My Week in Books: 13 January 2016

Published on by Margaret19 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.

Currently I’m reading two books:

The Pattern in the Carpet by Margaret Drabble, subtitled A Personal History with Jigsaws. It’s a mix of memoir, Margaret Drabble’s own personal reflections on doing jigsaws and the history of jigsaws and of children’s games and puzzles. I’ve always loved doing jigsaws and I’m loving this book.

Death Comes As the End by Agatha Christie

I’m also in the middle of reading Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie. This is a murder mystery set in Ancient Egypt, which despite its historical setting is a typical Agatha Christie mystery as members of a ka-priest’s family are murdered.

Then: this year I’ve been struggling to get rid of an awful cold which has turned into an irritating cough, which has meant that although I’ve still been able to read I haven’t managed to write about most of the books, including this one that I finished a few days ago:

A Month in the Country (Penguin Modern'¦

A Month in the Country by J L Carr. I love this little book set in the summer of 1920 when Tom Birkin, injured in the trenches in the First World War goes to a Yorkshire village to uncover a huge fourteenth century painting on the wall of the village church. A beautiful book! My post will follow soon.

Next – I been reading my way through Agatha Christie’s crime novels and I still have one more to read – Sparkling Cyanide, so that will be my next book.

Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie

Blurb:

A beautiful heiress is fatally poisoned in a West End restaurant’¦ Six people sit down to dinner at a table laid for seven. In front of the empty place is a sprig of rosemary ‘“ in solemn memory of Rosemary Barton who died at the same table exactly one year previously. No one present on that fateful night would ever forget the woman’s face, contorted beyond recognition ‘“ or what they remembered about her astonishing life.

Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

I had no great expectations when I began reading Agatha Christie’s Destination Unknown (first published in 1954) because I’ve not been keen on her stand-alone international intrigue/spy mysteries. But I thought it started very well and I was soon drawn into the story.

It’s the early 1950s and a number of scientists have disappeared, amongst them is Thomas Betterton, a brilliant nuclear scientist, who had discovered ZE Fission. The British Secret Service suspect that he and the other missing scientists have gone beyond the Iron Curtain, either kidnapped, or tempted by money or by the dream of an ideal world, working for the good of humanity. His wife, Olive, has no idea where he is, but sets off for Morocco, ostensibly on medical advice for a complete rest. However, the plane crashes and she is killed before she gets to her destination.

Hilary Craven, whose abundant red hair is similar to Olive’s, is intent on taking her own life, but she is recruited by Jessop, a British Secret Service Agent who persuades her that if she wants to kill herself she could help her country at the same time by impersonating Olive and thus trace Betterton. In doing so it leads her to a secret scientific complex hidden in the High Atlas mountains and a terrifying discovery.

It went over the top with a string of disasters, involving a faked air disaster, radio-active pearls, a leper colony, and secret laboratories all part of a vast organisation masterminded by a wealthy and powerful fanatic. And added to the international intrigue there is also a murder which is only revealed right at the end of the book. If the plot is bizarre and rather weak, and some of the characters are stereotypes, Hilary’s character is more convincing. And as in her other spy thrillers, Agatha Christie uses it as a vehicle for her own concerns about the state of the post-war world, decrying what she saw as the attempt to impose a world order and discipline, where individuality is suppressed. Hilary thinks she:

would rather have a world of kindly, faulty human beings, than a world of superior robots who’ve said goodbye to pity and understanding and sympathy. (page 102)

It’s a dangerous world where

Once you have got into that state of mind where the taking of human lives no longer counts, then if it is simpler to put a little explosive package under a seat in a plane than to wait about at the corner on a dark night and stick a knife in someone, then the package will be left and the fact that six other people will die also is not even considered. (pages 143-144)

Just as true today as in the 1950s!

I am nearing the end of reading Agatha Christie’s full length novels and now have just 2 left to read. Although Destination Unknown is not one of my favourites I did enjoy reading it – it moves quickly and kept me interested in its twists and turns. There’s a lot going on and it’s not easy to know who is telling the truth and who to trust.

