Beyond the Roundels

On a Wednesday and only 3 weeks after the last! \o/

What I've Been Reading

I found Amy Snow by Tracy Rees on the Tesco's bookstall, which looked intriguing and easy to read, and the cover was pretty, so I snaffled it. It was easy to read and quite sweet and fun. Victorian foundling Amy Snow's foster sister and sole friend in the world dies, but leaves her a treasure hunt to solve.

My Mum lent me The Librarian by Salley Vickers, which was good, although it could have been more about the actual librarianing, but probably I am the only person who would complain about that. (I see in my reading diary that I gave it two stars which is quite high, as three is the most I run to; only now I am baffled because obviously I liked it a lot more when I had just finished it than I think I did now. I cannot explain myself sometimes.)

I also read Tracing Your Merchant Navy Ancestors by Simon Wills, which was helpful. Not that I can actually do any further tracing of anything of that sort until I can visit an archive again one day, but it's good to know where to go, and the bibliography threw up a couple more possible merchant navy titles to look into.


What I'm Reading Now

Currently I'm just at the end of The Magician's Guild by Trudi Canavan, which has been fairly engaging and readable so far (although - and not that I was bored or anything, because I wasn't - technically we've had nearly 400 pages and very little has actually happened when I stop and think about it). Anyway, I've had this trilogy and some of the next on my TBR pile of hope for ages, so it was very satisfactory just to be able to take it down and read it fairly easily. Take that, brain!

For family history purposes, I am going through Wartime Britain 1939-1945 by Juliet Gardiner, which is very interesting, readable, and useful social history. If you write anything in that period, it seems like a good book to have to fall back on for background detail and info, so far at least.


What I'm Reading Next

Well, The Novice by Trudi Canavan, the next book, but probably first An Echo of Murder by Anne Perry, which I got from the library.

I am all behind with what I've been watching, as well as other things. In the summer, I watched Bill Brand (Thames TV 1976), starring Jack Shepherd in the title role, as a ex-college lecturer and idealistic new Labour MP for an industrial northern borough. It also featured Lynn Farleigh as his wife, Cherie Lunghi as his girlfriend (amusingly, called Alex Ferguson) & Alan Badel.

It was quite a high-profile series at the time and earned Jack Shepherd a BAFTA nomination, but I had very mixed feelings about it. ( Maybe it would have been better without Bill Brand? )


I have also watched two (and a bit) episodes of the psychological horror anthology Shadows of Fear, ( Mixed feelings, but also pretty pics and the Revenge of Isabel Archer on the wrong suitor (but it's easy to make a mistake when everyone's called Ed )


* I am still grudgy at Ed Bishop for pushing her down the stairs in UFO. I am delighted she got her revenge, even if she got confused about which Ed she should be sending down the stairs. These things are perfectly understandable, and they were both mean to her anyway.

What I've Finished Reading

Mostly unexpected things!

A few months ago, my friend (the v kind one who takes me to libraries and hospitals, depending) lent me The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katerina Bivald, which is about a Swedish bookworm who goes to a tiny town in the mid-West US to visit a pen-friend who turns out to be dead. I'd tried looking at it before and just got a headache, but with the weirdness of this illness, I suddenly knew I could read it, and I did. Much too fast. I got a headache again, but for reading it in less than three days instead of looking at the first page. It's really sweet and wish-fulfilling and all about books making a difference, and I can see why my friend lent it to me. (I just need to see her again now so that I can tell her that I have READ it and, yes, I loved it. I may need my own copy, but I'd like one with kinder sized print, though for less-headaches on re-reads.)


Then, in my Magic Free Bookshop, I found a copy of Home by Julie Myerson, a book which I own and have read many times and love but grudgingly (I have mixed feelings), and it was a so much nicer edition than my C-format Hbk-in-disguise-as-a-pbk one that I took it. And then when I looked at it, it had extra bits and letters in the back and I was so ridiculously happy about this and had to re-read the whole thing before I could read the new bits.

