Category: Books

Classics Club Spin

Published on by Margaret1 Comment

It’s time for another Classics Club Spin.

The Spin rules:

  •  List any twenty books you have left to read from your Classics Club list.
  • Number them from 1 to 20.
  • On Friday (March 10) the Classics Club will announce a number.
  • This is the book to read by 1 May 2017.

This is my list:

  1. Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor by R D Blackmore
  2. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
  3. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
  4. The Forsyte Saga (1) by John Galsworthy
  5. Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens
  6. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
  7. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
  8. Parade’s End by Ford Maddox Ford
  9. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
  10. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
  11. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
  12. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
  13. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
  14. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
  15. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  16. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
  17. Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck
  18. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
  19. Framley Parsonage (Barsetshire Chronicles, #4) by Anthony Trollope
  20. Orlando by Virginia Woolf

First Chapter, First Paragraph: The Invention of Wings

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

First chapterEvery Tuesday Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros to share the first paragraph sometimes two, of a book that she’s reading or planning to read soon.

This week I’m featuring The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd, a book I’ll be reading this month for my book group.

The Invention of Wings

It begins:

There was a time in Africa the people could fly. Mauma told me this one night when I was ten years old. She said, Handful, your granny-mauma saw it for herself. She say they flew over trees and clouds. She say they flew like blackbirds. when we came here, we left the magic behind.

From the back cover:

Handful’s always been in trouble. A slave in the Grimké household like her beloved mother Charlotte, Handful knows the rules, in all their brutality, but no one can stop her pushing them to the limit. When, ten years old, she’s presented to the owner’s most difficult daughter, Sarah, as a birthday present, the sparks begin to fly …

I think I’m going to enjoy this book very much. It’s set in Charleston in the early nineteenth century and is based on the lives of sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, the first female abolition agents and among the earliest American feminist thinkers.

What do you think? Would you carry on reading?

Justice By Another Name by E C Hanes

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

Blurb:

Set against the backdrop of North Carolina’s powerful hog-producing industry, Justice by Another Name tells the story of Paul Reavis’s suspicious workplace death followed a year later by a senseless death of his young son Paulie. Lana Reavis, who believes her husband was murdered and her son the victim of deliberate negligence, enlists the aid of her long-ago boyfriend, Will Moser, who is currently chief deputy of Hogg County and the heir apparent to the local sheriff.

As Will’s investigation unfolds, suspicious activities and cover-ups begin to emerge. All evidence points to Oris Martin, the powerful owner of Martin Farms, a huge hog-production enterprise and Hogg County’s largest employer, as the mastermind. Despite political pressure and physical threats to look the other way, Will continues his search for what really happened. Meanwhile, Lana, convinced that Oris will be beyond the reach of justice, devises a plan to avenge her family and destroy everything precious to Oris Martin.

My thoughts

I had no idea when I downloaded the ARC of this book from NetGalley just how much I was going to enjoy Justice by Another Name. I had never heard of E C Hanes and had no expectations that a murder in the hog-producing industry would be so enthralling.

But as soon as I began reading I had a feeling that this was going to be a good book. It has a dramatic opening as two boys, Paulie Reavis and Hank Grier are playing in Mitchell Creek in Hogg County, North Carolina. There’d been a violent storm and water was pouring down the creek sweeping huge tree trunks and other debris with it. At the top they saw a gigantic whirlpool and were taken by surprise when the lagoon of hog waste from Oris Martin’s farm above the creek burst through its retaining wall. Five million gallons of putrid black hog faeces and urine flooded down the gulley, taking the boys with it. Hank, survives, although badly injured, but Paulie dies. Imagine the horror of drowning in pig waste!

From that point on I was fascinated by the investigations into Paulie’s death and into the death of Paul, his father, a year earlier. Paul had worked on Martin’s pig farm and Lana, his wife is convinced his death was not an accident. I was just as fascinated by the details of the pig farming, the conditions the pigs are kept in, the diseases they carry and how the pig waste is dealt with, the whole process of constructing and operating the lagoons.

