Category: Fiction

Reading Beryl Bainbridge

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

Annabel at AnnaBookBel is hosting the third Reading Beryl week from 18 – 26 November, enveloping her birthdate on the 21st.

In previous years I’ve read According to Queenie, a novel about the life of Samuel Johnson as seen through the eyes of Queeney, Mrs Thrale, and the other Master Georgie, set in the Crimean War telling the story of George Hardy, a surgeon.

Since starting my blog I’ve also read these books, which are linked to my posts:

I have copies of the following books of hers left to read:

  • Every Man for Himself – Recapturing the four crucial days prior to the sinking of the Titanic and the loss of fifteen hundred lives, this story is told from the perspective of Morgan, the American nephew of the owner of the shipping line, and reveals how his destiny is linked to other passengers.
  • Winter Garden – Ashburner’s wife had been sporting about his need for a rest, packing him off on a holiday to Scotland. But in the taxi he changed his luggage labels and checked in for a flight to Moscow. He was the official companion to the artist Nina St Clair – but within 48 hours Nina had vanished. I did start reading this but it didn’t appeal to me very much, so the book has gone back on the shelf for a while.

I’ve started reading Every Man for Himself, and may finish it in time to write about it – I hope so anyway.

Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56: Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

I’m featuring Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham one of the Chunksters I wrote about in this post. I bought this book in 2008 and I still haven’t read it – probably because it is such a big thick book of 700 pages that it is really unwieldy, hard to hold and so tightly bound I can hardly open it. And the print is quite small!

Book Beginning:

The day broke grey and dull. The clouds hung heavily, and there was a rawness in the air that suggested snow.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

And tonight he sank on his knees, buried his face in his hands, and prayed to God with all his might that He would make his clubfoot whole. It was a very small thing beside the moving of mountains. He knew that God could do it if he wished, and his own faith was complete. Next morning, finishing his prayers with the same request, he fixed a date for the miracle.

Description from Goodreads:

Of Human Bondage is the first and most autobiographical of Maugham’s masterpieces. It is the story of Philip Carey, an orphan eager for life, love and adventure. After a few months studying in Heidelberg, and a brief spell in Paris as would-be artist, Philip settles in London to train as a doctor.