Home is basically the book I wish somebody would write about tracing your family tree, except it's about tracing the history of a house and everyone who lived in it. (My mixed feelings are due to: I don't always like the fictionalised segments, and while I get while they're there - the book is also partly about the concept of home on a very personal level - I don't care about the bits where she revisits her old homes). Anyway, it had extra stuff from the people who lived in the house at the back! I am embarrassed by how delighted I am by this. Also, it is a much prettier book and my love for it is immediately a whole lot less grudging than it used to be, because clearly I am shallow like that.


And on Sunday, also possibly by magic, because I don't get post on Sundays, a book dropped through my letterbox. It was Bookworm by Lucy Mangan, and it was my birthday present from my friend G, which I knew immediately as it could be from no one else. (This is very early for G; usually I get my birthday present about six months later. It's not that she's disorganised, it's just that she takes birthdays very seriously and has to get the perfect present and often that takes time!)

Anyway, Bookworm (which had very kind type but which I also read too fast and gave myself a headache) is one of those autobiography-through-books books, but this focuses on childhood and the author is three years older than me and G, and also British, so her experiences correspond very closely to mine (although I took the path that led to Middle Earth and other fantasy novels and she didn't. Diana Wynne Jones is her biggest omission.) It's not uncritical of things that warrant criticism but it's very fondly written, sometimes beautifully, too, on what is so effective about the books she highlights, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. She's pretty good on seeing what's good about the books she didn't take to - her loss, our gain.) It's also a very pretty book in itself, and of course, made me think about where my experience was the same and different. (That was what gave me the headache, really. I start writing imaginary blog posts of all my thoughts; it's exhausting, and then you have absolutely no spoons left to write even coherent sentences on anything of the kind.) It was also the most G-like present possible!


I did also read A Viking in the Family by Keith Gregson, which is a small book of very short family history stories from various people, which was nice to dip in and out of. I think I could have lived with the stories being a little longer in places and the how to all kept to the section at the back, but I enjoyed it anyway.


What I'm Reading Now

On the NF (Family history) side, I am note-taking from Poor Jack by Ronald Hope about Merchant Seamen, which is interesting and accessible (mostly via contemporary accounts), but for my purposes has very little about coastal seaman, and even though it's about Merchant Seamen, it's amazing how often you still find yourself in the Navy.

I am not reading anything else properly at the moment, as I am waiting for the last Sarah Caudwell book to arrive, and it is resolutely not arriving. I'm mildly reading The Wills of Our Ancestors by Stuart A. Raymond, which is actually what you would expect and pretty helpful. (Pen & Sword have a whole series of these kind of books and they mostly are, although some more than others.)


What I'm Reading Next

*stares at the letterbox*

*obstinately ignores piles and piles of books in room*

What I've just finished reading

Tracing Your West Country Ancestors by Kirsty Gray, which was pretty much what you would expect, but useful/interesting enough from my point of view, although I am still eyeing it askance for failing to mention the Monmouth Rebellion even once. (This is not quite as bad as adaptations of Lorna Doone that skip the Battle of Sedgemoor or film it in a hilly Welsh wood*, but I am judging the lack, as you can guess.)

I also read Whip Hand by Dick Francis, which was really interesting because it's both a book in a series by the original author and sort of pro-fanfic for the TV series The Racing Game. This happened because Yorkshire TV turned Odds Against, Dick Francis's first book about Sid Halley, a jockey who injures his hand and turns to being private investigating, into a 6 part series (1 part adaptation, five parts new adventures), but the twist is that Francis really liked it and the star Mike Gwilym and was inspired to write more about Sid - the result being Whip Hand. Having now read the other three books, I was intrigued to read this (which is even dedicated to Mike Gwilym and the producer of the show). It really does try to mesh the TV continuity into the original and he keeps the casting not only for Mike Gwilym as Sid, but clearly for Mick Ford as Chico and James Maxwell as Charles Roland (so you see where I fit into this equation). (I had no idea till I read Odds Against shortly before this that there was any fundamental difference, because of the way that he actually made the two fit as closely as possible retrospectively. The books have an extra injury! I suppose this shouldn't even be surprising...)

