This Week in Books is a weekly round-up hosted by Lypsyy Lost & Found, about what I’ve been reading Now, Then & Next.

A similar meme,  WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

Now: I’m still reading L S Lowry: A Life by Shelley Rohde. Lowry is one of my favourite artists, well known for his urban paintings of industrial towns but his work covers a wide range of themes and subjects, from landscapes and seascapes to portraits.

I’m also reading The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf, her first novel.

Blurb: Rachel Vinrace is on board her father’s ship, the Euphrosyne, on a voyage to South America. Despite being accompanied by her father and her aunt and uncle, Helen and Ridley Ambrose, the passage leads to Rachel’s awakening, both as a woman and as an individual. As the ship is wracked by storms, she finds herself romantically entangled with Richard Dalloway, an encounter that leaves her troubled and confused. Upon arrival in Santa Marina, Rachel strikes off alone to contemplate her identity, and finds herself with the aspiring novelist Terence Hewet. As the emerging romance between the two is complicated by their disagreements about gender and art, another storm, and tragedy, appear on the horizon.

Then: I’ve recently finished The Sea Detective by Mark Douglas-Home, a crime fiction novel with a difference and a book I thoroughly enjoyed. This is the first in an unusual crime series.

Blurb: Cal McGill is an Edinburgh-based oceanographer, environmentalist and one-of-a-kind investigator. Using his knowledge of the waves – ocean currents, prevailing winds, shipping records – McGill can track where objects have come from, or where they’ve gone. It’s a unique skill that can help solve all sorts of mysteries. Such as when two severed feet wash up miles apart on two different islands off the coast of Scotland. Most strangely, forensic tests reveal that the feet belong to the same body.

As Cal McGill investigates, he unravels a web of corruption, exploitation and violence, which threatens many lives across the globe – very soon including his own…

My review is to follow.

Next: this is always a step into the unknown and at the moment I’m wondering whether to read one of my TBR books, such as Poirot Investigates a collection of short stories by Agatha Christie, first published in 1924.

Blurb: First there was the mystery of the film star and the diamond’¦ then came the ‘˜suicide’ that was murder’¦ the mystery of the absurdly cheap flat’¦ a suspicious death in a locked gun-room’¦ a million dollar bond robbery’¦ the curse of a Pharaoh’s tomb’¦ a jewel robbery by the sea’¦ the abduction of a Prime Minister’¦ the disappearance of a banker’¦ a phone call from a dying man’¦ and, finally, the mystery of the missing will.

What links these fascinating cases? Only the brilliant deductive powers of Hercule Poirot!

It’s probably about time I read some more of Agatha Christie’s short stories!