Category: Sunday Salon

Sunday Selection

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

This morning I finished reading A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie. I read it very quickly as it’s easy reading and although sprinkled throughout with lots of red herrings it wasn’t too difficult to guess the outcome. I’ll write about it later, along with three other books I’ve read recently.

I’m wondering which book to read next. I have a pile of library books – new ones I borrowed this week:

I think I’d better get on with reading Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday as that is the next book we’re discussing at the book club at the end of October. It’s a matter of timing it right so that I finish it in time but not too soon so that I’ve forgotten about it before the meeting. It’s actually a book that I’ve ignored in the past as the title doesn’t appeal to me – the idea of  fly fishing is not guaranteed to fill me with desire. I have started it, but chapter one isn’t inspiring me, with its details of migratory salmonids, the evolution of salmon parr and feeding conditions. I shall persevere and hope it improves.

Meanwhile, my mind is wandering towards the library books, even though I have two non-fiction books from LibraryThing that I feel I should read soon – why is it that books that sound so interesting suddenly lose their attraction when I start to feel the slightest bit under pressure to read them by a certain date? A hangover from my working life, maybe when I had to produce reports to deadlines.

Another thing too – why do I borrow so many library books when I have plenty of my own still to read? If I didn’t have to return books then I wouldn’t be tempted to borrow more – maybe D should go on his own to take my books back!

Back to the library books, I think I’ll look at Solar by Ian McEwan. I like his books but having read somewhere that this isn’t as good as others and I wondered if it may contain a bit too much about physics for me I decided not to buy it, but to check it out if I saw it in the library. At least, it starts off well, as Michael Beard’s marriage appears to be disintegrating and he can’t stand it – the shame  and inconvenient longing he has for his wife. It does make me want to read on.

I borrowed the other books because I like the authors – apart from The Autobiography of the Queen by Emma Tennant and Mr Monk goes to the Firehouse by Lee Goldberg. I haven’t read anything by these two authors and they are impulse loans. The Goldberg book caught my eye because of its title, which intrigued me as it didn’t convey anything at all to me. On the cover it’s advertised as being based on the Television Series – an American series, I assume, as I’ve never heard of it. If anyone knows this series I’d love to hear about it. Is it any good?

The Autobiography of the Queen attracted me when I read on the front cover that this is ‘hot on the heels of Alan Bennett’s fictional account of the Queen.’ I’ve read that and thought it was very amusing. I thought I needed something light and amusing to counter-balance the crime fiction and serious books I seem to have been reading lately.

Sunday Salon – Today’s Books

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

My reading today, so far has been just a short portion of Agatha Christie’s Autobiography and some more of A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve. AC’s autobiography is very entertaining. At the moment I’m still in her childhood, so a long way to go yet. I’m reserving judgement for a while on A Change in Altitude. I always used to enjoy Anita Shreve’s books, but latterly I’ve found them not quite so much to my liking. This one is set in Kenya, a very different location and so far it’s quite depressing. I don’t think it’s going to lighten up much either.

Anyway, I’m putting these two books to one side for the rest of today and will be reading Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre, because tomorrow I’m going to his Author Event in Livingston. I thought I’d get in the mood early. Quite Ugly was his debut novel in 1996. This is the synopsis from his website:

Yeah, yeah, the usual. A crime. A corpse. A killer. Heard it.

Except this stiff happens to be a Ponsonby, scion of a venerable Edinburgh medical clan, and the manner of his death speaks of unspeakable things.

Why is the body displayed like a slice of beef? How come his hands are digitally challenged? And if it’s not the corpse, what is that awful smell?

A post-Thatcherite nightmare of frightening plausibility, Quite Ugly One Morning is a wickedly entertaining and vivacious thriller, full of acerbic wit, cracking dialogue and villains both reputed and shell-suited.

Brookmyre’s books have such great titles, for example – One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night, All Fun and Games until Somebody Loses an Eye, and A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away. His latest book is Pandaemonium.

Sunday Salon – Current Books

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

I finished reading The Fall by Simon Mawer yesterday. It is the story of Rob Dewar and Jamie Matthewson from their childhood up to Jamie’s death 40 years later. But it’s also the story of their parents and how their lives are interlinked. I found it enthralling, one of those books that make me want to look at the ending to see how it all turns out. I managed to stop myself, however, and read impatiently to the end anxious to know what actually happened between them all.

It moves between the two generations beginning in the present day, when Rob hears on the news that Jamie, a renowned mountaineer has fallen to his death in Snowdonia. No one is sure whether it was an accident or suicide. Then it moves  back 40 years to the time when the two boys met, both fatherless – Jamie’s dad, Guy went missing when climbing Kangchenjunga and Rob’s parents are divorced, and back yet further again to 1940 when Guy Matthewson met the boys’ mothers – Meg (later calling herself Caroline) and Diana. And so  the drama unfolds in the mountains of Wales and the Alps, culminating on the North Face of the Eiger.

The Fall is not just a gripping account of the dangers of rock climbing and mountaineering, but it’s also a love story, with the intricacies of relationships, and love, loss and betrayal at its core. The love stories and the climbing scenes are both shown through the imagery of falling with all its ambiguities – actual falls, falling in love, falling pregnant and falling from grace. It’s beautifully written, capturing not only the mountain landscape but also London during the Blitz. This is the second excellent book by Mawer that I’ve read, even though it has a rather predictable ending.