Anyway, I liked this one the most, probably not unrelated to its being the most TV-influenced, and also because it had the most Sid & Charles, and they have a really great relationship, which comes to a point here. (Charles is Sid's father-in-law, a retired admiral with a posh house and they initially hated each other, but later became such good friends that their relationship outlived Sid's marriage to Charles's daughter. Sid's narration says things about how Charles is the most important person in the world to him, but of course they never say things like that to each other. But he tells Charles, when he turns up in trouble in this one, that he came home and they both know what they mean. <3<3<3)

(The last one Under Orders isn't as good but it does have a priceless bit where Sid introduces his new fiancee to Charles and then gets jealous because Charles non-seriously flirts with her as Charles is HIS ALONE.)


I also read another Daisy, Sheer Folly, which is a later entry into the series, but an enjoyable one - a unique restored grotto that Daisy is writing an article about gets blown up with somebody inside it. Could it be murder? Of course it could. Alec is annoyed again, because he was coming down to join Daisy for a couple of days off and instead when he arrives he has to dig a body out of an a lot of rubble underground and unofficially assist a murder investigation. It's hard being married to a murder-magnet, although a DCI of Scotland Yard is the best candidate for it, really. (Luckily, she's cute.)


What I'm reading now

I am still reading The Surgeon's Mate, and in my family history note-taking, I have started We Danced All Night: Britain Between the Wars by Martin Pugh, which is proving to be both highly relevant and readable so far.


What I'm reading next

Well, I do have another Daisy out from the library...


* Sedgemoor is situated in the middle of the Wetlands in the Somerset Levels, so you know, there could be a clue as to the landscape in that fact.

What I've Just Finished Reading

Since the start of the year, I have read four Daisy Dalrymple books, which are good fun and easy to read 'cosy' crime books set in the 1920s, exactly what I needed. Daisy writes articles about stately homes for magazines but everywhere she goes, she falls over bodies, much to the annoyance of her love interest/fiance/husband DCI Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard. His superior sends them both out of the country on an extended honeymoon of sorts to try and escape the Daisy-related body pile-up, but naturally people just get pushed overboard on the boat on the way over. Alec is even less impressed than usual at this because he was having a bad enough time contending with seasickness as it was. (Daisy says, though, in her defence, that the first time she ever found a body was the first time she met Alec, and it's not her fault. Nobody else buys this for a minute.)


What I'm Reading Now

I'm still light on brain, so I'm sort of idly reading several things at once (or not reading them) and not going back to the harder things I was already in the middle of. I will report back on which ones I'm actually reading next time when it's clearer which ones will take.

I am, though, going on from research I was doing before Christmas for a Yuletide treat, still reading/skimming through a book on Jasper Tudor by Terry Breverton. It has a lot of useful info in it, but it is terrible! It needs severe editing, much trimming down, and I would say less bias, except the most fun bit is when he's going Up the Welsh and Down with the English! (I may be English but a big enough part of me is Welsh to approve, or at least enjoy it a lot. Quite.) It's a shame it's quite so rambling and random, though, because Jasper Tudor was a very interesting person, being the one major player in the Wars of the Roses who made it from the start to the finish, never changed sides, and who must be in line for the Best Uncle Ever award. (Also, he was Welsh. Do you want to know how Welsh? ;-p) I do appreciate the sketching in of what's known of Owen Tudor's origins and family history in some detail, though.

But, yeah. I'm glad my Margaret Beaufort book by the same publisher (but not the same author) was a good deal shorter and more accessible and to the point, or my Yuletide treat would never have happened.


What I'm Reading Next

I don't know, but a friend is coming to take me to a different library tomorrow (about 10 mins drive away), and I have hopes (having checked the catalogue) of another Daisy book and maybe a couple more Regencies for fluff to carry me through till brain is forthcoming. We shall see!

