Author: Margaret

I love reading and write about the books I’ve been reading and those I’m considering reading on my blog, BooksPlease at https://booksplease.org/

My Friday Post: Sunshine on Scotland Street

Published on by Margaret15 Comments

Book Beginnings ButtonEvery Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City
Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

I’ve just started reading Sunshine on Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith, one of his 44 Scotland Street novels.

It begins:

Even if she had not been an anthropologist, Domenica Macdonald would have understood the very particular significance of weddings. Anthropologists – and sociologists too, perhaps even more so – often tell us what we already know, or what we expect to hear, or what we are not surprised to learn. And so we all know, as did Domenica, that weddings are far more than marriage ceremonies; we know that they are occasions for family stock-taking and catharsis; that they furnish opportunities for naked displays of emotion and unscheduled tears; that they are a stage for sartorial and social ostentation; that they are far from the simple public exchange of vows they appear to be.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice.

Friday 56

These are the rules:

  1. Grab a book, any book.
  2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.
  3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
  4. Post it.
  5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Page 56:

He looked at his watch. That brief encounter with the two girls on Queen’s Street had taken place about twenty minutes previously. That gave him forty minutes to have a necessary cup of coffee, unpack his clothes and products, and have a quick shower before the girls arrived – if they arrived. They had laughed when he had shouted out the invitation, but it had been, he thought, a laugh of delight rather than a dismissive laugh.

The 44 Scotland Street books form a serial novel about the residents of 44 Scotland Street, a fictitious building in a real street in the author’s home town of Edinburgh. It first appeared in daily episodes in the Scotsman newspaper in 2004 and I read a few of them online some years ago.

I felt in the mood for something light and not about murder, psychologically disturbed characters, or full of doom and gloom and this seems to be just that – ‘a joyous, charming portrait of city life and human foibles‘ according to the Sunday Express (quoted on the back cover).

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

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The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins has won a lot of awards and is a very popular book. It has good reviews, Stephen King for example describes it as a “Really great suspense novel. Kept me up most of the night. The alcoholic narrator is dead perfect.”

I thought it sounded good, so I decided to read it. But it didn’t live up to the hype for me. I wasn’t enthralled.

It began well with Rachel on the train each morning looking out at the houses on the road where she used to live before she was divorced. As the train stops at the same signal each day she enviously watches a young couple who are living the perfect life, or so she imagines. Then something happens that shocks her and everything changes and she begins to get involved in their lives, with disastrous results.

But I couldn’t easily distinguish between the three main characters, Rachel, Anna and Megan. Each one is an unreliable narrator and not very likeable. I had to keep referring to the chapter headings and dates to remind myself who was who and what happened when. I didn’t find it chilling or thrilling and any suspense rapidly disappeared with the repetition of Rachel being drunk, then being sorry, but unable to stop drinking. Then there are all the phone calls, text messages and emails that she sends when she is drunk. She has blackouts and can’t remember what happened, or what she said. Added to that she dreams and is unable to distinguish between them and reality. Overall it’s dreary and depressing.

So after a good start, the narrative lost impetus and dragged on to its conclusion, which by comparison seemed rushed, with a twist right at the end that took me by surprise. I suppose it is a ‘page-turner’ as I did want to know what what going to happen, but it left me feeling unsatisfied, irritated and rather out of sorts.

I’ve seen this book compared to Gone Girl, another book I have sitting waiting to be read. Now, I’m wondering if I’ll find that one disappointing as well. Do let me know your views on both or either of these books.

Reading challenges: Bev’s Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2016, 20 Books of Summer 2016 and although I didn’t find this book particularly perilous, Carl’s RIP XI (Readers Imbibing Peril), because plenty of other people have.

20 Books of Summer 2016

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

20 Bks of Summer 2106

I began the 20 Books of Summer really well, reading 7 books in June. It all went downhill after that, but I’ve read 10 of the books I listed, so not too bad. And if I had stuck to my list and not read other books instead I would have completed the challenge as over the period from 1 June to 5 September I read 22 books – but then I’ve found before that as soon as I list books in this way I want to read books that aren’t on my list!

I began reading The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend, but wasn’t too impressed with the opening chapter. I may ‘abandon’ that book, but it might just have been the case of it being the wrong time for me to read it.

I really want to read Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively and Orlando by Virginia Woolf very soon and I hope to get round to the other books on the list before too long.

Here’s the list, with links to my posts on the books I read:

  1. The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson
  2. The Sex Life of My Aunt by Mavis Cheek
  3. Asta’s Book by Barbara Vine ‘“ finished 14 June 2016
  4. High Rising by Angela Thirkell ‘“ finished 7 June 2016
  5. The Child’s Child by Barbara Vine
  6. The Glass Room by Simon Mawer ‘“ finished 22 June 2016
  7. The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend
  8. Small Wars by Sadie Jones
  9. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins – finished 5 September 2016
  10. Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin by W J Burley ‘“ finished 29 June 2016
  11. The Girl in the Cellar by Patricia Wentworth ‘“ finished 13 August 2016
  12. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
  13. A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey ‘“ finished 17 June 2016
  14. Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes
  15. The Wench is Dead by Colin Dexter ‘“ finished 3 September 2016
  16. Heat Wave by Penelope Lively ‘“ finished 26 June 2016
  17. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
  18. A Moment of Silence by Anna Dean
  19. The Water Horse by Julia Gregson
  20. Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham ‘“ finished 10 June 2016

Thanks to Cathy @ 746 Books for setting up the challenge.

