Category: WWW Wednesday

WWW Wednesday: 18 September 2024

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently I’m reading Regeneration by Pat Barker, the first in her Regeneration Trilogy, set during the First World War.

Description on Goodreads:

Craiglockhart War Hospital, Scotland, 1917, and army psychiatrist William Rivers is treating shell-shocked soldiers. Under his care are the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, as well as mute Billy Prior, who is only able to communicate by means of pencil and paper. Rivers’s job is to make the men in his charge healthy enough to fight. Yet the closer he gets to mending his patients’ minds the harder becomes every decision to send them back to the horrors of the front. Pat Barker’s Regeneration is the classic exploration of how the traumas of war brutalised a generation of young men.‘One of the strongest and most interesting novelists of her generation’ Guardian Regeneration is the first novel in Pat Barker’s essential trilogy about the First World War. Discover the whole Regeneration, The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road

The last book I read was Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. This is the only book left I didn’t finish reading for my 20 Books of Summer Challenge 2024. It had been on my TBR list for a few years, so I was determined to read it. The reason I haven’t read it before is that I have a paperback copy and I’ve got too used to reading on my Kindle with the ability to enlarge the text.

I had high hopes that this psychological thriller was going to be good as so many people had enthused over it. Could it live up to all the hype? Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno meet on a train. Bruno manipulates Guy into swapping murders with him. “Some people are better off dead,” Bruno remarks, “like your wife and my father, for instance.” It began very slowly and I’m sorry to say that I began to get bored, in fact I almost abandoned it. But I persevered and it did improve towards the end. But it didn’t live up to all the hype for me – maybe the wrong book at the wrong time. I’ll be writing more about this book.

What will I read next? At the moment I’m not at all sure. It could be Getting Better: Life lessons on going under, getting over it, and getting through it by Michael Rosen.

Description on Amazon:

In our lives, terrible things may happen. Michael Rosen has grieved the loss of a child, lived with debilitating chronic illness, and faced death itself when seriously unwell in hospital. In spite of this he has survived, and has even learned to find joy in life in the aftermath of tragedy.

In Getting Better, he shares his story and the lessons he has learned along the way. Exploring the roles that trauma and grief have played in his own life, Michael investigates the road to recovery, asking how we can find it within ourselves to live well again after – or even during – the darkest times of our lives. Moving and insightful, Getting Better is an essential companion for anyone who has loved and lost, or struggled and survived.

Or it could be something else.

WWW Wednesday: 4 September 2024

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently I’m reading Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. This is the only book left I didn’t finish reading for my 20 Books of Summer Challenge 2024. It has been on my TBR list for a few years, so I am determined to read it soon. The reason I haven’t read it before now is that I have a paperback copy and I’ve got too used to reading on my Kindle with the ability to enlarge the text.

I have high hope that this psychological thriller will be good – maybe too high as so many people have enthused over this book. Can it live up to all the hype? Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno meet on a train. Bruno manipulates Guy into swapping murders with him. “Some people are better off dead,” Bruno remarks, “like your wife and my father, for instance.” It begins slowly though and so far, I’m doubtful it will.

I’m also reading Now You See Them by Elly Griffiths, the 5th Brighton Mystery novel, also called the DI Edgar Stephens and Max Mephisto series. It’s about three young women who have gone missing in Brighton. Edgar is now a Superintendent and his wife, Emma, formerly a police officer, is now a private detective. Edgar’s friend, magician Max Mephisto, is reinventing himself as a movie star and trying not to envy his daughter Ruby’s television fame. It seems a bit pedestrian so far, maybe too formulaic.

The last book I read was The Tree of Hands by Ruth Rendell, which I think is one of her best books I’ve read. It’s also a psychological thriller and compelling that I just didn’t want to stop reading until I finished it.

Description on Amazon

When Benet was about fourteen, she and her mother had been alone in a train carriage – and Mopsa had tried to stab her with a carving knife.

It has been some time since Benet had seen her psychologically disturbed mother. So when Mopsa arrives at the airport looking drab and colourless in a dowdy grey suit, Benet tries not to hate her.

