Category: Fiction

My Week in Books: 3 December 2017

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

This Week in Books is a weekly round-up hosted by Lypsyy Lost & Found, about what I’ve been reading Now, Then & Next.

IMG_1384-0

A similar meme,  WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

Now:

Victoria: A Life

I’m still reading Victoria: a Life by A N Wilson (I began reading it last October!) and am now in Part 4. At the end of Part 3 Albert had died (14 December 1861). Part 4 begins with the marriage of Bertie and Princess Alexandra of Denmark on 10 March 1862. Victoria was still suffering to cope with Albert’s death but she, along with the general public, adored the princess.

I’m also reading Notes From an Exhibition by Patrick Gale.  I’m really enjoying this book about Rachel, an artist, found dead in her studio – the secrets of her life are slowly revealed as the book moves backwards and forwards in time. I’ve read just over half the book and currently I’m finding out about her life as a teenager.

Then:

The last book I finished is Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens. This was my book in the November/December Classics Club Spin and I’ll be writing more about it later on. It is long, starts very slowly and then gets more interesting, with great characters and some comic and satirical episodes. It’s a study of selfishness and hypocrisy.

Next:

Turning for Home by Barney Norris, which  will be published on 11 January 2018. It looks as though it will be so good – I hope so.

Blurb:

‘Isn’t the life of any person made up out of the telling of two tales, after all? People live in the space between the realities of their lives and the hopes they have for them. The whole world makes more sense if you remember that everyone has two lives, their real lives and their dreams, both stories only a tape’s breadth apart from each other, impossibly divided, indivisibly close.’

Every year, Robert’s family come together at a rambling old house to celebrate his birthday. Aunts, uncles, distant cousins – it has been a milestone in their lives for decades. But this year Robert doesn’t want to be reminded of what has happened since they last met – and neither, for quite different reasons, does his granddaughter Kate. Neither of them is sure they can face the party. But for both Robert and Kate, it may become the most important gathering of all.

Have you read any of these books?  Do any of them tempt you? 

First Chapter First Paragraph: Mythos by Stephen Fry

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

Happy New Year to One and All –  Let’s hope it’s a good one!

eca8f-fistchap

Every 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 is planning to read soon.

This week’s opening is from Mythos: the Greek Myths Retold by Stephen Fry, one of my Christmas presents.

Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

It begins:

These days the origin of the universe is explained by proposing a Big Bang, a single event that instantly brought into being all the matter from which everything and everyone are made.

The ancient Greeks had a different idea. They said that it all started not with a bang, but with CHAOS.

Was Chaos a god – a divine being – or simply a state of nothingness? Or was Chaos, just as we would use the term today, a kind of terrible mess, like a teenager’s bedroom only worse.

Think of Chaos perhaps as a kind of grand cosmic yawn. As in yawning chasm or a yawning void.

Blurb:

No one loves and quarrels, desires and deceives as boldly and brilliantly as Greek gods and goddesses. They are like us, only more so – their actions and adventures scrawled across the heavens above.

From the birth of the universe to the creation of humankind, Stephen Fry – who fell in love with these stories as a child – retells these myths for our tragic, comic, fateful age. Witness Athena born from the cracking open of Zeus’s great head and follow Persephone down into the dark realm of Hades. Experience the terrible and endless fate of Prometheus after his betrayal of Zeus and shiver as Pandora opens her jar of evil torments.

The Greek gods are the best and worst of us, and in Stephen Fry’s hands they tell us who we are. Mythos – smart, funny, and above all great fun – is the retelling we deserve by a man who has been entertaining the nation for over four decades.

∼ ∼ ∼

I was delighted to receive this as a Christmas present. I loved Greek myths when I was a child and want to know more. In his Foreword Fry writes that you don’t need to know anything to read this book – but I’m looking forward to reading about the ones I do know as well as others I don’t.

What do you think – would you read on?