What I've Finished Reading

I finished up The Castle of Otranto and it continued to be delightfully OTT and ridiculous right to the very last line. I laughed a lot. Especially at the last line. The charm of it is, I think (other than gloomy castles and giant suits of armour and what have you), that it's very hard to tell if the whole thing is some kind of joke, or just bits of it. This seems to have been the question for 250 years, and, indeed, the next book I read, The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve is quite openly The Castle of Otranto, the more rational (and therefore possibly not-truly-Gothic) remix.

As Clara Reeve says in the introduction, certain elements of Otranto, "destroy the work of imagination, and, instead of attention, excite laughter." (Walpole apparently responded that hers was, "So probable, that any trial for murder at the Old Bailey would make a more interesting story." Hmm, wait, a novel featuring a real life murder...? Shame he didn't try it, heh.)

It does indeed tail off into a long, plodding fixit of everything, though. It's rather like a tumblr-recommended fixit version of Otranto where everything is relentlessly put right and all the bad people are punished or grovel and apologise to the good people. I liked the beginning with the locked up haunted wing with the murdered body in it very much, though, mixed with a more recognisable setting. Also its hero Edmund has an amusing tendency to weep over people. (The best bit was at the end where he flung his arms round both his mentors legs at once and they had to stop him and then he still had to hug them and weep over them.)

But, given that it's still only about 130 odd pages and has a haunted East wing, it was readable and fascinating to compare to Otranto. I'm glad the collection had them both.

I also read another Daisy Dalrymple (Dead in the Water), which you could probably tell because fic happened. My friend is coming to see me again this week - I have hopes she might be able to lend me some more, because the only others I've found are quite a few books on from that. (Obviously, I'm looking forward to seeing her with or without books, but with books is always better.)


What I'm Reading Now
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho, which, as promised by aralias, is very light and enjoyable and just my sort of thing. I seem to be okay with it, too. \o/ (The only downside is the inevitable comparison to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which can do it no favours. It's a shame she didn't set it, say, 20 years later or earlier to mitigate that. Although, of course, I'm only 100 pages in; there are no doubt very good Plot Reasons.)

(I'm still note-taking from A Mad Bad and Dangerous People? and technically sort of reading Desolation Island, but have not progressed far with either since last time.)


What I'm Reading Next
Well, if my friend does bring me some more Daisy, there'll be that. And once I've finished Sorcerer to the Crown, I might try the next Gothic novel in the collection, which is Mistrust by Matthew Gregory Lewis (author of The Monk).

But better doing it now than later before I've forgotten everything...

What I've finished reading

I finished several of the things I was reading last time (it was three weeks ago), and also Polly of Primrose Hill by Kathleen O'Farrell. This was a random mid-century girls' story I found on the charity stall in my supermarket. I couldn't resist. It was actually fairly decent for what it was, while also being, well, a mid-century girls' story that's understandably fallen out of sight. Polly is an orphan. She reads a book about a large family with a grouchy grandfather with a beard and decides that what she needs is her very own cross bearded grandfather! (It is original in that much; she doesn't want new parents, because parents are unreliable and abandon you places. Crotchety old men are the way to go!) Luckily for her, she runs into a suitable grumpy and absent-minded old professor and asks him to adopt her on the spot. After refusing, he changes his mind and does, and so she joins his household. Naturally, the housekeeper and her son are secretly stealing things, his sick niece is in fact not sick and there is a secret passage and all ends happily. I read it in an hour and made myself ill, which wasn't the plan, but oh well.

I also found J. Jefferson Farjeon's Mystery in White. I still don't entirely know what to make of his writing, but it was certainly enjoyable with more than its fair share of murder tropes: our heroes are stranded on a snowbound train on Christmas Eve. There is a murder on the train, and they escape to a mysterious abandoned house where another (unconnected) murder has possibly taken place! One of them is an elderly professional ghosthunter who also feels the house is haunted. I feel sorry for the poor clerk, though, who likes fantasizing about adventure (his favourite is rescuing a crashed female aviator, who then falls in love with him) but spends the whole of this one in bed with a temperature. Life, and murder mysteries, are just unfair sometimes. Maybe one day a female aviator will crash in his vicinity and he can save her!

