Happy St George's Day; and books

Why can't we have a Bank Holiday for St George's Day? We're falling over Bank Holidays this Easter but I still think we should have one for our national saint.

Books read:

• Death in the Physic Garden by Karen Lowe - murder and garden design. I first read this a few years ago and enjoyed it but thought I would re-read it before I read the next one featuring Fern Green - Death in the Winter Garden.


• Gently Down the Stream by Alan Hunter - murder and family secrets set in the Norfolk Broads with lots of Norfolk dialect - though nothing too incomprehensible for those not familiar with it!


• Summer of Love by Katie Fforde - good light reading. I haven't enjoyed her later books but in this one she is back on form.


• Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer - Regency with a Gothic theme. This is the only Heyer which has ever reduced me to tears.


• The Missing Marriage by Sarah May - man goes missing off the Northumbrian coast in a kayak - but is he really dead? I found it a very confusing story with some relatively unsympathetic characters.


• The Body on the Beach by Simon Brett - the first in the Fethering series. I read it some years ago but it was still enjoyable the second time around. Touches of delicious humour and a pair of mismatched sleuths - what's not to like?

Currently reading

• The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer - one of her most interesting heroines in my opinion


• Death in the Winter Garden by Karen Lowe - Fern is asked to resurrect an overgrown art deco garden but the skeleton of a baby is found when the digging starts


• Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon - the first in her Guido Brunetti series set in Venice - worth more than one reading as her style is understated and I'm seeing things I missed first time round.

Happy Easter people!

Doesn't time fly . . .

Not sure that enjoy is the right word since too much of my time has been taken up with medical appointments of various types - only one of which was mine - my six months dental check up. Anyway - back to books M C Beaton - Death of a Charming Man, Death of a Gentle Lady - two books in the Hamish Macbeth series. Beatrice Goes to Brighton, Deborah Goes to Dover and Yvonne Goes to York - the last three volumes of the Travelling Matchmaker Series - which I really enjoyed. Light hearted early 19th century romps which could appeal to anyone who likes Georgette Heyer. S J Bolton - Now You See Me . . an atmospheric thriller about a series of murders carried out by a potential Jack the Ripper copy cat killer. Definitely kept me turning the pages and not a book to read on your own at night! Georgette Heyer - The Nonesuch - with one of my favourite heroines - Ancilla Trent and one of the most obnoxious young female characters - Tiffany - a spoilt brat heiress. Peter Lovesey - Skeleton Hill - very good crime story involving, among other things, a Civil War battle re-enactment.

Books read and reading

M C Beaton - Death of a Prankster; Death of a Glutton and Death of a Travelling Man - all good light crime novels with some interesting things to say about human nature.

Georgette Heyer - Arabella and Faro's Daughter - I really loved Arabella and had completely forgotten how amusing it is. I think Arabella is one of my favourites among Heyer's younger heroines.

Andrew Matthews - Happiness in Hard Times - Australian self help guru writing about his favourite topic - happiness. Count your blessings and read the inspiring personal stories.

Currently reading

Georgette Heyer - The Unknown Ajax - heir to the Darracott property indulges in a little bit of deception.

H R F Keating - The Perfect Murder - the first of the Inspector Ghote mysteries set in India. I've only read about 50 pages so far but it seems very good.

I'm also still plodding on with the Forsyte Saga and the Way We Live Now as well as listening to the audio book version of Faulks on Fiction.

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.

Yet more books and heating update

The heating is still working and we have been surveyed. The surveyor was not happy because the old oil tank has still not been taken away, the oil pipe underground was not replaced and the gubbins which stops the system silting up was not installed. We really don't want that done but we've been told we've got to have it done. But he did say because they have to drain the system again to do it they will need to take responsibility for any damage they might cause in the process and they will be told that in no uncertain terms. So we wait and see. In the meantime we have heating and hot water so we are happy - and warm - bunnies.

Books

Theodore Dalrymple - Second Opinion - short and astringent essays about the seamier side of life from a doctor's point of view. I find it best to read these a few at a time as they can cause you to lose any faith you might have had in the essential goodness of human nature.