White Bodies by Jane Robins

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

A Tale of Obsession and Manipulation

Publication date 28 December 2017, HQ

Review copy from the publishers, via NetGalley

My rating:  2.5 stars (I’ve rounded this up to 3 on Goodreads)

Blurb:

‘He’s so handsome and clever and romantic. I just wished he hadn’t forced Tilda under the water and held her there so long.’

Callie loves Tilda. She’s her sister, after all. And she’s beautiful and successful.

Tilda loves Felix. He’s her husband. Successful and charismatic, he is also controlling, suspicious and, possibly, dangerous. Still, Tilda loves Felix.

And Callie loves Tilda. Very, very much.

So she’s determined to save her. But the cost could destroy them all…

Sometimes we love too much.

My thoughts:

Twins, Callie and Tilda are two very different people, both in appearance and personality. The blurb doesn’t give away much of the book but the idea interested me. It begins with Felix’s death and then goes back over the events that led to his death. So far, so good and I thought this was an interesting opening and that I was going to enjoy this book, even though it’s written in the present tense (not my preferred style). But very early on I realised what the eventual outcome would be when a certain film was mentioned and I know this is not unique – many other books are based on earlier books or plays and it is said that there are just seven basic plots in literature – but it really irritated and disappointed me. So it has left me in two minds about this book.

Parts of it fascinated me (I wanted to know how Felix died for example), the characters are certainly interesting/weird – not likeable, except for Wilf, Callie’s boyfriend. It’s really a story of obsession in various forms, manipulation and the dangers of the internet. Callie’s obsession with Tilda (eating her hair, teeth etc), Tilda’s obsession with herself and Felix’s obsession with OCD, control (re-organising Tilda’s flat), tidiness and neatness (aligning cutlery and wrapping crockery etc in clingfilm). The events are seen through Callie’s perspective and at times I felt sympathy for her in her desire to protect Tilda from the dangers she could see she was in from Felix. But is her view skewed? And her foray into an internet forum is the beginning of the end for her.  But overall, I wasn’t convinced by the book and I didn’t find it particularly tense or chilling, just rather strange. Maybe I’ve been reading too many books in this genre to be convinced.

My thanks to the publishers for a review copy via NetGalley.

Other people, however, have enjoyed this book far more than me – for example see Fanfiction’s review and this one from Cleo.

Amazon UK link
Amazon US link

New-to-Me Books from Barter Books

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

Barter Books in Alnwick was looking very festive yesterday with a Christmas tree made out of books. It’s my favourite bookshop, one of the largest secondhand bookshops in Britain with books galore, open fires and plenty of places to sit and peruse the books. (See this Picture Gallery for more photos)

I browsed the shelves to see which ones jumped out, shouting ‘read me’ And these are the books I brought home:

Where Roses Fade by Andrew Taylor – psychological crime fiction, one of his Lydmouth series, in which Mattie, a waitress drowns  – did she fall, or did she jump? Rumours circulate that her death wasn’t accidental – and then comes another death. I’ve read Andrew Taylor’s Roth trilogy, but none of his Lydmouth series.

You Made Me Late Again! by Pam Ayres – a collection of poems, anecdotes and short verses, covering a wide range of subjects from a nervous racehorse, a proud granny, to a dog reunited with his master at the Pearly Gates. I fancied some light relief after all the crime fiction I’ve been reading lately and this collection of witty poems appealed to me.

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware – a thriller set on a luxury cruise ship going to see the Northern Lights, a body overboard – but there are no missing passengers.  I was looking in the ‘W’s for a book by Louise Welsh (I didn’t find one I hadn’t read) but this book caught my eye. I haven’t read any of Ruth Ware’s books, but have seen her mentioned on other book blogs.

Loitering With Intent by Muriel Spark – Would-be novelist Fleur Talbot works for Sir Quentin Oliver at the Autobiographical Association.  Mayhem ensues when scenes from Fleur’s novel-in-progress begin to come true with dangerous and darkly funny results. One of my favourite books is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, so I’m hoping to love this book too.

