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Musing Mondays

Published on April 20, 2009 by Margaret10 Comments

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about 2009 favourites€¦

Coming towards the end of April, we’re a third of the way through the way through the year. What’s the favourite book you’ve read so far in 2009? What about your least favourite? (question courtesy of MizB)

I wrote about The Cipher Garden by Martin Edwards a couple of days ago – that’s one of the best books I’ve read this year but as I’ve also read other books that were excellent it’s difficult deciding which is one is the favourite. The other contenders are:

Fire in the Blood by Irene Nemirovsky – my review is here
The Falls by Ian Rankin- my review is here
Star Gazing by Linda Gillard – I’m still to write about that one!

It’s easier to decide about my least favourite; that has to be Death of a Gossip by M C Beaton – see my review here.

The Sunday Salon – Choosing Books

Published on April 19, 2009 by Margaret6 Comments

Currently I’m at the beginning of a few books. That is because I’ve just finished reading Tangled Roots by Sue Guiney and have started more before deciding which one to read next. Usually I have more than one book on the go but I’m thinking of restricting myself to just two at once.

I’ve been reading Sue Roe’s The Private Lives of the Impressionists for several weeks now, taking it slowly. I’m about half-way into it now and I ‘d really like to finish it more quickly so I’ll be spending more time reading that in the next day or two.

Tangled Roots is such a sad book I think I need something more cheerful for a while but so far I haven’t quite found the right one. I received An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. This is a book of short stories set in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe’s regime and there is not a lot of joy so far in the first three stories I’ve read. They are stories of struggle, hardship and endurance, written beautifully and as the title indicates read like a lament for the Zimbabwe that no longer exists. I think I’ll restrict myself to reading one or two of these stories at a time – short stories are meant to be savoured not gobbled down.

Poetry too is something I can’t read too much of in one sitting. I’ve dipped into Poems of Thomas Hardy, selected and introduced by Claire Tomalin and these seem to be quite melancholy – not quite right for my mood right now.

Another book that isn’t meant to be read through in one sitting is Troublesome Words by Bill Bryson. I am fascinated by words and how they fit together and all the problems in using them. So yesterday this book caught my eye as I was passing the bookshelf. Some of it makes me laugh –

hear! hear! is the exclamation of parliamentarians, not here, here!

It’s full of helpful information – when I can’t remember whether it should be ‘a hotel’ or ‘an hotel’ for example. (It all depends upon whether the ‘h’ is silent or not).

I seem to be attracted to books to dip into as I’ve also started Not the End of the World by Kate Atkinson, another book of short stories. Funny, amusing and inventive.

However, I really want to read a full length novel and so I thought I’d try a Barbara Vine book, never having read one before, although I’ve watched most of the TV adaptations. My library had The Birthday Present so I had a look at that this morning. The opening sentences are promising:

Thirty three is the age we shall all be when we meet in heaven because Christ was thirty three when he died. It’s an interesting idea. One can’t help thinking that the people who invent these things chose it because it’s an ideal age, no longer one’s first youth but not aging either.

But then I read the blurb and a novel “set amidst an age of IRA bombings, the first Gulf War and sleazy politics” doesn’t appeal much today. So I’ve put that to one side for the time being.

Next Dead Man’s Folly by Agatha Christie. I started this last week and stopped so I could finish Tangled Roots (which was getting a bit oppressive). This, despite the reference to death in the title and being a murder mystery is much lighter in tone and I’m enjoying it immensely. Poirot has been enlisted by Mrs Oliver, the detective writer, to go down to Nassecombe House in Devon because she thinks there’s something wrong. And naturally she’s right. I do enjoy Agatha Christie’s books! So I’m going to read this one and finish the others later.

Book Review: The Cipher Garden by Martin Edwards

Published on April 18, 2009 by Margaret6 Comments

cipher-garden001 The Cipher Garden by Martin Edwards has to be one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Set in the Lake District this murder mystery has everything – a beautiful setting captured so well by Martin Edwards, believable characters, and an unsolved murder with a good mixture of mystery and suspense. It’s a well paced, intricate and tense drama that kept me gripped right to the end.

Daniel Kind (see also The Coffin Trail and The Arsenic Labyrinth, my reviews are here and here) joins forces again with DCI Hannah Scarlett (in charge of the Cold Case Review Team) in investigating the murder of Warren Howe, brutally killed in the peaceful village of Old Sawrey, close to Near Sawrey the home of Beatrix Potter. There are plenty of suspects as Warren was a “serial philanderer “ who made scores of enemies and never worried if he trod on people’s toes. An anonymous tip-off to the police and a series of poison pen letters trigger the investigation and long-buried sins are brought to light before the killer is revealed.

Daniel is also tracking down the history of Tarn Cottage, which he and Miranda are renovating. The cottage garden poses a mystery – it is an ” old and melancholic private garden, mysterious and overgrown”, known locally as the Cipher Garden. The original owners and builders of Tarn Cottage, Jacob and Alice Quillers, died of broken hearts on the same day, one year exactly after the death of their son at the end of the Boer War in 1902. Not only is the layout puzzling with its tangled mess of paths meandering aimlessly leading nowhere, false turns and dead ends but the plant choice is also odd- mandrake, hellebore, foxgloves, belladonna and monkey puzzle trees.