****

Added on 15th January 2016:

The edition of Destination Unknown that I read has this cover, fulfilling the cigarette/pipe category on the Golden Age Vintage Mystery Hunt card, as well as the Mount TBR Reading Challenge:

In Bitter Chill by Sarah Ward

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

I’ve made a great start to 2016 with the first book I’ve read this year. In Bitter Chill by Sarah Ward is her debut novel and it is excellent. I’ve been enjoying her book blog, Crimepieces, for a while now, so when I saw that she had published a book, I knew I had to read it. It will certainly be on my list of favourite books at the end of the year.

This is just the sort of book I love – excellent storytelling, moving smoothly between the past and the present as the secrets from the past gradually emerge, great characterisation and a superb location in the Derbyshire Peak District that Sarah Ward obviously knows very well. It is also a complex and puzzling mystery that kept me glued to the book.

In January 1978 two eight-year old girls, Rachel Jones and Sophie Jenkins were walking to school together when a strange woman offered them a lift in her car. Rachel is later found in Truscott Woods but Sophie was never found.  Move forward 30 years when Sophie’s mother commits suicide. Troubled by Yvonne Jenkin’s suicide, the police reopen the case – Superintendent Llewellyn who was on the original team asks DI Francis Sadler and his team, DC Connie Childs and DS Damian Palmer to see if there was anything that had been missed in 1978.

Rachel has very little memory of the kidnapping as she was drugged and she has nothing to add to the statement she made as a child. But prompted by Yvonne’s suicide she tries to remember what had happened and as she is a genealogist her research into her own family history proves to be invaluable. The questions are which child was the target, why was Rachel the only one to escape and what is the significance of her missing socks? The tension and mystery ramp up with a modern day murder, when Mrs Lander, one of the teachers at the girls’ school is found dead in the woods where Rachel was discovered 30 years earlier.

As I read I jotted down a few points that I thought were relevant. These were socks, illegitimacy, missing fathers and was Mrs Lander’s murder connected to the kidnapping and Yvonne’s suicide? It was only near the end of the book that I worked out why these points were relevant.

Connie was my favourite police officer and I liked the relationship between her and Sadler and the competition between her Sergeant Damian Palmer. I also liked the fact that although there are violent deaths in this book they are not described graphically. The weather gets colder and colder as the chilling events unfold and the devastating family secrets are revealed.

This is a powerful and well written crime fiction novel, one that I enjoyed immensely. I’m glad that there is to be a sequel, A Fragile Spring, which will be published later this year. I’m definitely looking forward to reading it.

Reading Challenges in 2016

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

I’ve been thinking about reading challenges. Each year I see other bloggers setting out their reading challenges and I get keen to join a lot of them.

But what is a ‘challenge’? Dictionary definitions include –

a difficult or demanding task, esp. one seen as a test of one’s abilities or character.

or – an invitation or summons to a trial or contest of any kind; a defiance.

So, I don’t need reading challenges –  reading books is not a difficult or demanding task, and I don’t want to treat my reading as a contest either with others or with myself, by reading either more books or different types of books. I already read as many books as my time allows and I love variety in my reading.

So why do I join reading challenges? It’s because I love reading and I also love making lists and ticking off the books I’ve read. I love looking through my books and seeing which ones will qualify for each challenge. I also like seeing what others are reading, books I may not have heard about. I like the camaraderie, of finding others who love the same type of books as me, of exchanging comments or recommendations.

But each year I find it can become a bind, reading to a set list and I want to branch out and read something different, books not on the lists, books that suddenly seem more enticing.

The ‘challenge’ I enjoyed the most last year was Reading Bingo 2015, that I did at the end of November. It involved looking back at the books I read during the year and fitting them into the relevant squares on the card. In other words read what you want first and then see if they meet the categories on the card.

This is why I’m cutting down on the number of challenges I join.

These are the challenges I’ll be taking part in, by reading and then slotting the books into the various categories:

  • Mount TBR hosted by Bev at My Reader’s Block –  this helps me remember to read books that I already own, which for this challenge are books I’ve owned before 1 January 2016.
  • Read Scotland hosted by Peggy Ann at Peggy Ann’s Post – I’ve taken part in this for the last two years and have found that without trying I naturally read books by Scottish authors/books set in Scotland. So for this challenge I’ll see at the end of the year how many I’ve read.
  • What’s In a Name? hosted by Charlie at The Worm Hole – I’ve done this challenge ever since it started and it would be a shame to stop now. It only involves reading 6 books and I’m going to treat it in the same way as Read Scotland by seeing at the end of the year if the books I’ve read slot into the categories.