The Wench is Dead by Colin Dexter

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An Inspector Morse book, The Wench is Dead is the 8th in the series, first published in 1989. This is a bit different from the other Morse books in that it is historical crime fiction – no current cases are investigated.

The wench is dead

 

Morse is in hospital being treated for a perforated ulcer. Whilst recovering he is given a book called Murder on the Oxford Canal by the wife of a recently deceased patient at the hospital. It’s an account of the investigation and trial that followed the death of Joanna Franks in 1859. She had been found at Duke’s Cut on the Oxford Canal. As he reads, Morse becomes convinced that the two boatmen hanged for her murder and a third man who had been transported to Australia were innocent.

Dexter based his book on an account of a Victorian murder in 1839, that of 37-year-old Christina Collins as she travelled the Trent and Mersey Canal atRugeley, Staffordshire, on the Staffordshire Knot en route to London. It reminded me of Josephine Tey’s novel, The Daughter of Time in which Inspector Alan Grant, also recovering in hospital, investigates the murder of the Princes in the Tower.

Morse enlists the help of Sergeant Lewis as well as that of Christine Greenaway, the beautiful daughter of one of the other patients. She works as a librarian at the Bodleian Library. So he is able to study original source material as well as the account in the published book. Morse finds it an absorbing puzzle, like a tricky cryptic crossword, and the more he read and thought about it the more questions came to his mind. He was not satisfied that the conclusions drawn at the trial about the forensic and pathological evidence were right. He felt uneasy about reported conversations between the various people involved:

… all of it was wrong somehow. Wrong if they were guilty. It was if some inexperienced playwright had been given a murder-plot, and then had proceeded to write page after page of inappropriate, misleading and occasionally contradictory dialogue. (page 133)

I thought it was ingenious and compelling reading, very well constructed and very clever. By the time he leaves the hospital Morse is convinced that he has solved the mystery. It’s a tale of  intrigue, lust and deception, with more than a few twists and turns.

Reading Challenges: Mount TBR Reading Challenge, 20 Books of Summer 2016 , Vintage Cover Silver Age Scavenger Hunt: in the category of a Building (not a house) – the front cover of my copy shows the Hertford Bridge, popularly known as the Bridge of Sighs, which joins two parts of Hertford College over New College Lane in Oxford.

R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril XI

Published on by Margaret8 Comments
It’s time for the annual R. (eaders) I. (mbibing) P. (eril) event, hosted by Carl  at Stainless Steel Droppings, taking place between September 1st and October 31st.
(Much thanks to Hugo Award winning artist Abigail Larson for the use of her art)

This event involves reading books from these categories: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Dark Fantasy, Gothic, Horror, Supernatural or other closely-related fields. Reviews, while not required, may be posted on Carl’s blog.

I shall be attempting:

 

Peril the First: Read at least four books, any length, that you feel fit (the very broad definitions) of R.I.P. literature. I have plenty of Mystery, Suspense, Thriller and Gothic books on my shelves and Kindle to choose from, including these four:

The Girl in a Swing by Richard Adams

The Taxidermist’s Daughter by Kate Mosse

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

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Six Degrees of Separation: From Flowers in the Attic to We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Books Are My Favourite and Best. On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the ones next to them in the chain.

Flowers in the Attic chain

This month’s chain begins with:

Flowers in the Attic by V C Andrews, a book I haven’t read. From the synopsis I see that it’s about Chris, Cathy, and the twins, Cory and Carrie who are kept hidden until their grandfather dies so that their mother will receive a sizeable inheritance.

It continues with:

  • Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffeneger, also about twins, a ghost story about love, loss and identity. When Elspeth Noblin dies, she leaves her beautiful flat overlooking Highgate Cemetery to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina Poole. I liked all the information about Highgate Cemetery, but overall this book was disappointing.
  • I much preferred Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier, also set in part in Highgate Cemetery in 1901-1908, the early years of the suffragette movement. Two families visit neighbouring graves in Highgate Cemetery. One is decorated with a sentimental angel, the other with an elaborate urn.
  • Another book I loved, also about an angel, but a very different one, is Miss Garnet’s Angel by Salley Vickers – this combines two stories, that of Julia Garnet, a retired school teacher, who goes to Venice prompted by the death of a friend, and that of  Tobias and the Angel, which she sees in the Guardi panels in the Chiesa dell’ Angelo Raffaele.
  • The next link in the chain is also set in Venice: Wilful Behaviour by Donna Leon – crime fiction, in which Commissario Brunetti looks into the possibility of a pardon for a crime committed by a student’s grandfather during World War 2 and then investigates that student’s murder.
  • Also set in part during World War 2 is Atonement by Ian McEwan, a complex story, split into four parts and told from several points of view. This is a love story and also a mystery. It provides the link to the next book in my chain as revolves around the lives of  two sisters, Briony and her older sister, Cecelia. A book that I loved.
  • We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson is also a fantastic book – a weirdly wonderful book about sisters, Merricat and her sister Constance. They live in a grand house, away from the village, behind locked gates, feared and hated by the villagers. Merricat is an obsessive-compulsive, both she and Constance have rituals that they have to perform in an attempt to control their fears.

This chain has taken me from siblings in New York to twin sisters in London, via Highgate Cemetery, angels, Venice, World War 2, back to sisters in America.