But when the tragic death of a child begins a chain of deception, kidnap and murder in which three women are pushed to psychological extremes, family ties are strained to the absolute limit…

What will I read next? At the moment I have no idea. Once I’ve finished a challenge that involves reading from a planned list I have this great sense of freedom, that I can just decide on a whim what to read next.

WWW Wednesday: 31 July 2024

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently I’m reading The Women of Troy by Pat Barker. this is the second book on The Women of Troy trilogy, a retelling of the classic Greek myth. I’ve recently read the first book, The Silence of the Girls (my review will follow shortly) which I loved. So far this second book looks as though it will be just as good. Troy has fallen but high winds are keeping the Greeks from sailing home.

Description from Goodreads:

Troy has fallen and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless war—including the women of Troy themselves. They await a fair wind for the Aegean.

It does not come, because the gods are offended. The body of King Priam lies unburied and desecrated, and so the victors remain in suspension, camped in the shadows of the city they destroyed as the coalition that held them together begins to unravel. Old feuds resurface and new suspicions and rivalries begin to fester.

Largely unnoticed by her captors, the one time Trojan queen Briseis, formerly Achilles’s slave, now belonging to his companion Alcimus, quietly takes in these developments. She forges alliances when she can, with Priam’s aged wife the defiant Hecuba and with the disgraced soothsayer Calchas, all the while shrewdly seeking her path to revenge.

I’m also reading Into the Tangled Bank by Lev Parikian, non fiction about nature. It’s easy reading, Parikian writes with humour, in a chatty style, but also richly descriptive. I’m loving it, it is compulsive reading. He is a storyteller, so there are lots of anecdotes and stories, plus his thoughts on nature and how we view it. Amongst many other topics he ponders about the ethics of zoos – something that puzzles me too – and wonders if the definition of a nature lover is becoming that of one who loves nature programmes. There’s a lot packed into this book.

The last book I read was Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson, a review copy. My review will follow after the book is published on 22 August 2024. I have very mixed feelings about this book from loving parts of it to frustration at other parts.

Synopsis from Amazon:

The stage is set. The players are ready. By night’s end, a murderer will be revealed. 
Ex-detective Jackson Brodie is staving off a bad case of midlife malaise when he is called to a sleepy Yorkshire town, and the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting. But one theft leads to another, including the disappearance of a valuable Turner from Burton Makepeace, home to Lady Milton and her family. Once a magnificent country house, Burton Makepeace has now partially been converted into a hotel, hosting Murder Mystery weekends.

As paying guests, a vicar, an ex-army officer, impecunious aristocrats, and old friends converge, we are treated a fiendishly clever mystery; one that pays homage to the masters of the genre—from Agatha Christie to Dorothy Sayers.

What will I read next? At the moment I have no idea.

WWW Wednesday: 19 June 2024

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

The books in this post are all from my 20 Books of Summer list.

Currently I’m reading The Children’s Book by A S Byatt. I’ve started this book a few time before but now I am at last settled into reading it.

Description from Amazon UK:

‘Famous author Olive Wellwood writes a special private book, bound in different colours, for each of her children. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world – but their lives, and those of their rich cousins and their friends, the son and daughter of a curator at the new Victoria and Albert Museum, are already inscribed with mystery. Each family carries its own secrets. 

They grow up in the golden summers of Edwardian times, but as the sons rebel against their parents and the girls dream of independent futures, they are unaware that in the darkness ahead they will be betrayed unintentionally by the adults who love them. This is the children’s book.’

The last book I read was The Silence Between Breaths by Cath Staincliffeoner. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s about a group of people on the 10.35 train from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston. It’s a story of s routine journey that takes a terrifying turn.

Next, I’m thinking of reading Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson

Synopsis from Amazon:

The stage is set. The players are ready. By night’s end, a murderer will be revealed. 
Ex-detective Jackson Brodie is staving off a bad case of midlife malaise when he is called to a sleepy Yorkshire town, and the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting. But one theft leads to another, including the disappearance of a valuable Turner from Burton Makepeace, home to Lady Milton and her family. Once a magnificent country house, Burton Makepeace has now partially been converted into a hotel, hosting Murder Mystery weekends.
As paying guests, a vicar, an ex-army officer, impecunious aristocrats, and old friends converge, we are treated a fiendishly clever mystery; one that pays homage to the masters of the genre—from Agatha Christie to Dorothy Sayers.