The mystery is not just how they met their deaths, but why. Was Paulie’s death an accident, a result of the storm damage or has someone been negligent? Was his father’s death really an accident? And just what caused the hog cholera epidemic that had hit the Martin Farms?

I was engrossed in the mystery, amazed that I found the details of the pig farming industry so interesting. The setting in North Carolina and the characters came to life as I read on. The feelings of fear, hate and grief escalated and as the book moved to its conclusion I realised that, as Lana says, ‘what’s revenge but justice by another name.‘

My thanks to the author, the publishers and NetGalley for my copy of this book.

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 965 KB
  • Print Length: 235 pages
  • Publisher: RaneCoat Press (1 Mar. 2017)
  • My rating: 5*

Six Degrees of Separation: from Fever Pitch to Life After Life

Published on by Margaret18 Comments

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each 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 one next to it in the chain.

Fever Pitch

This month’s chain begins with Nick Hornby’s memoir (or love letter to soccer), Fever Pitch, which I haven’t read. I know it’s about football and wondered whether my first link would be to one of the other books my husband has about football and footballers, or to another book of memoirs.

A Death in the Dales (Kate Shackleton #7)But in the end I went for a link to the word fever. So my first link is to A Death in the Dales by Frances Brody, book 7 in her Kate Shackleton series, in which one of the characters, 14 year old Harriet has been in a fever hospital recovering from diphtheria. It’s a murder mystery set in Derbyshire.

A Place of ExecutionDerbyshire is the setting for my second link in the chain – A Place of Execution by Val McDermid. It’s a freezing day in December 1963, when 13-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from the isolated Derbyshire village of Scardale. This is another book I haven’t read -yet. Unlike Fever Pitch it’s on my TBR list.

Winter in MadridThe third link is also a book set in winter – Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom, an action packed thrilling war/spy story set just after the Spanish Civil War. It’s also a moving love story and historical drama all rolled into this tense and gripping novel.

Gone with the WindAn obvious civil war link takes me to Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell about the American Civil War and its aftermath. I loved this book so much more than I ever thought I would.  It is, of course, a book that was made into a film, which leads me to my fifth link …

Cloud AtlasCloud Atlas by David Mitchell (I have two links here – film and author’s surname). I tried to read the book first and failed, several times. It was watching the film that brought it to life. I then read and enjoyed the book. Cloud Atlas covers a time period from the 19th century to a post apocalyptic future using six loosely linked narratives. There are differences between the book and the film – they are are two different creations that complement each other.

Life After Life

My last book in the chain is also one I have started to read several times – it’s Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, but so far I haven’t finished it. I’ve read several of Kate Atkinson’s books and enjoyed them, but somehow the first few chapters of Life After Life about Ursula Todd just didn’t appeal. But at the end of last year I read A God in Ruins about Ursula’s brother Teddy, and loved it. So I will get round to reading Life After Life sooner or later.

I never know where my chain will go when I start it. This one begins and ends with books I haven’t read and it moves in place and time from England to Spain, America and back to England, linked by words, settings, genre, film adaptations and books I’ve found it hard to get into for one reason or another.

If you’ve also made a chain, or have read any of the books I’ve mentioned, especially the ones I haven’t read, please let me know in the comments.

Next month (April 1, 2017), the chain will begin with Emma Donoghue’s bestseller, Room – another book I haven’t read.

Books I Read in February

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

These are the books I read in February, listed in the order I read them:

  1. Eyes Like Mine by Sheena Kamal 5*
  2. The Chalk Pit by Elly Griffiths 3.5*
  3. The Good People by Hannah Kent 5*
  4. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 3*
  5. Harriet Said by Beryl Bainbridge 3.5*
  6. The Cheltenham Square Murder by John Bude 4*
  7. Let the Dead Speak by Jane Casey 5* – my post is on its way
  8. Everything But The Truth by Gillian McAllister 5* –  my post is on its way
  9. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan 3* (a re-read) my opinion hasn’t changed from the first time I read it, well written but a bit flat and contrived
  10. The Witchfinder’s Sister by Beth Underdown 5*

A fantastic reading month – ten books and I gave 5 stars to five of them! They are all fiction – contemporary and historical with three crime fiction and just one book from my TBRs.

