This week I’ve been reading  Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison, both shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. I’ve finished both of them and can’t find any easy way to compare them. They are such different books, Wolf Hall – historical fiction about big events, full of characters based on real people, but written in such an intimate way that I felt I was there, versus The Very Thought of You – a quiet book about love in its various forms but written with so little dialogue and so much explanation of what the characters are thinking and feeling that I felt detached as though I was merely watching the events as they unfolded rapidly before my eyes. I enjoyed them both in different ways. I’ll be writing more about both books in later posts.

I haven’t written much here this week, more reading than writing! I wrote an Agatha Christie Reading Challenge Update which is included in The Latest Agatha Christie Blog Carnival out today with 30 contributions from 11 contributors in a bumper edition. It also includes my post on Christie’s Passenger To Frankfurt. This month’s carnival has a new feature – A Featured Blog kicking off with Margot Kinberg’s remarkable blog Confessions of a Mystery Writer. Every day Margot writes such interesting posts on various aspects of crime fiction which, of course, majors on Agatha Christie’s books.

I’m also reading Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days by Jared Cade, which is not just about her mysterious disappearance in December 1926 but is also about her life as a whole. It’s fascinating reading. I’m not sure what to read next – the choice is too much, but I may start Agatha Christie’s autobiography or go for something completely different, such as Virginia Woolf’s The Voyage Out or John le Carre’s The Honourable Schoolboy.