Hugh Hunter - Our Man in Orlando: Murder, Madness and Mayhem in the Sunshine State - the work of a British Consul in Florida. The British abroad are just disgusting but the book was interesting as I'd never been quite sure what British Consular staff do - now I know.

Georgette Heyer - Charity Girl - not perhaps my favourite Heyer novel but still enjoyable

Tilda Shalof - A Nurse's Story - memoirs of an intensive care nurse in Canada. Thought provoking, funny and sad and raises many questions about 'striving officiously to keep alive'.

Books and a good web site for crime novels

M C Beaton's Death of a Poison Pen - a Hamish Macbeth story. Poison pen letters lead to a suicide or is it murder? I wasn't sure about this series at first but I was sufficiently interested to keep reading and it is definitely growing on me.

Rebecca Tope - A Cotswold Killing - the first in her series about Thea Osbourne - a widow - who takes on house sitting assignments and gets involved in investigating murders. The second in the series is A Cotswold Ordeal. I seem to remember reading one of this series some years ago and wasn't keen but I have gone back to them and found them interesting. Thea is growing on me as a character and the plots are nice and complicated.

Currently reading:

Polly Samson - Perfect Lives - this is a book which has been in the news recently because of some Amazon reviews which were less than favourable. I'm not sure I would have bought it myself but it is quite good. It is a book of interlinked short stories and the writing is a little too self conscious for my taste. I shall persevere and hope when I post a review on Amazon it doesn't attract too much criticism.

Rebecca Tope - Death in the Cotswolds - the third in the series and narrated by someone in the village where Thea Osbourne goes to stay with Phil Hollis - a police superintendent. Pagan undertones, village life and the plot centres round a prehistoric barrow and the pagan festival of Samhain.

Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - a very long book about magic in the 19th century with pictures and footnotes. I have mixed feelings about this but I will persevere with it.

Web site - for those of us who like cozy mysteries - www.cozy-mystery.com For the uninitiated - cozy (or cosy if you prefer) are crime or mystery novels which have very little violence and usually feature every day situations and characters often with a theme - such as candlemaking, cooking, knitting etc.. All the above crime novels fall into this category. It is a genre which is perhaps more popular in America than here. The Golden Age authors fall into this category - Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer, Dorothy L Sayers.

Books, books and yet more books

Jenni Mills - Buried Circle - very good novel with two inter-twined stories - from the 1930s and the present day. Set around the Avebury stone circle.

Georgette Heyer - A Blunt Instrument - body in the study and plenty of suspects not to mention a Bible quoting PC. Another case for Hannasyde and Hemingway.

Trisha Ashley - Twelve Days of Christmas - chick lit set around Christmas with widow Holly Brown coming to terms with her grief for her late husband. Serious issues but feel good factor too.

Veronica Heley - False Money - latest instalment in the Abbot Agency series. Cosy crime with interesting characters and fascinating scenarios.

Elizabeth Buchan - That Certain Age - two women sixty years apart - facing very similar problems in balancing their own lives with family life

Angela Thirkell - Wild Strawberries - I first read this book about forty years ago and had forgotten how good it is if you like reading about life for the upper classes in the 1930s. Her dialogue and witty descriptions raises this author's work above run of the mill novels.

M C Beaton - Death of a Gossip - first in the Hamish Macbeth series - good light reading.

Anna Dale - Magical Mischief - a children's book but still worth reading for adults - Mr Hardbattle's bookshop has been taken over by magic. We see drawing pins sending messages, a velour elephant which marches up and down a shelf, a step that turns to custard and books that rearrange themselves in the colours of the rainbow when no one is looking. Fun for any age.

Trisha Ashley, Angela Thirkell and Veronica Heley were books the rest were e-books.

Busy Kindling . . .

Is Kindling a verb created from a noun or is it just a new meaning for the word which means the wood you use to light a fire with? I seem to spend a lot of time reading at the moment and the novelty of my Kindle has not yet worn off.

