Currently reading . . .

I am currently engrossed in Catherine Alliott's One Day in May - chick lit with something of a hard centre involving the war in Bosnia. It is good and well written and the dialogue is believable and it is definitely better than some. I'm mentally classifying it as a 4* read at the moment but it may increase to 5* when I see what the ending is.

Then there's Alexander McCall Smith's latest No1 Ladies' Detective Agency offering - The Double Comfort Safari Club. As ever a charming excursion into old fashioned values.

I am also re-reading Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique - which is surprisingly still relevant to the modern world.

So a pretty mixed bag at the moment - but that's how I prefer my reading.

Current reading

I am currently reading The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry. It is set in Salem, Massachusetts and centres on Towner Witney - newly returned because of the disappearance and death of her Aunt Eva. It soon becomes clear there is something in Towner's past which is coming back to haunt her. She left Salem as a teenager because of a terrifying experience and has returned against her will. It is an atmospheric story where the bounds between reality and Towner's nightmares appear very thin. I find I have to read it carefully because it is constantly referring to things in the past and I'm never quite sure whether I'm supposed to be in the past or the present. Certainly an interesting book though I shall reserve judgement until I finish it.

I'm also reading Alexander McCall Smith's latest No 1 Ladies Detective Agency story - Teatime for the Traditionally Built. I love the gentle humour in these stories and their traditional values. In this one Precious Ramotswe is upset because she thinks she will have to finally give up her trusty little white van. Her assistant is worrying that a new assistant in her fiance's furniture store is going to try and steal him from under her nose. Then of course there are several detective agency problems which also need the attention of the two detectives.

Then I'm also plodding a way with The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. This is a very long book and I'm beginning to think it could usefully have been about half its length. Fascinating about the history of polygamy and the Mormons and the way, like any sect, they seek to control the thoughts and actions of their followers. It is, of course, fiction but there appears to have been a lot of research gone into it.

More of all three when I've finished them.

Reading

I am currently reading Deborah Gregory's Dancing with the Dead and I'm not sure whether I will finish it - chiefly because I can't take to the main character. Her name is Gill and she moves with her actor husband - Seb - and two small children, Rosie and Adam, to a house in very rural Lincolnshire which belongs to her mother. All of this ought to make it my type of book especially when you add in the fact that the house is old and full of interesting bits and pieces and that her great aunt is sending her regular letters about the family's past - apparently from the grave. There is something very nasty in the woodshed which is gradually being revealed. Again this is my type of book - as far as I could be said to have a type of book. Gill herself seems unnecessarily self centred and cruel to her small daughter and her husband - which may of course all be explained later - and I just do not take to her at all. As the book is only about 200 pages and I've read nearly half I probably will persevere and finish it. The book is a bit over-written as well and I keep reading sentences and wanting to chop half of them out. Altogether a pretty good plot but . . . .

I am also part way through Alexander McCall Smith's La's Orchestra Saves the World about La - short for Lavender - who moves to rural Suffolk just before the outbreak of World War II and works for nothing on a farm as part of her war effort and sets up a very ad hoc orchestra to help boost the morale of the local people and the nearby RAF base. As ever the writing is charming and the story intriguing, though maybe not in quite the same league as the 44 Scotland Street series or the No 1 ladies Detective Agency but still worth reading.

As I always have at least two books on the go and usually more I read 50 pages of Anthony Trollope's The Warden last night. I was fortunate enough to buy all 6 of the Barchester novels in Folio Society editions just before Christmas and I'm intending to read them during 2009. I read both The Warden and Barchester Towers when I was still at school but have never read the other 4 - The Small House at Allington, Doctor Thorne, Framley Parsonage and The Last Chronicle of Barset.

Thinking about the Barchester novels reminded me that a twentieth century novelist adopted the geography of the novels in her own stories - Angela Thirkell. Not quite the same as a sequel but interesting for similar reasons.

The weather etc.

I find this really windy weather very frightening. Something to do with the sheer power of nature and the fact that in the face of it human efforts are just so puny and ineffectual. We just have to sit it out and hope we'll emerge unscathed the other side. On the other hand having just heard 3 fighter jets go over the house so low I felt like ducking, we're maybe in more danger from human activities! Please leave the roof on boys!

Personally I don't have a problem with the RAF flying low over here. We aren't far from the bombing range in the Wash - as the jets fly - and we're not far from Waddington, Scampton Coningsby or Marham in Norfolk. However if they're really noisy they can startle you, especially as it's quite quiet usually.

The wind here could have been worse. I think we just got the edge of the storm. I sometimes think because we're so low lying - almost below sea level - we escape some of the worst weatehr as it sails over the top of us almost. But it's eased off a lot now, and we're supposed to have a peaceful night.

I've just started reading Alexander McCall Smith's latest in the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series 'Miracle at Speedy Motors.' I love these books with their gentle humour and knowledge of human nature. They contain what might be called old fashioned values nowadays - caring for others, trying not to hurt people, apologising when you're in the wrong and helping people whenever you can. I think these books are an acquired taste perhaps and certainly not everyone I recommend them to likes them. I like his 44 Scotland Street stories as well but have never yet managed to read the Isobel Dalhousie series.

Writing - 48,000 words - 152 pages of double spaced A4 - deliberately face down in a box file so that I won't be tempted to read it yet. May do some later this evening