Books, books and more books

Plenty of crime and other things mainly historical:


M C Beaton - Emily Goes to Exeter, Belinda Goes to Bath and Penelope Goes to Portsmouth - the first three books in the Travelling Matchmaker series - light reading set at the beginning of the nineteenth century. I'm waiting for the last three to come out at the end of this month. If you like Georgette Heyer then you may enjoy these.

Elly Griffiths - The House at Seas End - the third in the Ruth Galloway series set on the North Norfolk coast. This one is about six skeletons uncovered by a cliff fall which turn out to be rather newer than the skeletons Ruth is normally interested in. Excellent atmospheric writing with an out of the ordinary heroine.

M C Beaton - Hamish Macbeth mysteries - Death of a Cad, Death of an Outsider, Death of a Perfect Wife, Death of a Hussy, Death of a Snob - these are all good light reads with Hamish displaying not only his laziness but his good knowledge of human nature. While they are light crime stories they often have some deeper aspects which raise them out of the ordinary.

Ken Moody - The View from the Surgery - short pieces by a GP based in Scotland with some very Dickensian pseudonyms for the patients.

Amy Bratley - The Girl's Guide to Homemaking - chick lit - but interesting chick lit. Juliet moves into a new flat with her boyfriend only to discover he has been cheating on her with one of her friends. From there on in her life disintegrates. How she deals with that disintegration makes interesting reading.

Carola Dunn - Styx and Stones - poison pen letters in 1920s rural England. This is the first book I've read in this series and I think I shall be looking out for the others.

Edmund Crispin - The Case of the Gilded Fly - Golden Age crime set in Oxford. Good reading and the solution to the murder is so simple when you know it!

Currently reading:

Georgette Heyer - Faro's Daughter

John Galsworthy - The Forsyte Saga - I'm on volume 5 - The Silver Spoon. I can still see the people who played the characters in that long ago BBC adaptation!

Anthony Trollope - The Way We Live Now - very topical even if it was written in the 19th century.

Simon Parke - One Minute Mindfulness - short passages providing food for thought.

British Summer Time

I feel like starting a campaign for sticking to GMT all year round. I can never see what good it does to change the time forward and back. I must say here the weather in my part of the world seems to have paid attention and it's bright and sunny after the rain and wind of yesterday, so a welcome change. It takes at least a month for me to get used to the change and I wander around like a zombie for the first few days every time. I suppose it's good for us - but I remain to be convinced.

I started reading 'In the Red: the diary of a recovering shopaholic' by Alexis Hall last night. Very fly on the wall and compulsive reading because of it. (Strange I don't like reality TV shows) I am also reading 'Indulgence' by Paul Richardson about his world wide search for the best chocolate - naturally he is a self-confessed chocoholic. I've just about finished Edmund Crispin's 'Holy Disorders' - an excellent example of the Golden Age of detective fiction. Reading it makes you realise how styles of writing have changed and how authors assumed a must greater education in their readers. I really need to read it with a dictionary in hand as there are several words I had not come across before and I consider myself reasonably literate!

I'm now off to read the Sunday papers on line - cheaper than buying the real thing but not quite as satisfying as curling up with a pile of newsprint.