A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale –  after an illicit affair Harry Cane, is forced to travel from Edwardian England to the town of Winter in Canada  to start a new life. I’m currently reading and enjoying Patrick Gale’s Notes from an Exhibition, so when I saw this book on the shelf I had to get it.

A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear – a Maisie Dobbs novel, set in 1932 when Maisie takes on an undercover assignment directed by Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and the Secret Service. I like the Maisie Dobbs books and began reading the several years ago, but I haven’t kept up with the series. This one is book 8.

What I love about Barter Books is that it’s not only filled with thousands of books, but it works on the swap system – you bring in books, they make an offer for them and your credit can then be used for books to bring home. I’m in credit, so I didn’t have to pay anything for these books – brilliant! Plus, it’s in a lovely building that was Alnwick’s beautiful old Victorian railway station and you can get tea, coffee, hot food (I love their macaroni cheese) and cakes etc in the Station Buffet. Yesterday we were there early and David had a Bacon Buttie from the Breakfast Menu – I had some of it too.

First Chapter First Paragraph: The Earth Hums in B Flat

Published on by Margaret13 Comments

eca8f-fistchapEvery 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 is planning to read soon.

This week’s opening is from The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan.

The Earth Hums in B Flat

It begins:

I fly in my sleep every night. When I was little I could fly without being asleep; now I can’t even though I practise and practise. And after what I saw last night I want more than ever to fly wide-awake. Mam always says: I want never gets. Is that true?

Blurb (from the back cover):

Young Gwenni Morgan has a gift. She can fly in her sleep. She’s also fond of strawberry whip, detective stories and asking difficult questions. When a neighbour mysteriously vanishes, she resolves to uncover the secret of his disappearance and return him to his children. She truthfully records what she sees and hears: but are her deductions correct? What is the real truth? And what will be the consequences – for Gwenni, her family and her community – of finding it out?

Gwenni Morgan is an unforgettable creation, and this portrait of life in a small Welsh town on the brink of change in the 1950s is enthralling, moving and utterly real. Mari Strachan’s debut is a magical novel that will transport you to another time and place.

I like the idea of being able to fly.

What do you think – would you read on?

A Maigret Christmas by Georges Simenon

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

A Christmas Mystery

Publication date 2 November 2017, Penguin Books (UK). Newly translated by David Coward

Review copy from the publishers, via NetGalley

My rating: 4 stars

The review copy of A Maigret Christmas and Other Stories by Georges Simenon I received contains just one of the three stories in this collection, A Maigret Christmas which was first published in 1950 as Un Noël de Maigret.

It’s set in Paris on Christmas Day. Inspector Maigret has the day off and Madame Maigret, hoping to bring him croissants for his breakfast in bed, as she usually does on Sundays and public holidays, is disappointed to find that he had got up before she returned from the corner shop. Both Maigret and his wife are feeling not exactly depressed but rather melancholy, with no family to visit at Christmas.

Their plan to spend a quiet morning cocooned in their apartment is disrupted by the arrival of two ladies, Madame Martin and Mademoiselle Doncoeur, who live in the apartment opposite in the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. Colette, a little girl staying with her aunt and uncle, Madame Martin and her husband, had woken in the night and seen Father Christmas in her room, making a hole in the floor. He gave her a present, a big doll and then held up his finger to his lips as he left. But who was he and why was he trying to take up the floorboards?

Maigret, concerned about Colette, decides to help and, phoning his colleagues at the Quai des Orfevres for information, he spends the rest of the day solving the mystery. As the mystery is unravelled it turns out to be anything but simple. I enjoyed this story for the mystery itself, but I also liked the light it throws on Maigret and his wife, their relationship and the sadness they feel at being childless, particularly so at Christmas.

My thanks to the publishers for a review copy via NetGalley.

Amazon UK link