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First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros

Published on August 20, 2013 by Margaret12 Comments

Every Tuesday Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, to share the first paragraph or (a few) of a book you are reading or thinking about reading soon.

The Cabinet Room, 10 Downing Street, London, 4.30pm, 9 May 1940

Churchill was last to arrive. He knocked once, sharply, and entered. Through the tall windows the warm spring day was fading, shadows lengthening on Horse Guards Parade. Margesson, the Conservative Chief Whip, sat with Prime Minister Chamberlain and Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax at the far end of the long, coffin-shaped table which dominated the Cabinet Room. As Churchill approached them Margesson, formally dressed as ever in immaculate black morning coat stood up.

‘Winston.’

Churchill nodded at the Chief Whip, looking him sternly in the eye. Margesson, who was Chamberlain’s creature, had made life difficult for him when he had stood out against party policy over India and Germany in the years before the war.He turned to Chamberlain and Halifax, the Prime Minister’s right-hand man in the government’s appeasement of Germany. ‘Neville. Edward.’ Both men looked back; no sign today of Chamberlain’s habitual half-sneer, nor of the snappy arrogance which had alienated the House of Commons during yesterday’s debate over the military defeat of Norway. Ninety Conservatives had voted with the Opposition or abstained; Chamberlain had left the chamber followed by shouts of ‘Go!’ The Prime Minister’s eyes were red from lack of sleep or perhaps even tears – though it was hard to image Neville Chamberlain weeping. Last night the word around a feverish House of Commons was that his leadership would not survive.

This is the opening of Dominion by C J Sansom, a novel about what might have happened, an alternative history, if Germany had been triumphant in the Second World War. All events that take place in this book after 5 p.m. on 9 May 1940 are imaginary.

I’ve read and enjoyed Sansom’s earlier books, the five Matthew Shardlake historical mysteries and Winter in Madrid, historical fiction set in Spain in 1940, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to read Dominion, his latest book, described on the book jacket as ‘a vivid, haunting re-imagining of 1950s Britain’ and ‘a gripping, humane spy thriller and a poignant love story.’

I like the opening paragraphs I’m still not sure because ‘re-imaginings’ don’t exactly appeal to me. I prefer historical fiction to be historical and fiction to be fiction, not an alternative version of history. But when I saw a copy on the library shelves I was tempted to at least look at it and brought it home to see if it’s any good. After all it’s written by C J Sansom, so it can’t be bad, can it?

Agatha Christie at Home by Hilary Macaskill

Published on August 19, 2013November 14, 2019 by Margaret3 Comments

One of the things that struck me when I was reading Agatha Christie’s An Autobiography was her love of houses. It stemmed from her childhood dolls’ house. She enjoyed buying all the things to put in it – not just furniture, but all the household implements such as brushes and dustpans, and food, cutlery and glasses. She also liked playing at moving house, using a cardboard box as a furniture van.

Writing about her life with her husband, Max Mallowan she wrote:

We were always choosing sites for houses. This was mainly owing to me, houses having always been my passion – there was indeed a moment in my life, not long before the outbreak of the second war, when I was the proud owner of eight houses. (page 440 of An Autobiography)

Agatha Christie at Home Macaskill

So when I saw that Hilary Macaskill had written this book – Agatha Christie at Home – I knew immediately that I wanted to read it. It’s a beautiful book, with many photographs – more than 100 colour photos – illustrating Agatha’s life and homes. I took my time reading it, first of all looking at the photos, before reading the text.

There is a Foreword by Mathew Prichard, her grandson, explaining the love his grandmother had for Devon, in particular for Torquay, where she was born and Greenway, the house that had a special place in her heart. He expressed his hope that this book will ‘transmit some of the magic that my whole family felt when they were there.’ And this book does indeed do that!

There is an overview of Agatha Christie’s life followed by descriptions of the houses and countryside she loved – from Ashfield in Torquay her first home, where she was born and brought up to Greenway, a Georgian mansion above the River Dart, now owned by the National Trust.

There are no spoilers in this book but Hilary Macaskill has identified the settings Agatha Christie used in her books and how some of the place names have been altered, but are still recognizable from her descriptions. I hadn’t realised that the names of some of her characters are taken from the names of streets or villages, such as Luscombe Road in Paignton which she adopted for Colonel Luscombe in At Bertram’s Hotel.

It’s a useful book too if you want to find out more about visiting Devon with tourist information and website addresses. The final chapter is about Agatha Christie’s legacy and her continuing popularity both nationally and internationally. As well as being able to visit Greenway, which has been restored to the way it was when Agatha lived there, there are events to celebrate her life and works, such as the annual Agatha Christie week that takes place in Torquay each September around her birthday.