I’m still reading Agatha Christie’s  An Autobiography and will be for some time as it is long and detailed – 550 pages printed in a very small font, which makes it impossible for me to read it in bed. But it is fascinating. It’s not just an account of her life but is full of her thoughts and questions about the nature of life and memory:

I am today the same person as that solemn little girl with pale flaxen sausage-curls. the house in which the spirit dwells, grows, develops instincts and tastes and emotions and intellectual capacities, but I myself, the true Agatha, am the same. I do not know the whole Agatha. The whole Agatha, so I believe, is known only to God.

So there we are, all of us, little Agatha Miller, and big Agatha Miller, and Agatha Christie and Agatha Mallowan proceeding on our way – where? That one doesn’t know – which of course makes life exciting. I have always thought life exciting and I still do. (page 11)

I’ll be writing more about Agatha Christie on Wednesday for my contribution to the Agatha Christie Blog Tour.

The Sunday Salon Secondhand Books

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

One of my favourite bookshops is Barter Books in Alnwick, so a trip there is always a treat. We were actually on our way to visit friends in Lancashire but stopped for a coffee in the shop, which is in a converted railway station, absolutely full of all kinds of books. I didn’t have any books in mind and just browsed the shelves, finding these, all in great condition:

  • An Omnibus edition of Wycliffe by W J Burley – Wycliffe and the Last Rites and Wycliffe and the House of Fear. I haven’t read any of the Wycliffe books before but if these two are anything to go by I’ll be looking for more. They are murder mysteries set in Cornwall where Burley lived. He was a schoolmaster until he retired to concentrate on writing. These two novels concern the deaths of two women, one from a community filled with hatred and the other from a dysfunctional family. Looking at the long list of Wycliffe books there will be plenty more to choose from.
  • The Women’s Room by Marilyn French. Wikipedia tells me that  ‘it has been described as one of the most influential novels of the modern feminist movement.’ It was first published in 1977 to a barrage of criticism. Set in 1968 it describes Mira’s life as she decides it’s time for a change after subscribing for years to the American dream of husband, children and a spotless kitchen.
  • Two Moons by Jennifer Johnston. This looks like a brand new copy, with no creases on the spine as though it has never been read. I enjoyed The Illusionist a while ago and hope this one will be as good. Set in Ireland, it’s about three generations of women, ‘a modern fairy tale with a dark theme.’
  • Past Imperfect by Julian Fellowes, described on the back cover as a story that takes us back to the Debutante Season of 1968 – ‘Poignant, funny, fascinating and moving’ .

It was a good job that we only had a limited time in Barter Books, or I could easily have bought more books.

Sunday Salon – What to Read on Holiday

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

I’ve not been doing much reading or blogging as we’ve been away for a few days in the southeast of England and today we’re off again, this time to Germany. I’ve been thinking what books to take, bearing in mind that they should not be big and heavy (in weight), so I’m not taking Fleshmarket Close even though I’m in the middle of reading it and will probably lose the thread and have to start again when I come back home.

The two I’ve settled on are The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens, (235 pages of quite small print) which should last me a while to read – I’ve never read any of Dickens’s books quickly. The other book I’ve chosen is Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden (221 pages), which looks very different from the Drood book. Both are paperbacks and are books I’ve been wanting to read for a while. It feels strange only taking two books but we’ll only be away for three days and staying with family, so there may not be much time for reading. The flight time isn’t long – the longest time is between flight connections at Heathrow, so I think they’ll last me. But I think I should also take Agatha Christie’s 4.50 from Paddington as a standby because that is a very slim book (190 pages). Deciding which books to take is a doddle compared to deciding what clothes to pack, as I find it really difficult to travel light!

Sunday Salon – Choices

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

This morning I was wondering what to read next. I finished reading Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett yesterday, and have almost finished The Gourmet by Muriel Barbery, and think I need a change. Maybe it’s time for an autobiography or a biography. I have several to choose from, some I’ve had for years and one that I picked up recently at a bookstall at the local village fair.

Should I read this latest one – Great Meadow: an Evocation by Dirk Bogarde? I couldn’t resist the cover of this book and remembered that I’d enjoyed another autobiographical book by Bogarde many years ago. When I read the opening words in the Author’s Note at the beginning of the book I knew I wanted to read this one too:

An evocation, this, of the happiest days of my childhood: 1930 – 34. The world was gradually falling apart all around me, but I was serenely unaware. I was not, alas, the only ostrich. (page vii)

Or maybe I’ll start Slipstream: a Memoir by Elizabeth Jane Howard, or Eden’s Outcasts: the story of Louisa May Alcott and her Father by John Matteson. Or do I fancy reading Mary Queen of Scots by Alison Weir, or Shakespeare by Peter Ackroyd, or The Day Gone By by Richard Adams (he wrote Watership Down and The Girl on the Swing, amongst other books)? Maybe The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters edited by Charlotte Mosely. I could go on and on.

Choices, choices! Deciding what to read next is sometimes so difficult, but it’s always enjoyable.