WWW Wednesday: 12 June 2024

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

The books in this post are all from my 20 Books of Summer list.

Currently I’m reading The Silence Between Breaths by Cath Staincliffe. This is a book I’ve been meaning to read for ages, so I am really pleased that at long last I am reading it. I’m up to page 147 out of 263, so I’m making good progress. It’s set on the 10.35 train from Manchester Piccadilly to London, Euston. Some of the passengers are on their way to work, some going on holiday, one family off to a wedding and some hoping to escape from the demands of their family, wanting a new start and one person is desperate to get back home to her little girl. It’s a tense journey full of daily life – until it moves into tragedy.

Another book I’m reading is Where Water Lies by Hilary Tailor. I’ve only read the opening chapter so far, so there’s a long way to go yet. But I reckon I can start another novel at the moment. (see below)

The last book I read was The Innocent by Matthew Hall, a prequel to his series of books about Jenny Cooper, a coroner. I read the first one several years ago and just came across this novella (226 pages). Before Jenny was a coroner, she was a lawyer and in this book Hall writes about why she became a coroner. I really enjoyed it.

Next, I’m planning to read The Silence of the Girls. It is the first book in Pat Barker’s Troy series, historical fiction retelling the story of the Trojan war from the point of view of the women. I put this on my 20 Books of Summer list because it’s a book I’ve been thinking of reading for years – and I reckon the time has come.Pat

Synopsis from Amazon:

There was a woman at the heart of the Trojan War whose voice has been silent – until now. Discover the greatest Greek myth of all – retold by the witness that history forgot . .

Briseis was a queen until her city was destroyed. Now she is a slave to the man who butchered her husband and brothers. Trapped in a world defined by men, can she survive to become the author of her own story?

Although this is a weekly meme I’m only taking part occasionally.

WWW Wednesday: 5 June 2024

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

It’s been several weeks since I wrote a WWW Wednesday post. The books in this post are all from my 20 Books of Summer list.

Currently I’m reading Black Roses by Jane Thynne, a book I bought 10 years ago. It’s set in Germany in 1933 as Hitler came to power. Clara Vine, an attractive young Anglo-German actress, arrives in Berlin to find work at the famous Ufa studios. Through a chance meeting, she is unwillingly drawn into a circle of Nazi wives, among them Magda Goebbels, Anneliese von Ribbentrop and Goering’s girlfriend Emmy Sonnemann. (Goodreads). I’m enjoying this book so far, although it’s moving very slowly and I am getting a bit confused by the minor characters.

The last book I read was Great Meadow by Dirk Bogarde, subtitled on the cover, An Evocation. I couldn’t resist the cover of this book when I spotted it at a bookstall at the local village fair in July 2010. When I read the opening words in the Author’s Note at the beginning of the book I knew I wanted to read it:

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)

It has been sitting on my bookshelves since then. and I’m kicking myself that I took so long to get round to reading it because I loved it. I’ll be writing more about this book soon.

Next I’m planning to read Where Water Lies by Hilary Tailor. I put this on my 20 Books of Summer list because I loved her first book The Vanishing Tide.

Synopsis from Amazon UK

Eliza has lived two lives – one before she fell into an obsessive teenage friendship with Eric and Maggie, and the one after it was destroyed in a single afternoon. To Eliza, Eric and Maggie were irreplaceable, so she hasn’t. Instead, drifting through life alone, she spends every morning diving into her memories as she swims in Hampstead Ponds, her guilt never far below the surface.

Twenty years might have passed, yet Eliza still can’t help searching for Maggie everywhere. Then one day she spots a woman who looks just like her. Eliza has spent half her life wondering what really happened that afternoon and if Maggie’s back, will it help her finally get answers?

But memories are like ripples on water, and can be deceptive. As the past and present collide, Eliza begins to wonder: will learning the truth set her free – or will it only drag her down deeper?

Although this is a weekly meme I’m only taking part occasionally.