Category: Books

Best Books January to June

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise recently asked what are your favourite crime fictionbooks so far this year, which got me to thinking about my favourite books as a whole (not just crime fiction). About half the books I read are crime fiction and the other half is a mixture of fiction (of many genres) with a smattering of non fiction.

After much thought I’ve decided on these ten books as my favourite reads so far. I’ve only included one book from Ian Rankin and Agatha Christie, although I’ve read several from each that I rate as highly as the ones I’ve chosen. Six of the books are crime fiction (marked *), there is one non fiction and one book of short stories. They are listed in the order that I read them.

I hope to vary my reading during the rest of 2010, maybe a few more non-fiction books as I have several biographies/autobiographies I’d love to read and more classics, but I expect crime fiction will still be high on my list of best books by the end of the year.

Paris in July

Published on by Margaret2 Comments
I’m not actually going to Paris this month, but BookBath and Thyme For Tea are hosting a blogging experience to celebrate all things French and Parisian running from the 1st – 31st July this year called “Paris In July“. 
The aim of the month is to celebrate our French experiences through reading, watching, listening to, observing, cooking and eating all things French!
There will be no rules or targets in terms of how much you need to do or complete in order to be a part of Paris In July – just blog about anything French and you can join in. Some ideas for the month might include;
  • Reading a French book – fiction or non-fiction
  • Watching a French movie
  • Listening to French music
  • Cooking French food
  • Experiencing French art, architecture or travel

This should give me the nudge to finish reading Irene Nemirovsky’s Suite Francaise, which I started last year. I’ve read half of it and right now I can’t imagine why I didn’t finish it because I was finding it so good! I’d also like to read The Gourmet by Muriel Barbery.

Although I doubt very much that I’ll be able to read these books this July there are also two other books I’ve been meaning to read for ages – The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

And I must get out my French cookery books too, in particular The Frenchwoman’s Kitchen by Brigitte Tilleray.

Disappointment: Booking Through Thursday

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

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Today’s question from Deb is:

Name a book or author that you truly wanted to love but left you disappointed. (And, of course, explain why.)

One book that came to mind when I read this question is Haweswater by Sarah Hall. I read it in 2006 before I wrote about books on my blog so my notes on it are brief. It’s a novel about what happened when the Haweswater dam was constructed and the valley of Mardale in Cumbria was flooded. I read it because I was interested in the area and on the cover it said that it had won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book in 2003, so I was expecting it to be good.  I think I’m obviously in the minority here because I thought that it was “Disappointing, verbose, overwritten and detached – characters not described with much empathy.”

Musing Mondays

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

This week’s musing from MizB asks€¦

What do you think of books that receive a lot of hype? (think of the ‘Twilight’ saga, or ‘Harry Potter’, or ‘The Da Vinci Code’). Do you read them? Why, or why not?

I suppose I’m a bit contrary, because I tend to shy away from over-hyped books. I like to make up my own mind about the books I read and often don’t read reviews if they’re about books I already intend to read – such as A Thousand Splendid Suns by by Khaled Hosseini.  Books like the Twilight series have absolutely no appeal for me in any case, but I do like other fantasy books and read the first Harry Potter book soon after it came out and all the ones that followed, although I was happy to wait for the paperback versions.

I don’t know if I’d have read The Da Vinci Code when people were either raving about it or reviling it, but as I’d found it before that, I’d read it without being affected by any of the hype that later surrounded it. I found it entertaining and  interesting, but I think I’d have been disappointed by it if I’d read it expecting to find it really controversial – it is just fiction after all.

Books like The Thirteenth Tale were hyped up too and I thought that book was disappointing, similarly I wasn’t overfond of  The Time-Traveller’s Wife. Another book people have written loads about either loving or criticising it is Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. I was intrigued enough to borrow this from the library when I came across it and was glad I did. It’s a book of many parts – some good, some not so good.

Currently there are a few that I’m avoiding reading such as The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie – the titles alone are enough to put me off, never mind the hype. But if I find them in the library in a few years time I may have a look at them.

So, in the main I avoid hyped books, but I can be tempted to read them sometimes.