And I even managed to pick up HMS Surprise again, and have finished it! \o/ The sloth was debauched, yes. Also it all wound up with a tortoise.

The Winter Garden Mystery by Carola Dunn, which was a very cosy modern-but-set-in-the-1920s murder mystery. Someone recommended the Daisy Dalrymple books to me, and my friend just lent me this one, and it was fairly easy going, even for me, and I enjoyed it quite a lot. I eye the long list of sequels warily, though, because I can't help but feel keeping it going must spoil the fun inevitably, but I'll look out for the next few.

(I have only one criticism, which is that the author is much too keen on phonetic dialogue, to a quite ridiculous level at times. I mean, I know universal country bumpkinese is to be expected, ditto your Common Cockney, but rendering "chauffeur" as "showfer" is baffling and pointless, plus a hundred thousand down points for phonetic Welsh accents with all the 'v's written as 'f'. WHY. WHY. /o\ Luckily, these were kept to a minimum, or Daisy would have found herself hurled at the wall, despite her escapist charms.) I enjoyed it a lot otherwise, but how many more I read will definitely depend on how bad the phonetic dialogue gets!


What I'm Reading Now

The Mauritius Command, following on from HMS Surprise, which I have just started. I'm also taking (family history) notes from Anne Laurence Women in England 1500-1760, because it seemed like a sensible one to follow the general social history for the same period I was reading before.


What I'm Reading Next

Who knows? Something off the TBR pile, hopefully! Oh, and my friend also lent me the first of Robin Paige's Victorian Mysteries, so I suppose that should also get read sooner rather than later.

What I've Just finished Reading

Frances Brody's Dying in the Wool, the first of the Kate Shackleton mysteries. I did like this, but the title, cover and first person narration promise a lighter tone than is actually the case - they seem quite serious so far. Kate Shackleton is another ex-VAD detective, and they're set in Yorkshire, which is a nice bonus, and seem pretty well-researched. (In the case of the first one, I'd say maybe too well-researched or too inclined to share it here and there, but it's better than the more common alternative.)

I also finished note-taking from Maureen Waller's The English Marriage, which was very readable, with plenty of examples and quotes from letters, diaries and court cases from the middle ages to the twentieth century, mostly of terrible marriages (but not always).

I think maybe one highlight is the super-sarcastic sentence of a 1845 Judge (Mr Justice Maule) on a labourer convicted of bigamy:( Cut for lengthy sarcastic summing up )

And then I also went back through The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant by Pamela Horn and now I have notes from it, too. Not magically, but not too painfully either.

I also finished reading Alison Light's Common People, her history of her very 'ordinary' family. It was very interesting. I think the best bit was the Road to Netherne section, following a maternal line (which had a narrower, more distinct focus) but it was very good overall.


What I'm Reading Now

Still not really read much more of HMS Surprise. I tried the other night, but they went on about eating rats, the same day as next door's rats came back, and I was also stressed so I had my Doomwatch-inspired evil rats nightmare and when I woke I knew there actually were rats nearby (even if not irrationally terrifying dream rats; it doesn't help at 4am). I am now eyeing it warily, and instead reading:

A Medal for Murder, the second Kate Shackleton mystery. It is still not light, but it is interesting. (The misleading covers and titles are very misleading! I am not able to shake them off and accept its seriousness yet. I will persevere, because they are otherwise good and it's not Frances Brody's fault if the publishers set about misleading people. Mind, I think I resent the flashbacks. It's a detective story, I'm supposed to have it unravel courtesy of the detective; don't give me flashbacks!)

For note-taking, I have now returned to Jerry White's London in the 19th Century: A Human Awful Wonder of God, which I was forced to abandon six years ago due to illness. I triumph at last! Also, it's very readable and interesting as well as useful. (I have the 20th C and 18th C ones, too, which I am now looking forward to as well, at some point.)


