Category: Friday Finds

 

I’m a map addict, so I like the look of Mike Parker’s book Map Addict: a Tale of Obsession, Fudge and the Ordnance Survey. According to the product description this combines history, travel, politics, memoir and oblique observation in a highly readable, and often very funny, style.

 

 

 

Then there is The Book of Weeds by Ken Thompson. I really need help getting rid of the ground elder that’s threatening to take over our garden. Maybe this will help.

 

 

 

And finally, Hatfield’s Herbal: the Curious Stories of Britain’s Wild Plants, which “describes the properties of over 150 native plants, and the customs that surround them: from predicting the weather with seaweed to using deadly nightshade to make ladies’ pupils dilate appealingly, and from ensuring a husband’s faithfulness with butterbur to warding off witches by planting a rowan tree. Filled with stories, folklore and remedies both strange and practical, this is a memorable and eye-opening guide to the richness of Britain’s heritage.”

I’m not too sure about even picking deadly nightshade let alone using it on my eyes!

Yesterday The BookPeople catalogue came, with some good offers. If I didn’t already have Anita Shreve’s books I’d have to buy this set – 10 books for £9.99. You’ll get:

The Weight of Water

All He Ever Wanted

The Pilot’s Wife

Eden Close

Strange Fits of Passion

Resistance

Sea Glass

Light on Show

Where or When

A Wedding in December

This doesn’t include the first one of hers I read which is Fortune’s Rocks, the first one in the series of books set in a large beach house (that used to be a convent) on the New Hampshire coast. The other books in the series are The Pilot’s Wife and Body Surfing. I think Fortune’s Rocks is the best one of these three. 

 

Nor does it include The Last Time They Met which I loved. I was completely surprised by the ending – I just hadn’t seen it coming. I’ve since read reviews where people say it’s predictable, but to me it was totally unexpected. If you look at the end of a book before you’ve finished it – don’t with this book! I’m glad I didn’t. This is one I definitely want to re-read because I want to know how I read it knowing the ending. 

On Thursday I received Beachcombing by Maggie Dana. Maggie had emailed me about her new book and a copy was with me almost immediately. I like the cover picture – it looks so summery. It’s her first novel and is described on the back cover as

Funny, sophisticated and wise, Beachcombing is a coming-of-age-middle-age story about girlfriends when you’re no longer a girl, about growing up when you’re alread grown up, and the price you’re willing to pay for the love of your life.

Earlier in the week I was chatting to our librarian and she mentioned The Clatter of Forks and Spoons by Richard Corrigan, which I must borrow from the library. I think I have too many cookery books already but I do like to browse new ones and I may even be tempted to buy this one!  

I always like watching Great British Menu and Richard Corrigan has previously won three of the competitions – one to cook for the Queen on her 80th birthday when he cooked the starter – smoked salmon with Irish soda bread, woodland sorrel and cress – one to cook for the Ambassadors at the British Embassy in Paris – the fish course  €“ whole poached wild salmon and duck egg dressing with wheaten bread and country butter. He was also the winner of the Great British Dinner Christmas Menu in 2006.

The current series of  The Great British Menu (click on this link gets you to the recipes) is on BBC2 – cooking for the British Forces  returning from the war in Afghanistan. It’s the final next week and we, the public, can vote for each course. I have my favourites and maybe I’ll even pick up the phone to cast my vote.

Have a look over here for more Friday Finds.

Today I received newbooks magazine full of details of new books, articles and interviews.

 

 

 

 

I’m particularly interested in this book due out in paperback on 1 June: 

Corvus: a Life with Birds by Esther Woolfson – about sharing a house with birds. Not just any birds – these are a rook called Chicken, a magpie called Spike and a crow called Ziki.

 

 

 Also:

The Possession of Mr Cave by Matt Haig – a dark and scary story about an over-protective father, “a demented, controlling patriarch ruled by snobbery and prejudice who despised just about everything in the modern world.” This book is to be published in paperback on 7 May.

My “finds” are from newbooks magazine, which arrived this morning.

The Lust of Mrs Robinson will be Kate Summerscale’s next book. This is a story of a Victorian scandal involving adultery, privacy and the divorce courts. I loved her recent book The Suspicions of Mr Whicher.

 

An Equal Stillness by Francesca Kay, set in Spain and Cornwall, is about the lives of two artists who “embark on a poignant and painful love affair”.

 

 

 

The Telling by Jo Baker to be published in May in paperback is the story of Rachel putting her mother’s affairs in order, packing up and selling her mother’s house, troubled by ghosts of the past.

 

 

 

And the book I think I’ll choose as my “free” book is The Water Horse by Julia Gregson. This is a fictionalised account of Jane Evans, a Welsh woman who in 1853 ran off with Welsh cattle drovers and volunteered as a nurse with Florence Nightingale in the Crimea.