Here are a few quotes to whet your appetite:

The gathering dusk had become a favourite time for Daniel. He wandered outside the cottage and savoured the scent of old roses, and the colours mingling on the fell, tints of blue and indigo deepening as the sky grew dark. The slopes looked so rich and sensuous that if he could only brush them with his fingertips, it would be like touching velvet. (page 45)

Marc Amos’s bookshop flirted with the senses. If the whiff of old books and background Debussey were insufficiently seductive, the casual visitor would be lured from the craft shops in the courtyard by the rich aromas wafting from the cafeteria. It shared the ground floor of the old mill building with a maze of ceiling-to-floor shelves. Leigh Moffat’s succulent home-based desserts had found fame beyond this corner of the South Lakes and as many people gorged on her lemon cake and Death by Chocolate as on the tens of thousands of books in the store. (page 69)

Your husband has vanished and you come home from work one day to find that the bloke you hired to sort out your garden has been scythed to death and deposited in a trench he excavated himself. But that’s not all. He wasn’t some boring stranger, he was an ex. Someone you got over in your teens, someone you still pass the time of day with. There’s always the tug of nostalgia, if hardly romance. How do you think it made me feel, Chief Inspector? (page 144)

Martin is working on the fourth book in his Lake District Mystery series – The Serpent Pool, which he is aiming to publish in 2010. I’ll be looking out for that one! He also writes a Crime Writing Blog – Do You Write Under Your Own Name? and has a website Martin Edward’s Books.

For another review see Dorte’s blog.

Friday Finds

Published on April 17, 2009 by Margaret6 Comments

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.

Weekly Geeks – What’s Cookin’?

Published on April 16, 2009May 1, 2020 by Margaret5 Comments

What shall we cook today? It seems that for most of us, a bit of our book obsession would carry over to the cookbook genre, so this week for Weekly Geeks, let’s talk cookbooks!

I’ve been collecting cookbooks for many years now. I have all sorts – Italian, Chinese, Thai, Indian, French, Vegetarian, Diet, Low Fat, Freezer, and Microwave cookbooks to name but a few. These days I try to be selective and only buy books that look as though there are some new recipes that I haven’t tried.

I’m only going to write about three books in this post and these are the cookery books that were my mother’s. She loved cooking and was a very good cook. Compared to me she had so few books! There is her Recipe Index – inside she wrote the date she bought it – March 25 1938, containing some of her handwritten recipes mainly for cakes and biscuits. It’s divided into sections such as Soups, Fish, Meat Game and Poultry etc. There’s one section called “Entrees” which she has crossed out and renamed it Jams. I can’t imagine we ever knew what entrees were! Some of the recipes are wartime ones as they include dried egg. The book is now looking well-worn and is a bit fragile.

Then there is The Radiation Cookery Book – such a scary title, which actually is a recipe book for use with the Radiation “New World” Regulo-Controlled Gas Cookers – my mum had one – very modern in 1938. Just opening it at random I find recipes for such things as Rabbit Broth, Hodge-Podge (made with shin of beef or scrag end of the neck of mutton), Bath Buns, Stewed Eel (in the Invalid Cookery section), Linseed Tea – none of which we ever ate. My father loved food such as Roll Mop Herrings, Tripe and Onions and Pigs Trotters – my sister and I hated them. Then there are the old favourites – Parkin, Treacle Tart, Queen of Puddings, Apple Charlotte and Bread and Butter Pudding.

new-world-cooker002

Finally there is my favourite – The Good Housekeeping’s Cookery Compendium, which she bought in 1956. I used to love looking through this as a child. It has nearly 2000 wonderful photos and 1500 recipes with step-by-step pictures. It covers everything – how to boil an egg, buying and choosing meat, making hors d’oeuvre, how to make pickles, preserves and chutneys and the most comprehensive section on cake-making with full instructions on making and decorating the most elaborate wedding cakes.

gh-cookery-compendium001

Windfall – Booking Through Thursday

Published on April 16, 2009 by Margaret18 Comments

Deb writes: Yesterday, April 15th, was Tax Day here in the U.S., which means lots of lucky people will get refunds of over-paid taxes.

Whether you’re one of them or not, what would you spend an unexpected windfall on? Say €¦ $50? How about $500?

(And, this is a reading meme, so by rights the answer should be book-related, but hey, feel free to go wild and splurge on anything you like.)

Let me see – $50 is about £33, so that would buy a few books, of course and that’s what I’d spend it on. Which books? I could just go to my wishlist and buy off that, but as part of the enjoyment is choosing I’d probably go to a bookshop and spend time browsing.

Ten times that amount and I’d consider buying an E-Book Reader. Although I’m not too sure I can read e-books it would save a lot of space and mean I wouldn’t have to limit myself to just a few books when I go away on holiday etc. If we had more space I’d buy more bookcases.

And if it was a really big windfall I’d like space for a library – wouldn’t that be good?