I haven’t been to Greenway, although I have stayed in Torquay, but that was before Greenway was open to the public. It is enormously popular – on the first day it was opened over 400 visitors came to see the house. But Agatha Christie was a very private person and I can’t imagine what she would have thought about that. After all she had refused permission for an ‘authorized life’ to be written, stating:

‘I write books to be sold and I hope people will enjoy them but I think people should be interested in books and not their authors.’ (page 129)

Knowing that I think I’d feel I was invading her privacy if I did go to Greenway!

The English Spy by Donald Smith

Published on August 16, 2013 by Margaret8 Comments

I’d gone to my local library to collect Road to Referendum by Iain Macwhirter, a book I’d reserved after I read about on FictionFan’s blog, and was browsing the shelves when this book, The English Spy caught my eye. Road to Referendum is about the run up to the Independence Referendum to take place in Scotland in September 2014. It also has chapters on Scottish history leading up to the present day as background. So, it was quite a coincidence finding The English Spy as this is a novel about the build up to the political Union of England and Scotland in 1707 – the Union that Independence for Scotland would break.

My knowledge of the Act of Union in 1707 was limited to just the fact that by that union Scotland and England, together with Ireland and Wales, became the United Kingdom and I thought it was to settle the successor to Queen Anne who was childless and ill. Of course, it was much more complicated than that and The English Spy tells the story of how Daniel Defoe, at that time still known as Daniel Foe, was sent to Scotland under secret instructions from the English government to persuade the Scots to give up their independence. It’s a fascinating story of intrigue and backstabbing amongst the members of the Scottish parliament!

The narration moves between multiple viewpoints, mainly in the first person and some in the third person of various characters, some obviously historical figures and others possibly(?) fictional ones. There are Foe’s own account, letters between Isobel Rankin, his landlady in Edinburgh and her friend Nellie in Glasgow, the journal of Lord Glamis and a third person narrative of Robert Harley, the first Earl of Oxford. There are several other characters who pop in and out of the story – Lady O’Kelly and Aeneas Murray amongst others. This is a story about spies and the struggle between various factions for power and once I had got the characters sorted in my mind I was swept along with the intrigue and dangers of the times, keen to see how the Union came about.

The English Spy is a mix of fact and fiction but A Warning to the Reader at the beginning of the book clarifies that Daniel Defoe had indeed been sent to Scotland and was required to provide London with ‘clandestine reports on affairs in the north’. The Scottish Government was led by the Marquis of Queensberry who favoured union with England and the Duke of Hamilton was opposed to the union. Donald Smith warns:

Yet why did Scotland surrender its hard won and long cherished independence? The historians remain divided. What is offered here is fiction, yet as Defoe himself shows, the truths or apparent deceits of fiction may be uncomfortably closer to home.

Now, over 300 years later the question of independence for Scotland is still in question!

Dr Donald Smith is a founding member of the Scottish Storytelling Forum and of Edinburgh’s Guid Crack Club, and he is currently Director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre at The Netherbow. He has written, directed or produced over fifty plays and is a founding director of the National Theatre of Scotland.

Now to read what Road to Referendum has to offer.

A Non-Fiction Adventure

Published on August 16, 2013November 17, 2018 by Margaret14 Comments

I don’t read as much non-fiction as fiction. I find it needs more concentration and so often pick up and read fiction. But I do like non-fiction and own quite a lot of it. I’ve been trying to read more and one way that helps me to focus on reading it is the This Isn’t Fiction Reading Challenge run by Birgit at The Book Garden.

Now, thanks to Bev at My Reader’s Block, I’ve found another way– A Non-Fiction Adventure. Like The Classics Club this one runs for five years. It’s hosted by Michelle of The True Book Addict.

The Sign- up is here.

These are the guidelines:

Choose 50+ non-fiction books; the number is up to you. Choose 50, 75, 100, 200. It’s entirely your choice.
Books must be non-fiction – biography, autobiography, history, memoir, cooking, travel, science, etc.
List them at your blog (or on Goodreads or another social media site, if you do not have a blog)
Choose your completion goal date five years in the future.

My five years run from 14 August 2013 to 14 August 2018.

My Goal: 50 books, initially choosing from these 60 books: all books I own; there are more, but I think this is enough to start with. I like the idea that your list can change, so this is just a starting point and no doubt I’ll find other books I want to read during the next five years!

Autobiographies/Diaries/Letters

Jane Austen’s Letters
Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years 1969-1979 by Michael Palin
Between the Woods and the Water: On Foot to Constantinople: From The Middle Danube to the Iron Gates by Patrick Leigh Fermor
Great Meadow: an Evocation by Dirk Bogarde
Slipstream: a Memoir by Elizabeth Jane Howard
Trollope: an Autobiography
A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
The Snow Geese by William Fiennes
A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep by Rumer Godden
Corvus: a Life with Birds by Esther Woolfson
The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters by Charlotte Mosley editor
Chronicle of Youth by Vera Brittain