And with five 5 star books it is almost impossible to choose a favourite, as they are all excellent, but the book that moved and interested me most is Eyes Like Mine by Sheena Kamal, an excellent psychological suspense novel

with gripping storylines that kept me racing through the book as Nora Watts searches for her missing daughter, a child she gave up for adoption as a baby. Set in Canada, the plot is intricate, complicated and fast moving, highlighting various issues such as mixed race inheritance and differences in treatment based on skin colour, homelessness, and environmental issues. These never overpower the story, but form part of the book as a whole. I loved it.

The Witchfinder’s Sister by Beth Underdown

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

‘The number of women my brother Matthew killed, so far as I can reckon it, is one hundred and six…’

1645. When Alice Hopkins’ husband dies in a tragic accident, she returns to the small Essex town of Manningtree, where her brother Matthew still lives.

But home is no longer a place of safety. Matthew has changed, and there are rumours spreading through the town: whispers of witchcraft, and of a great book, in which he is gathering women’s names.

To what lengths will Matthew’s obsession drive him?
And what choice will Alice make, when she finds herself at the very heart of his plan?

Based on the true story of the man known as the Witchfinder General, this exquisitely rendered novel transports you to a time and place almost unimaginable, where survival might mean betraying those closest to you, and danger lurks outside every door.

My thoughts:

When I read the description of The Witchfinder’s Sister by Beth Underdown I was immediately drawn to the story based on the life of the 1640s witchfinder Matthew Hopkins. As well as a good story it is a fascinating look at life in England during the Civil War, set in 1645, a time of great change and conflict in politics, religion and philosophical ideas, coinciding with a growth in the belief in witchcraft.

I enjoyed it immensely. It’s historical fiction that combines fact and fiction, told through the eyes of Matthew’s sister, Alice, a fictional character. Beth Underdown has researched and used the historical sources so well. What is so chilling about this book is that the events it describes really did happen.

There is a glossary at the end of the book describing, among other terms, the methods used to investigate women accused of being witches, such as ‘searching‘ where their bodies were inspected for ‘teats’, ‘swimming‘, an ordeal by water in which women were bound and lowered into a pond or river; they were innocent if they sank, and ‘watching‘ in which a suspected woman would be tied to a stool in the middle of a room, kept awake and observed for hours. Women were treated in this way if they were accused of causing harm to their neighbours for such things as the death of a neighbour’s horse or for the unexplained deaths of children. For the superstitious every sudden death, or accident, every miscarriage or illness, was considered to be caused by witchcraft.

There is a pervading sense of fear and terror as Alice discovers what Matthew is doing, intensified when he forces her to help with his investigations, travelling throughout Essex. She tries to stop him, but fearful of him accusing her mother-in-law, Bridget, she has to go along with him. She also discovers family secrets about their parents and Matthew’s birth. The witch hunts escalated as grief-stricken and angry women accused other women and their names were added to Matthew’s list. After his investigations the women were then sent to prisons to await their trials.

It is clear that the women accused were vulnerable, often widows living isolated lives, some suffering with what we would consider to be a mental illness, with no male family members to keep them safe from persecution. Matthew’s own mother showed signs of mental illness, subject to many strange habits and obsessive compulsive behaviour. But Matthew is unable to accept the facts and grows ever more fanatical.

It all hangs together as a piece of fiction, with clearly described and defined characters, making their feelings and actions perfectly believable – even Matthew comes across as a well-rounded character – and set against the background of a country in the midst of civil war. It makes harrowing reading and I found it deeply moving.

I grew very fond of Alice and her maid Grace but was appalled by the final twist at the end of the book.

Beth Underdown lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. The Witchfinder’s Sister is her first novel.

My thanks to the publishers and NeGalley for my copy of this book. It is to be published on 2 March 2017.

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 6546 KB
  • Print Length: 361 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0241978033
  • Publisher: Penguin (2 Mar. 2017)