Category: Books

Looking Back at 2011’s Books

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Here are some statistics – I’ve read a total of 103 books, most of which I’ve enjoyed very much. The full list is on my Books Read in 2011 page.

My ratings are purely based on how much I liked them and anything less than a 3 star rating means that the books were just OK – nothing special. Fortunately I only had 6 books that failed to make the 3 star rating. I try to be selective so that I don’t waste time reading books that are not so enjoyable.

These are the figures:

5 star books = 7
4.5 star books = 15
4 star books = 36
3.5 star books = 19
3 star books = 20
2.5 star books = 1
2 star books = 5
Each month I’ve been keeping a record of ‘the book of the month’. They are as follows (with links to my posts):

My Book of the Year and also my Best Crime Fiction Book is:

Blood Harvest by S J Bolton. It’s set in the fictional town of Heptonclough in Lancashire where the Fletcher family have just moved into a new house built on land right next to the boundary wall of the churchyard.  I was completely convinced not only by the setting but also by the characterisation that the place and the people in this book were real. It’s full of tension, terror and suspense and I was in several minds before the end as to what it was all about. I had an inkling but I hadn’t realised the full and shocking truth.

A few more statistics:

  • Male Authors: 37
  • Female Authors: 59
  • New-To-Me Authors: 38
  • Fiction: 93
  • Crime Fiction: 61
  • Non-fiction: 10
  • Memoir/Biography/Autobiography: 7
  • Re-read: 4
  • Mine: 77
  • Library books: 25
  • Borrowed: 1
  • E-Books: 14

Happy New Year 2012

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

I’m not a great one for making New Year resolutions – or keeping them, but these are a few things I’d like to achieve in my reading this year.

  • Read more from my to-be-read books and keep a record of how many I read (something I didn’t do last year).
  • Read the library books I borrow and not just keep on renewing them, or returning them unread.
  • Not get hung up if I don’t complete the reading challenges I’ve joined. Reading is for pleasure and it’s not something that ‘should’ be done.
  • Weed out and re-house books I know I’ll never re-read.

I’m compiling some statistics and deciding which are my favourite books from 2011, which I’ll post soon.

In the meantime I wish you all a Happy New Year and … Keep on Reading!

Mini Reviews

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

I’ve been reading books recently and not writing anything about them. So, before they drop out of my mind completely here are a few notes:

Body Parts: Essays on Life Writing by Hermione Lee – this is a book about writing biography, which I’ve been reading on and off since I started it in 2007! I first wrote about my impressions in this post. It’s very good with an interesting selection, although some essays are a lot shorter than others. As with all books about writing it includes books and authors I haven’t read – and makes me want to read them – Eudora Welty for one. There are essays on T S Eliot, J M Coetzee, Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf, to name but a few.

My rating 4/5

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle – I bought this book several years ago, so it’s one off my to-be-read list. A fantasy/science fiction magical classic and 1963 Newbery Medal winning book, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s the story of Meg and Charles, searching for their father, a scientist, lost through a ‘wrinkle in time’, with wonderful characters such as Mrs  Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which to help them.

My rating 4.5/5

Maigret in Court by Georges Simenon. Maigret is two years from retirement and is wondering about this with foreboding. He does seem rather tired as he investigates the murder of a woman and small child. The book begins in court as Maigret gives evidence against Gaston Meurat, but he is beginning to have doubts that Meurat is the murderer and carries on investigating to save Meurat from execution. A complicated story, packed into 126 pages, that at times had me completely puzzled.

My rating 3/5

I read two books on Kindle:

Breakfast at the Hotel Deja Vu by Paul Torday. I rather liked this little e-book about a politician, a former MP exposed in the expenses scandal and staying in a hotel abroad, whilst he recovers from an illness and writes his memoirs. All is not as it seems, however, as each day he discovers he hasn’t actually written anything.And just who are the woman and young boy he sees each morning?

