads around on buses and trains. What an enviable way of spending time …

Here’s a flavour: ‘Edinburgh probably represents my highest per-day date of book purchases of any city I visited. I won’t list my favourite purchases, but rather the one I most regret leaving behind.’

 

French Braid by Anne Tyler

Pleased to have a hardback version (from Waterstones’ hardback half-price sale).

When her children grow up and leave home then, inch by inch, their artist mother Mercy does too. But family life turns out to be inescapable …

I got very involved with all the characters who we follow at various stages of their lives and was frustrated by some gaps and unfinished stories – but, hey, it’s Anne Tyler; she’s forgiven.

 

Friday’s Child by Georgette Heyer

Delightful heroine (called Hero) and her marriage of convenience to the dashing Lord Sherry, on whom she’s always had a crush. Not-really-a-spoiler – the book ends with one of my favourite Heyer scenarios: a chase through the darkening countryside and a showdown in an inn.

 

The Village of Lost and Found by Alison Sherlock

‘Scandal-hit party girl Lucy Conway needs to leave London fast, so she packs her bags and escapes to the sleepy village of Cranbridge to take care of her beloved Uncle Frank.’

 

Blurb your Enthusiasm: An A-Z of Literary Enthusiasm by Louise Willder

Bought with my Bookshop.org voucher. Fab. How are we persuaded to buy/read the books we do? Louise Willder (who’s written 5000 blurbs) tells of the tricks of the publishing trade and discusses among much else what she sees as the best and the worst blurbs of all time.

 

Talking of Jane Austen by Sheila Kaye-Smith and G. B. Stern

Bought in the Christian Aid Booksale last year. Published in 1943. Two writers, famous in their day, discuss most eruditely a writer unsung in her day but now one of the world’s most known and beloved.

 

The Art of Falling by Danielle Mclaughlin

When Danielle Mclaughlin won the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award in 2019 her story ‘A Partial List of the Saved’ was available online and I thought it was terrific. Since then she has published a story collection Dinosaurs on Other Planets and I should have bought that instead of this, her first novel, which left me cold.

I can understand, of course, that it’s stressful for Nessa having problems at home and at work but my understanding is of the situation not of the effects on the character who, with the rest of the cast, I did not believe in never mind care for. There was much that didn’t add up – eg Luke was said to be ‘very fond of Eleanor’ when to my recollection they hadn’t met.

It’s interesting that an author who I thought wrote brilliantly about relationships (and much else) in her short story failed to convince me about any of the relationships in a much longer piece.