I’ll also be taking part in Heavenali’s Virginia Woolf read-a-long, reading what I can when I can.

And because I do like making lists I’ll be doing various projects of my own reading and listing books in a variety of genres, such as historical fiction and non-fiction, as my mood and interests lead me, but not linking up to any challenges.

Nonfiction Challenge 2015 Wrap Up

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

The Nonfiction Reading Challenge was hosted by The Introverted Reader It ran between 1 January to 31 December 2015.

Nonfiction Reading Challenge hosted at The Introverted Reader
Image courtesy of Serge Bertasius Photography at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Challenge:  Read any non-fiction book(s), adult or young adult.. You could choose anything. Memoirs, History, Travel ‘“ absolutely anything that is classified as non-fiction counts for this challenge.

The levels:

Dilettante‘“Read 1-5 non-fiction books

Explorer‘“Read 6-10

Seeker‘“Read 11-15

Master‘“Read 16-20

I reached the Seeker level and read more than in previous years.

I read mainly autobiography/biography/memoir, and history:

  1. Wilkie Collins by Peter Ackroyd (Biography)
  2. An Autobiography by Anthony Trollope
  3. Spilling the Beans by Clarissa Dickson Wright (Autobiography)
  4. Burying the Typewriter: Childhood Under the Eye of the Secret Police by Carmen Bugan (Autobiography)
  5. Nothing To Be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes (Memoir, philosophy, reflection on the fear of death, belief)
  6. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (Memoir, Falconry, Goshawk, T H White)
  7. Poirot and Me by David Suchet (Autobiography, Agatha Christie’s Poirot)
  8. The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards (Crime Fiction, History, Biography)
  9. Stephen Hawking: His Life and Work by Kitty Ferguson (Biography, Science)
  10. One Life: My Mother’s Story by Kate Grenville (Biography)
  11. Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan (Memoir, Syria, 1930s)
  12. Alan M Turing by Sara Turing (Biography)
  13. Watching War Films with My Father by Al Murray (Memoir, History, Second World War)
  14. Alan Turing:Unlocking the Enigma by David Boyle (Biography, History)
  15. The Monocled Mutineer by John Fairley and William Allison (History, First World War)
  16. Mrs Jordan’s Profession: the Story of a Great Actress and a Future King by Claire Tomalin (Biography, History)
  17. Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War by Susan Southard (Japan, Nuclear Weapons, History, World War Two)
  18. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (Appalachian Trail, USA)
  19. The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson (History, Biography)

2015 Challenges Wrap Up

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

In 2015 I took part in several challenges. I completed half of them and made good inroads into the rest.

  1. Agatha Christie Reading Challenge‘“ ongoing – I read 6 books by Agatha Christie. I’ve nearly completed this challenge with just 3 of her full length novels to read. I still have a long way to go to read all her short stories!
  2. Mount TBR Challenge 2015 – I was aiming to reach the summit of Mt Ararat (48 books) and made it to the foothills by reading 39 of my TBR books (that is books I owned before 1 January 2015)
  3. Color Coded Challenge 2015 – completed by reading nine books in different colour categories, either named in the title or being the dominant colour for the cover of the book.
  4. What’s in a Name 2015 – completed. This involved reading books from six categories.
  5. Victorian Bingo Challenge 2015 Completed, by reading five books in the following categories:
    1. Book published in the 1840s, ‘“ The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
    2. Male author – Anthony Trollope: An Autobiography
    3. Female author  ‘“ Adam Bede by George Eliot
    4. Book with a name as the title – Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
    5. Book published in serial (monthly) format – The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins

    Victorian Bingo card

  6. Read Scotland 2015 – completed. My target was the first level to read 1-4 books and I reached the Hebridean Level by reading 9 books.
  7. TBR Pile Challenge 2015 – partly completed by reading 8 books out of the 14 I listed.
  8. Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2015 – My target was 25 books and I read 17 books.
  9. Nonfiction Reading Challenge 2015 – completed. I was aiming for the Seeker Level (16 – 20 books) and I read 19!
  10. 10 Books of Summer Challenge 2015 – not completed, but I read 7 out of the 10 books I listed.