My rating 4/5

Crime in the Community by Cecilia Peartree – a free e-book from Amazon. I was disappointed with this one – too wordy, and convoluted. It’s about a small group of people who are supposed to be organising events to improve their community, but who actually don’t do anything except go to meetings. I found this part quite true to life for some committees I’ve known. But then it got tedious and eventually too far-fetched with a retired spy, a missing person and a mental breakdown.

My rating 2/5

Best Crime Fiction Reads 2011

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise is collecting lists of best crime fiction reads for 2011 – the books don’t have to have been published in 2011, but must be crime fiction.

These are the books that I’ve rated with 5 and 4.5 stars:

  1. Exit Lines by Reginald Hill 5/5
  2. Drawing Conclusions by Donna Leon 5/5
  3. The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths 5/5
  4. Blood Harvest by S J Bolton 5/5
  1. Wycliffe and the Last Rites by W J Burley 4.5/5
  2. The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn by Colin Dexter 4.5/5
  3. The Art of Drowning by Frances Fyfield 4.5/5
  4. The Stabbing in the Stables by Simon Brett 4.5/5
  5. Gently Does It by Alan Hunter 4.5/5 (Kindle)
  6. Cop Hater by Ed McBain 4.5/5
  7. The Case of the Lame Canary by Erle Stanley Gardner 4.5/5
  8. Intimate Kill by Margaret Yorke 4.5/5
  9. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie 4.5/5
  10. Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie 4.5/5
  11. The Hanging Wood by Martin Edward (Kindle) 4.5/5
  12. Awakening by S J Bolton (Kindle) 4.5/5
  13. Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains by Catriona McPherson 4.5/5 – review to follow

 

Wondrous Words – Flapjack

Published on by Margaret14 Comments

Reading Agatha Christie’s books I sometimes come across words that I recognise, but know they cannot possibly mean what I understand them to mean. I found an example recently in Death in the Clouds.

A murder has taken place on a plane and Poirot has asked for a detailed list of the passengers’ belongings. In amongst those belongings three of the passengers have flapjacks in their bags. I thought that was quite strange, because to me a flapjack is a type of biscuit made of rolled oats, syrup and maybe pieces of fruit. They’re delicious. I wondered why these people would have flapjacks in their bags, along with cigarette holders, cigarette cases, keys, pencils and loose change, etc.

I was intrigued enough to look up the word. Wikipedia tells me that the word was not used to describe a food made of oats until 1935. Death in the Clouds was published in 1935, so it is just possible that Agatha Christie meant the flapjack that I know, but not very likely when I noticed that these three people were all women and also had lipstick and rouge in their bags and none of the men had flapjacks.

The answer is quite simple when I checked in my Chambers Dictionary:

A flapjack is a flat face-powder compact.

And this website adds that it was a term used in the 1930s and 1940s – voilà, the correct definition!

Nothing to do with the murder, though.

See more Wondrous Words at BermudaOnion’s Weblog.

Teaser Tuesday

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Currently I’m reading Agatha Christie’s The Clocks, which incidentally, is on ITV on Boxing Day -one of the Agatha Christie’s Poirot series. Reading the preview it doesn’t sound as though they have stuck too closely to the plot, but never mind.

This description of a bookshop near the British Museum appealed to me:

Inside, it was clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down. The distance between bookshelves was so narrow that you could only get along with great difficulty. There were piles of books perched on every shelf or table.

On a stool in a corner, hemmed in by books, was in a old man in a pork-pie hat with a large flat face like a stuffed fish. He had the air of one who has given up an unequal struggle. He had attempted to master the books, but the books had obviously succeeded in mastering him. He was a kind of King Canute of the book world, retreating before the advancing tide of books. (page 170)

I don’t suppose this will be included in the drama, but I hope it will.

I’m about halfway through the book and Poirot has yet to appear!

For more Teaser Tuesdays go to Should Be Reading.