Recent reads in e-book have been:

Georgette Heyer - Death in the Stocks - a body is found in the village stocks and leads Superintendent down some very murky byways of family life

Wendy Holden - Gallery Girl - this was a paperback - I enjoyed it though not as much as some of hers. I did enjoy the jibes at the pretensions of some of the more way out parts of the art world - artificial legs sprayed gold and hung on a washing line - your for £20 million. There are some absolutely priceless scenes towards the end of the book which make the whole thing worth while.

Georgette Heyer - Footsteps in the Dark - a brother and two sisters inherit a dilapidated country house only to find that it appears to have a resident ghost or two. They quickly realise that the ghost may be rather more corporeal than it would like them to think.

Richard Wiseman - 59 seconds - sort of distilled self help and psychology. It was interesting but as I can't remember anything about it now it clearly wasn't that memorable!

The Complete Idiot's Guide to dealing with Difficult People - interesting with a few tips I shall make use of such as lowering your voice when someone is getting angry. It reminds the reader that you can never control the behaviour of others - only how you react to that behaviour.

Currently reading:

Georgette Heyer - Detection Unlimited - murder of a very unlikeable solicitor in a country village - featuring Chief Inspector Hemingway.

Jenni Mills - The Buried Circle - set around Avebury featuring two parallel narratives from the point of view of India in the present day and Frannie, her grandmother in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Trisha Ashley - The Twelve Days of Christmas - this is a paperback which I'd bought before I realised there was an e-book. I'm getting through it slowly and I'm starting to think her recent books are not as good as early ones.

And yet more reading . . .

Death at the Opera by Gladys Mitchell - e-book - the first I've read by this author and very enjoyable it was too. She is one of the Golden Age of detective fiction writers from the 1920s and 1930s. This story features psycho-analyst Beatrice Lestrange Bradley trying to find out why a school teacher apparently committed suicide during the school's performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado.

Georgette Heyer's Penhallow - e-book - not what I was expecting because the reader knows who the murderer is and how it was done. The portrait of a family tyrant - Adam Penhallow - and the effect he has on his nearest and dearest deserves to be better known. It is an excellent psychological novel

Games People Play by Eric Berne - I first read this about 30 years ago and had forgotten a great deal of it. Very instructive about the way people operate and you find yourself looking out for the games people play in every day life.

Currently reading:

Georgette Heyer - Death in the Stocks - e-book - a body is found in the stocks on the village green. Superintendent Hannasyde is his usual self and the story exposes a very strange family set up.

Risk: the science and politics of fear by Dan Gardner - e-book - fascinating book about how bad human beings are at assessing relative risk

Books currently in progress . . .

Someone recommended Polly Toynbee's Hard Work to me a while back and I rummaged through my unread books and found I actually already had a copy of it! She left her comfortable life and took a flat in a run down tower block as an experiment to see what it was really like doing low paid jobs or living on benefit. It is interesting reading and she is honest enough to admit that she hadn't realised what it was really like living below the poverty line. Many people may be put off the book because of her political beliefs but I'm finding it illuminating.

Then there's Gross Misconduct: My Year of Excess in the City by Venetia Thompson which - if you can get past the bad language and the childish behaviour of many of her fellow workers - is an eye opener. It makes you realise why there are so many bullying and sex discrimination claims filed against banks and other financial organisations.

As a little light relief there's also Georgette Heyer's Bath Tangle.

Blood Harvest by S J Bolton was excellent - totally absorbing reading.

I have also just finished Echoes of the Goddess by Simon Brighton and Terry Welbourn about Goddess worship in Britain and the monuments which still exist if you know where to look for them. It also touches on witchcraft, Druids, Celtic Christianity, May Day festivals and pagan imagery in churches. I learned quite a lot from it including the apparent origins of the dance of the seven veils - Inanna's visit to the Underworld to visit her sister Erishkagal - she had to take off a garment at each of the seven gates of the underworld.

Currently reading

Trisha Ashley's Chocolate Wishes - escapist women's fiction involving chocolate and very attractive vicar who used to be a rock star and various varieties of witches - both male and female. Everyone needs to escape sometimes.