And that is where he meets Mildred, the loud but irresistible waitress with whom he plunges into a formative, tortured and masochistic affair which very nearly ruins him.

~~~

What do you think, does it appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

The Classics Club Spin Result

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

The spin number in The Classics Club Spin is number …

2

which for me is Fair Stood the Wind for France by H E Bates. The rules of the Spin are that this is the book for me to read by Sunday the 3rd December 2023.

Synopsis from Amazon

When John Franklin brings his plane down into Occupied France at the height of the Second World war, there are two things in his mind – the safety of his crew and his own badly injured arm. It is a stroke of unbelievable luck when the family of a French farmer risk their lives to offer the airmen protection. During the hot summer weeks that follow, the English officer and the daughter of the house are drawn inexorably to each other.

I’m looking forward to reading it.

Did you take part in the Classics Spin? What will you be reading?

Mini Reviews

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

I’ve been reading almost non-stop and not pausing long enough to write proper reviews, so it’s time for a brief look at some of the books I’ve read. These notes are not as detailed as I usually write, but when you read quickly this is the result!

Friend of the Devil by Peter Robinson, the 17th DCI Banks book 4*

Inspector Alan Banks and his team, the Western Area Major Crimes Squad, investigate the murder of 19-year-old Hayley Daniels who was found raped and strangled in the Maze, a tangle of narrow alleys behind Eastvale’s market square, after a drunken night on the town with a group of friends. There are plenty of suspects and it’s a matter of looking at who was where and when to find the murderer. It wasn’t who I thought it was.

DI Annie Cabbot, on loan to the Eastern area, is assigned to look into the murder of Karen Drew, a quadriplegic, who was found dead in her wheelchair on a seaside cliff. It’s only when Annie discovers the real identity of Karen Drew, that the question of why anyone would want to murder a quadriplegic, becomes clear. But who could have done it? Annie has to revisit an earlier case to find the culprit.

Although this can be read as a stand-alone novel, part of the enjoyment in reading the series in order is that you see the development of the main characters and their relationships over the years. The books are basically police procedurals but along the way there’s a lot about Alan and Annie as people rather than police officers. I have become fond of the regular characters in these books.

Watching the Dark by Peter Robinson, the 20th DCI Banks book 4.5*

This is the description on Goodreads: DCI Alan Banks reluctantly investigates DI Bill Quinn with Inspector Joanna Passero. Quinn, convalescing at St Peter’s Police Treatment Centre, was killed by a crossbow on the tranquil grounds, and left compromising photos. Quinn may be disreputable, linked to a vicious crime in Yorkshire and to a cold case – English Rachel Hewitt 19 vanished in Estonia six years ago.

Banks is not happy about this investigation, not only at the murder of one of their own officers, but because of the involvement of Joanna Passero who seems to him to be determined to prove that Quinn was a corrupt cop.

The team’s investigations lead them to a group smuggling illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe into the UK, taking Banks and Passero to Tallin in Estonia, whilst Annie heads the investigation in the UK. It’s remarkably complex. It’s also long, with many twists and turns, and it became too repetitive in the middle of the book, which is why I haven’t given it 5 stars. But I did enjoy it more than Friend of the Devil, especially the setting in Estonia. Robinson’s books are all definitely grounded in their settings, whether they’re in Yorkshire, Estonia, or elsewhere.

I have now read 20 of the 28 DCI Banks books.

I think the setting in Estonia means I can add Watching the Dark to the Wanderlust Bingo card in Central/Eastern Europe square.

A Sea of Troubles by Donna Leon

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

A Sea of Troubles is Donna Leon’s 10th Commissario Guido Brunetti novel. I’ve been reading them out of order of publication on and off for several years now and this book is the earliest one in the series that I’ve read. Her books are crime fiction, but also discuss various social and cultural issues and A Sea of Troubles is no exception. 

Brunetti is one of my favourite detectives. He is happily married with two children. He doesn’t smoke or drink to excess and often goes home for lunch to his beautiful wife Paola, who is a wonderful cook – in this book she treats him to a delicious apple cake made with lemon and apple juice and ‘enough Grand Marnier to permeate the whole thing and linger on the tongue for ever.’ (page 238)

I read it eagerly, keen to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the deaths of two clam fishermen, father and son, off the island of Pellestrina, south of the Lido on the Venetian lagoon, when their boat suddenly exploded. As well as the mystery the issues Leon highlights in this book are concerning pollution and the overfishing of clams that is destroying the clam beds.

I was fascinated by the island, never having heard of it before. It’s a long and narrow island (11 km long, and 25 to 210 metres wide) that separates the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. Fishing is the primary source of income and alongside the inner side of the thin peninsular are scores of vongolari, the clam fishing boats.

Pellestrina is a closely knit community, the islanders bound together by a code of loyalty and a suspicion of outsiders. Brunetti is finding it difficult to penetrate their silence, as even though he is a Venetian, he is regarded by the islanders as an outsider, a foreigner. So when his boss’s secretary, the ever-resourceful Signorina Elettra, volunteers to visit her cousin who lives in the village there to see what she can find out, he lets her go. And then is most concerned when she falls for a young man on the island. And Paola begins to question why he is so interested in Elettra, having noticed that he had thought about little else than her for over a week. He then realises his feelings for Elletra are not so straightforward after all.

However, the crime still needs resolving and Brunetti finds himself in a web of political intrigue, corruption and secrets. From a slow start the ending is dramatic and action packed with Brunetti and Elletra in danger of their lives.

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Arrow; 1st edition (26 Feb. 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • Source: I bought it
  • My rating: 5*

Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56: Death is Now My Neighbour by Colin Dexter

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

I’m featuring Death is Now My Neighbour by Colin Dexter, one of the Inspector Morse novels. I’ve read this recently for my 20 Books of Summer Challenge.

Book Beginning:

From the Prolegomenon

‘What time do you call this, Lewis?’.

‘The missus’s fault. Not like her to be late with the breakfast.’

Chapter 1

It is perhaps unusual to begin a tale of murder with a reminder to the reader of the rules governing conditional sentences in a language that is incontrovertibly dead. In the present case, however, such a course appears not wholly inappropriate.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

In his earlier years Geoffrey Owens had been an owl, preferring to pursue whatever tasks lay before him into the late hours of the night, often through into the still, small hours. But now, in his mid-forties, he had metamorphosed into a lark, his brain seeming perceptibly clearer and fresher in the morning.

Description from Goodreads:

As he drove his chief down to Kidlington, Lewis returned the conversation to where it had begun.
‘You haven’t told me what you think about this fellow Owens – the dead woman’s next-door neighbour.’
‘Death is always the next-door neighbour,’ said Morse sombrely.

The murder of a young woman . . . A cryptic ‘seventeenth-century’ love poem . . . And a photograph of a mystery grey-haired man . . .

More than enough to set Chief Inspector E. Morse on the trail of a killer.

And it’s a trail that leads him to Lonsdale College, where the contest between Julian Storrs and Dr Denis Cornford for the coveted position of Master is hotting up.

But then Morse faces a greater, far more personal crisis . . .

~~~

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, the penultimate book in the series and hope to write more about it in a separate post. Morse is nearing retirement and he is not a well man – his drinking is now causing him problems, enough to make him go to the doctor, who diagnoses diabetes. But does Morse follow his doctor’s advice?

This is the novel in which Morse’s first name is revealed – these days it’s not the revelation for the current readers as it was for its first readers.

What do you think, does it appeal to you? What are you currently reading?