What I'm Reading Next

Who knows? Possibly the collection of Gothic novels I picked up in the free bookshop. Otherwise, I have mostly just started things, so it's a bit early to say.

What I've Just Finished Reading

I finished Post-Captain by Patrick O'Brian, so I'm now committed to the series! I'm continuing to enjoy them, and this one was probably less technical than the first, or I'm getting to be less of a landlubber. Highlights being the bear escape mentioned last time and when Stephen decided a hive of bees are a perfectly reasonable thing to keep on board a ship. (It's very satisfying to have made a small dent in my TBR pile as well, because I was rather beginning to think I would never read anything new again that wasn't a regency romance.)

Before I finished that, however, I found another Regency romance in a charity shop (well, actually I found two, but the other was the usual, complete with someone called Carolyn) - from 1972!

I complain all the time about the modern ones not being like Heyer, now let me be nothing if not inconsistent and complain about Clare Darcy's Cecily for being too much like Heyer! The blatant copying left me open-mouthed. Her plot is her own, but all the Heyer ingredients and descriptions are present and correct... and, alas, have nothing of the engaging liveliness of Heyer. I'm not surprised Heyer used to get angry about this sort of thing. Clare Darcy was only lucky that Ms Heyer was probably dead by the time this book crossed the ocean.

It was an interesting read, though, and would have been better had the hero and the heroine actually had more time together on the page. Probably. Actually, it would have been better if it had just focused on the heroine's aunt and the hero's mother and their disapproving alliance, because that bit was her own, and a little more enjoyable than the rest. Everyone else should just go home for being pale copies of Heyer characters. Charity Girl was published the same year, and even though that is not my favourite Heyer, it still has a lot more going for it than a copy of the real thing.


What I'm reading now

I am just a few pages into HMS Surprise. There has not been a bear so far, sadly.

I'm still reading and taking notes from Jenny Uglow's In These Times, which continues to be an excellent social history of Britain in the Napoleonic War era. (There are no people called Carolyn in it. So far.)


What I'm Reading Next

I still haven't read that Daisy Dalrymple mystery, because I found two Regency romances for my light-reading needs instead, so that needs to get read so it can go back to the library.

I don't know what else will be next, or if I'll even get to Daisy, but I did find the first of Frances Brody's series of Kate Shackleton mysteries in a charity shop, hurrah, so that'll probably get read sometime soon, because I do need to get to the one I found first with the tantalising title of Death of an Avid Reader.

My parents are up visiting, so bear with me if I'm more erratic at commenting than usual - my socialising spoons are going elsewhere! But I thought I'd still do this today.

What I've Finished Reading

I got through my batch of library regencies (and didn't find any John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson at my other library alas, nor did I find the earlier books in an interesting looking detective series I picked up a later installment of in a charity shop. I may just have to read out of order, dammit).


What I'm Reading Now

I'm still note-taking from In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon's Wars 1793-1815 by Jenny Uglow, and as I'm now on p152, I can say that it's both useful and highly readable. (Not dry, despite its 640 pages, or at least I don't think so. It's just got plenty to talk about.)

Perdita by Paula Byrne, a life of Mary Robinson, which I picked up off my shelf when I was trying to see if I had any information about Gainsborough for my Scaroth story and got distracted into reading it. Mary Robinson was a late 18th C actress, mistress of the future George IV, and later one of the most popular Gothic novelists of her day. It's therefore pretty interesting so far, as you can imagine.

I'm sort of reading some other things, but not sure how they're going as yet. (Reading spoons are still variable.)


What I'm Reading Next

I think it'll take me a while to get through the above two and the redacted reading, but I may go to the library again in search of some more lighter material, because, as I said, reading spoons are still variable!

Or I may get distracted by something hanging about on a bookshelf; it happens a lot.

(Because let's do this thing. :-D)

What I've Just Finished Reading

Nothing, actually. Since last time, I finished The Return of Sherlock Holmes, read two more Regency Romances made of pure fluff, and meanwhile carried on reading and taking notes from Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England (which I haven't yet finished but continues to be very good).