Biographies

Being Shelley by Anne Wroe
The Wolf That Never Sleeps by Marguerite de Beaumont (Baden-Powell)
The Innocent Man by John Gresham
Mary Queen of Scots by Alison Weir
Victorian People by Asa Briggs
D H Lawrence: the Life of an Outsider by John Worthen
Billy by Pamela Stephenson
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
William Barclay by Clive Rawlins
Thomas Hardy: the Time-torn Man by Claire Tomalin
Howard Hughes by Peter Harry Brown
Marilyn Monroe by Barbara Leeming
Shakespeare: the biography by Peter Ackroyd
Charles Dickens: a Life by Claire Tomalin
Dickens by Peter Ackroyd
The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: The tragedy of Mary, Katherine and Lady Jane Grey by Leanda de Lisle
Virginia Woolf: a Writer’s Life by Gordon Lyndall
Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser
L S Lowry: a Life by Shelley Rhode
Agatha Christie at Home by Hilary Macaskill

History

Great Escape Stories by Eric Williams
Big Chief Elizabeth by Giles Milton
Band of Brothers by Stephen E Ambrose
How the Girl Guides Won the War byJane Hampton
The Making of Modern Britain byAndrew Marr
After Elizabeth: the death of Elizabeth and the coming of King James by Leanda de Lisle
Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor
The English by Jeremy Paxman
Shakespeare’s Restless World: An Unexpected History in 20 Objects by Dr N Mcgregor
Wartime Britain by Juliet Gardiner
1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro
The Games We Played by Susan Kelleher
Glencoe by John Prebble
On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison

Philosophy/ Religion

Sovereignty of Good by Iris Murdoch
Think: a compelling introduction to philosophy by Simon Blackburn
Meditations by Aurelius
C S Lewis: the Man and His God by Richard Harries
Islam: a very short introduction by Malise Ruthven

Reading/ Writing

Virginia Woolf on Women and Writing
A Reading Diary by Alberto Manguel
The Companion to the History of the Book by Simon Eliot & Jonathan Rose editors
How Fiction Works by James Wood
You English Words by John Moore

Miscellaneous

Weeds by Richard Mabey
Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey
Rivers by Griff Rhys Jones
The Penguin Book of Lies by Philip Kerr editor

Third Girl by Agatha Christie

Published on August 15, 2013 by Margaret4 Comments

Third Girl was first published in 1966. In it Poirot is probably meant to be approaching eighty, although if he had aged with the books he would have been well over a hundred! Anyway, the young lady who comes to see him about ‘a murder she might have committed‘ runs out of his room after blurting out:

‘You’re too old. Nobody told me you were so old. I really don’t want to be rude but – there it is. You’re too old. I’m really very sorry.’ (page 13)

Poirot is bored. He had finished his Magnum Opus, an analysis of detective fiction writers, in which he had spoken scathingly of Edgar Allen Poe, and had complained of the lack of method or order in the romantic outpourings of Wilkie Collins. He had no idea what to do next, so, his interest is aroused by the young lady’s announcement and he sets out to discover what murder she ‘might have committed.’ It turns out that Mrs Ariadne Oliver had told the girl about him when talking with friends about detectives and together they discover that she is Norma Restarick, the ‘third girl’, sharing a flat with two other girls.

Norma thinks she might be crazy, but won’t see a doctor. She doesn’t always remember what she has done. She hates her stepmother and thinks she might have poisoned her. Poirot is intrigued but when a suspicion of espionage surfaces it is all too much for him:

Poirot gave an exasperated sigh.

‘Enfin,’ he said, ‘it is too much! There is far too much. Now we have espionage and counter espionage. All I am seeking is one perfectly simple murder. I begin to suspect that that murder only occurred in a drug addict’s brain! (page 211)

But as Poirot reminds himself it is his ‘metier’ to deal with murder, to clear up murder, to prevent murder and eventually with a casual phrase spoken by Mrs Oliver it all becomes clear to him.

The plot is complex, which is rather puzzling, but for me Third Girl is also interesting because of its commentary on the 1960s culture seen through the eyes of the older characters – the disparaging remarks about the youth of the day – beatniks, long hair, clothes that were of doubtful cleanliness, and skimpy skirts, and the Van Dyke type clothes some of the young men wore, the drink and drugs and wild parties. Mrs Oliver has her usual gripe about people saying things to her about her books and how they longed to meet her, making her feel ‘hot, bothered and rather silly‘ and how much they love the ‘awful detective Sven Hjerson‘ she had created and now hates.

Maybe it’s not one of Agatha Christie’s best books but I think it’s very entertaining.

The Classics Club Spin

Published on August 14, 2013 by Margaret8 Comments

It’s time for another Classics Spin.

I took part in the last Classics Club Spin when the book I read was Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens, a long book (845 pages), so for this spin I fancied reading something shorter.

Here’s my list of ‘shorter’ books – some are very short but there is one very long one of 959 pages (it’s number 12 – what do you bet that will be the number that comes out of the spin!)