In contrast I am reading Betty Friedan's The Feminist Mystique - first published in 1963 but still relevant today. Those who advocate women confining their attentions to domesticity and living through their husbands and children need to read this book. It isn't good for anyone's physical or mental health to live their lives through someone else's achievements. If you need pills to adjust to your feminine role in life then there just maybe something wrong with the stereotype of the ideal feminine - especially if a large number of 'housewives' need to take pills to get through the day. One quote I love from this book suggests that most domestic work could probably done by an 8 year old child - and yet people suggest - even now - that this a fulfilling role for an adult woman?

I have also just started Georgette Heyer's Envious Casca - no thoughts on that as yet because I've only read about 20 pages.

Duplicate Death and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Georgette Heyer's Duplicate Death is an excellent fast placed mystery story featuring Chief Inspector Hemingway who features in other books as a Sergeant. A Bridge party leads to strangulation via picture wire of a very unpleasant character - Dan Seaton-Carew. There are many clues and a similar number of red herrings and it is not until a second murder takes place that Hemingway is able to work out what happened.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson is one of those quirky village England stories which I really like. The Major is still trying to come to terms with the death of his wife Nancy when his only brother, Bertie, dies. This strangely enough is the catalyst for him getting to know Mrs Ali - a widow who runs the village shop with her nephew. I've read about a third of it so far and I really like it. The characters are believable and eccentric and the plot intriguing. But this is a novel of character and every day events rather than anything very dramatic.

Poison

Behold, Here's Poison by Georgette Heyer was first published in the 1930s and has stood the test of time extremely well. Gregory Matthews - by all accounts a dislikeable character - is murdered. At first his GP is prepared to sign a death certificate as he had been treating him for a hear condition but the corpse's family - or rather one of his sisters - wants a post mortem. It turns out he was poisoned with nicotine - how it was administered is the biggest part of the mystery with just about all his relatives and acquaintances having means, motive and opportunity.

This is a traditional country house murder mystery of the type which was so popular in the Golden Age of detective fiction. The solution is ingenious and not at all obvious with many red herrings along the way. If you leave out excessive gore - which many modern writers seem unable to do - there has to be excellent plotting and characterisation and these there are in spades in this book. Still worth reading more than 70 years after first publication.

The Unfinished Clue

The Unfinished Clue by Georgette Heyer is one of her mystery titles - as one might expect from the title. Very Golden Age in feel, with its background of a country house party. The corpse is played by Sir Arthur Billington-Smith - an irascible retired army general married to Fay - who is a bit weak and wishy washy. However her tearful and nervy demeanour is quite clearly caused by her husband's constant criticism of her. By the time the murder is committed the reader would happily have done away with him too.

The guests - virtually all suspects - are Fay's sister, Dinah Fawcett, Sir Arthur's son by a former marriage, Geoffrey and his intended bride, Mexican dancer Lola, Sir Arthur's nephew, Francis, the Hallidays - a married couple and Stephen Guest, who is in love with Fay. There are also regular visitors to the house who are potential suspects. The local police force find the crime to be beyond their capabilities and send for Scotland Yard in the person of Inspector John Harding.

What follows is a fascinating mystery with excellent characters and plenty of red herrings. The solution is there when you look back on the story but it is not particularly obvious when you first read it. I enjoyed the relationship between Dinah Fawcett and the man from Scotland Yard which was well done as were the relationships between the various characters. A good light read with virtually no violence on the page.

Georgette Heyer again

I'm gradually working through Georgette Heyer's novels again and have just finished Sylvester - or the Wicked Uncle. I wasn't so impressed by this one when I first read it about 40 years ago but I was probably too young to really appreciate it. This time I found it a really entertaining read with some memorable characters. Sylvester himself - who is complex and eventually willing to look hard at his own faults. Phoebe - the heroine - who lands herself in so many scrapes. Tom - her childhood friend - who is always trying to rescue her from the scrapes often to his own detriment. Then there's 6 year old Edmund - Sylvester's nephew and son of the lovely Lady Ianthe who couldn't keep a secret if she tried. Sir Nugent Fotherby - Lady Ianthe's intended second husband and one of the most notably silly dandies in fiction.

I stayed up much later than usual in order to read the last 100 pages last night - even though I knew the ending and it was well worth it. Great story with interesting characters.