Sunday Salon – Books I Haven’t Read

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

I’ve seen others have been writing a sort of meme “confessing up ‘ to the books they haven’t read, so I thought I would too. These are the books that maybe I “should have read” by now but haven’t yet got round to. I don’t actually believe there is any “should” about it, but there seems to be some idea that to be “well read” you have to have read from a “canon of literature”.

I haven’t read:

  • The epic poem Beowulf, and reading about the film doesn’t count (I haven’t seen the film either)
  • Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen has passed me by as though it was never written. Apparently Elizabeth I loved it.
  • Gulliver’s Travels, although I think I “know” the story of his time in Lilliput and Brobdingnan from watching a cartoon version once.
  • Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, although I read extracts when I was taking an Open University course.
  • The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith – it’s one of those books I’ve been meaning to read for years.
  • Anything by Samuel Richardson, although he is considered one of the authors of the first novel in English, but I have read Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, amd Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, other contenders for the title.
  • There are several of Charles Dickens’s books I haven’t read, such as The Pickwick Papers, The Old Curiosity Shop, Martin Chuzzlewit, Nicholas Nickleby and Barnaby Rudge although I have read some of his books – Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations immediately spring to mind – there many be others.
  • The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, although I have read The Moonstone.
  • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas – this is on my tbr list.
  • Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome – apparently a classic satire.
  • The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith – a classic British comedy.
  • Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas – one of my school friends (and that’s aeons ago) was forever extolling its praises and I still haven’t read it,
  • Ulysses by James Joyce – need I say anymore?
  • The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy. But I did watch both of the TV series of the books.
  • A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell – I did try the first book once.
  • Anything by Salman Rushdie.
  • Ditto Terry Pratchett
  • White Teeth by Zadie Smith, although I have read On Beauty.

This list is getting far too long and depressing in the amount of books I haven’t read and I’ve hardly touched the surface of the 20th century, never mind the 21st. Looking at this list of English Novelists on wikipedia is even more depressing (or exhilarating depending on how you view things) because of so many authors I haven’t tried that I’m stopping now. And there are so many more world wide authors as well!

Library Loot

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

Here’s a pile of books I’ve recently borrowed:

From top to bottom they are

  • Brat Farrar by Joesphine Tey. Patrick had committed suicide, so who is the mysterious young man claiming to be him and calling himself Brat Farrar? I borrowed this because I enjoyed Tey’s books, The Daughter of Time and The Franchise Affair.
  • The Sea Lady by Margaret Drabble: a story of first and last love and the ebb and flow of time giving shape to our lives. I borrowed this because it’s been a long time since I read anything by Drabble, the last one being The Witch of Exmoor.
  • Naked to the Hangman by Andrew Taylor. Detective Inspector Thornhill is under suspicion of murder and his wife and former lover join forces to try to help him. The only other book by Taylor that I’ve read is The American Boy, historical crime fiction, set in 19th century England, with links to Edgar Allan Poe.
  • The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber. This was on display at the library in a section of books called ‘Thrills and Chills’, not normally the sort of book I read, but this looked interesting about an art dealer with a dark past and the discovery of a previously unknown masterpiece by Velazquez. When I got the book home I realised I’ve got another book by Gruber – The Book of Air and Shadows, which I started once and put to one side, so I don’t expect much from this book.
  • Truth to Tell by Claire Lorrimer. I fancied reading something different by an author I’d not heard of before. The title appealed to me. The Library Journal blurb tells me it’s ‘Nicely done pyschological suspense, firmly in the cozy tradition.’ It looks more like a historical romance though.
  • Green for Danger edited by Martin Edwards, a collection of short crime fiction stories on the theme of ‘crime in the countryside.’ I’ve become quite a fan of these short story collections. This one includes stories from Robert Barnard, Reginald Hill, Ruth Rendell, Ann Cleeves and Martin Edwards, himself. I think I’ll start with this book.
  • The Death Ship of Dartmouth by Michael Jecks, a medieval mystery set in 1324. In Dartmouth a man is found lying dead in the road and a ship has been discovered half ravaged and the crew missing. I first came across Jecks when I read King Arthur’s Bones by The Medieval Murderers, in which he wrote one of the short stories. I hope this is just as good.

Have you read any of these books – are they any good?

Library Loot is hosted by is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.