What I'm Reading Now

Currently, a book randomly picked up in a charity shop, Mrs Jeffries on the Trail by Emily Brightwell, which is basically crime fluff rather than Romance fluff - one of a long series* about a Victorian housekeeper who solves crimes for her Inspector employer. Well, actually the whole household solves the mysteries, and she just co-ordinates them and tactfully hints about their finds to the Inspector. I'm not sure when they get the housework done. So far, all I can say is that it's certainly easy reading, which is what I wanted.


What I'm Reading Next

Ah, the part of the meme where I'm supposed to predict the future. Well, meme, it'll either be something off my to-read pile, or something random that I picked up somewhere else, or a safe re-read, I can tell you that much. *nods*

And when I've finished the current NF read, I'll probably start on The Book of Barnstaple, which is a bit more specific than general, but of use to me.


* Going by the list of about 100 others in the front, anyway. Mrs Jeffries keeps busy.

(I'm still not doing anything for fandom_stocking. Luckily it should open soon and then I can relax and do something else! I forget, of course, that 'better' when you've been bad is a relative term.

Also I seem to have given the impression to everyone that Manhunt is rubbish and it really isn't; it was just a bit up and down and sexist to begin with & I get very little out of protracted 'action' sequences. It's now reached an impressively consistent high standard. Vincent, Nina, and Jimmy, though, remain the most rubbish. Strangely, everyone was a lot more interested in watching it despite this, much more so than anybody is when I tell them old TV is good. Reverse psychology??)

Anyway, look at me, this makes it twice in a year (not calendar year) at least this time. I probably won't read enough to make it every Wednesday, but hopefully more often. I am optimistic!

What I've Just Finished Reading

And So To Murder by Carter Dickson, which I finished up quite quickly after I posted the other day. It was good fun and I enjoyed it. I still don't know whether to praise the BBC for giving me lovely mental casting (the three characters who were the most fun were played by Suzanne Neve, William Russell, and Stephanie Bidmead) or curse them for burninating it, but it did add to the book, so I suppose I'd better at least be a tiny bit grateful.

As I said, Monica Stanton (aka Suzanne Neve) is a vicar's daughter who writes a steamy Romance novel in 1939; her aunt, distressed, wonders why she couldn't write a nice detective novel, like those by Bill Cartwright (Wm Russell):

Now Monica Stanton, to begin with, had no real grievance against that inoffensive form of entertainment known as the detective-story. She neither liked nor disliked it. She had read a few, which struck her as being rather far-fetched and slightly silly, although doubtless tolerable enough if you liked that sort of thing. But, by the time her aunt had finished, Monica was in such a state that she had come to curse the day Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born. It was a wordless, mindless passion of hatred. As for Mr William Cartwright... Monica felt that she would like to poison Mr Cartwright with curare, and dance on his grave.

( Read more... )

Before Christmas, I can now say that I was for obvious reasons, re-reading a lot of Miss Marple as well as reading Dracula for the first time (my reactions are in my Yuletide reveals post).

I also finished Venetia by Georgette Heyer, a re-read, although it was one of the books I rashly gave away a while ago, so it had been a long time. Very enjoyable, of course, and I am very happy to have a copy again. It is very sad that after a year of reading Regency Romances, I still haven't found anyone even a tiny bit like Georgette Heyer. I wish there would be, somewhere, in some period or other.


What I'm Reading Now

I'm a bit between things, but I continue with the very excellent The Victorian City by Judith Flanders in NF. (I am even taking notes for family history, which is a very exciting development as of the last few weeks and months. It's taken a bit of patient building up, but I'm able to do it a little again.)


What I'm Reading Next

That is the question. I was looking at my TBR (when spoons) pile and seeing whether any of them clicked easily, but I haven't decided which one to try next or whether just to re-read something to build up a little more stress-free stamina first before I risk reading a new-to-me book that might get killed by CFS. (I'd rather wait and be fair in my first reading). We shall see!