More Georgette Heyer

I am currently re-reading Georgette Heyer's A Civil Contract - which was always one of my favourites. Adam Lynton returns from a successful career in Wellington's army when his father dies. He finds to his horror that his father has left him nothing but debts. His hope of marrying the beautiful Julia Overseley are dashed and he decides - on advice - to look for a bride with a fortune. He finds her in Jenny Chawleigh - daughter of rich businessman Jonathan Chawleigh. Jenny is one of Heyer's most down to earth heroines and she soon finds her metier in bringing Adam's houses back to their original standard.

Full of humour and delightful characters as well as an excellent portrayal of how two people who hardly know each other can make a success of marriage. I love it and I'm finding lots of aspects of the story which did not strike me when I first read it years ago. Jonathan Chawleigh - a glorious comic character - who may be deficient in taste in some respects but who has a heart of gold. Jenny who knows ultimately a man will be happy if he has a comfortable home and good food and is allowed to follow his own interests. Julia - who plays the tragic heroine to perfection. The ebullient Lydia - Adam's sister - who ends up loving Jenny as she would her own sister. A great read - not one of her more romantic novels but in some ways the better for it.

Facebook and books

I have taken a decision to deactivate my Facebook account. I'm really really not interested in the Facebook phenomenon and I can't be bothered to learn about it. Call me a dinosaur if you wish but I'd rather pick and chose which bits of modern technology I use. You could easily spend all day on the social networking sites if you chose and I'm going to limit myself to blogs I think. I have no interest in Twitter either.

I may however start a new blog - when I can think of a name for it - though I shall still be using this one. I've had a blitz on the more personal posts on this blog as well and in future it will be limited to books read, writing and subjects in the news - unless anything major, good or bad, happens in my life. The New Year is, I feel, the time to decide what's important and evaluate how I want to spend my time. A writing project is still under consideration as is an Open University Course as well as various maintenance projects around the house so life is busy - and enjoyable - apart from the usual 'down' feeling I get at this time of year.

Books currently being read: Richard Donkin's The Future of Work; Georgette Heyer's A Civil Contract; Susan Faludi's Backlash. Thoughts on these three in the coming days, I hope.

Powder and Patch

I am currently re-reading Georgette Heyer's Powder and Patch - the shortest of her historical novels because it was first published by Mills and Boon and had to fit into their 50,000 words format. It is perhaps the most light hearted of the novels with witty dialogue and an interesting plot. Set in the 18th century it features a hero - rather than a heroine, as the female lead, Cleone, plays a relatively minor part in the story.

Philip Jettan is a country gentleman - earnest, worthy and just a tad boring. He is persuaded by Cleone and his father, Maurice, to acquire some sophistication and a little town polish. To this end his Uncle Tom takes him to Paris where he is transformed from a country gentleman to a sophisticated man about town whose only interest appears to be in his clothes and the latest scandal. But he is still the same Philip underneath it is only outward appearances which have changed. This is the original feel good read and I'm really enjoying it.

Nice sunny New Year's Day and books

It really is a beautifully sunny day - though quite chilly.

I'm currently reading; Dorothy L Sayers' Have His Carcase; Georgette Heyer's The Convenient Marriage; I've also just started a Teach Yourself Book called How to be Happier by Paul Jenner. Not a book I would have bought myself but as it was free I thought it was worth a look. I've read about 50 pages of it and have come to the conclusion that I am happy most of the time so I'm probably not the best person to review this book. It covers things like negative thoughts; always thinking the outcome of anything will be dreadful; negative emotions; comparing yourself with others - unfavourably. It's interesting and easy to read but I suspect the people who could most benefit from it are unlikely to buy it. I do like the cover though and it makes me smile every time I see it.

Georgette Heyer

I've started reading Pistols for Two - the only book of short stories Georgette Heyer published. I intended to only read the first story but found myself still reading a couple of hours later. I had forgotten how good her writing was - the witty dialogue the believable characters, the historical background. Sort of a 20th century Jane Austen. This is really relaxing reading and just the sort of thing to curl up with on a winter's day with a mug of hot chocolate or a glass of wine. I'm really looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with the rest of her books.