Share a couple or more sentences from the book you’re currently reading. You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
She would never behold Charles, her husband again … he was at Smithfield Market, fretting over the morrow; or Nicholas, her unwary son … he was probably on the Barrier Reef, among the brightly coloured fish; or George, her friend and accomplice, who was waiting beneath a fire escape. And yes, in terms of these grand designs of hers, death had come too soon. It was, as ever, the spoiler.
William Brodrick was an Augustinian friar before leaving the order to become a practising barrister. The Gardens of the Dead is his second novel featuring Father Anselm, the barrister turned monk.
Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about mid-year reading…
Now that we’ve come to the middle of the year, what do you think of your 2009 reading so far? Read anything interesting that you’d like to share? Any outstanding favourites?
I’ve read some very good books this year so far. The list is in the tab labelled Books Read at the top of my blog. There have been just a few that were disappointing but a lot that I thought were excellent including these (in no particular order). Click on the titles to go to my reviews:
But first of all a short video (the first one I’ve put on YouTube):
Thunder and lightning - very, very frightening!
We had the most tremendous thunder storm last night and our lane was like a river in full flow. We’ve never had such a storm before with the whole lane covered by several inches of fast flowing water. The patio in the backgarden was completely flooded, fortunately it didn’t get quite up to the height of the doorway. This morning we found the slabs were lifted and the patio covered in garden debris.
I’ve not done much reading today. The family stayed overnight, arriving just as the water was subsiding. They’ve gone now to visit friends and will be back here later in the week. Meanwhile, they’ve left behind quite a range of books that I could read today, including these -
Pants by Giles Andreae, featuring lots of pants (what would Alan Sugar think?!) - giant frilly pig pants, fairy pants, hairy pants, run away from scary pants! Love it!
I’ve read a short chapter from After the Victorians by A N Wilson, called The Silly Generation - in the 1920s enthralling the world were Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Ronald Coleman, Greta Garbo and Harold Lloyd. Rudolph Valentino, one of the first great stars of the Silver Screen died in 1922; thousands attended his funeral, openly weeping, foreshadowing the 21st century’s adulation of celebrities as witnessed by the deaths of Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana and most recently Michael Jackson.
I first wrote about Barbara Vine’s The Birthday Present a few weeks ago when I’d almost got to the point of giving up reading it. But I decided to read a few more pages and ended up finishing it. It wasn’t too bad even though the plot depended upon too many coincidences and I thought it was rather lifeless.
Ivor Tesham, MP decides to give his married girl friend, Hebe a birthday present, one with a difference. He arranges to have her “kidnapped” and delivered to him bound and gagged. It all goes wrong when the kidnap car crashes and Hebe is killed. Ivor is then consumed by worry that his part in the affair will be exposed, but everything he does only gets him into deeper trouble.
The story is narrated by Robin, Ivor’s brother and by Jane, Hebe’s friend who gives her an alibi when she is out with Ivor. I think the problem for me with this book was that both narrators seemed detached from the events. Jane’s story is told through her diary and she lives in a dream world. She’s lonely and bitter and I was in two minds whether I felt annoyed and amazed at her stupidity or sorry for her low self-esteem. Ivor is amoral and both characters are selfish and self-obssessed. I was exasperated at Robin’s drawn out recital of his brother’s rise and fall, and it was obvious that the fall was coming well before it happened. The book for me could have been shorter and it was all so predictable, which is why, in the end, it was a bit disappointing.
Now that summer is here (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), what is the most “Summery” book you can think of? The one that captures the essence of summer for you?
(I’m not asking for you to list your ideal “beach reading,” you understand, but the book that you can read at any time of year but that evokes “summer.”)
It’s hot here, but not as hot as other parts of the world - but too hot for me anyway. Actually, this morning it’s dull but the forecast is for sun later on. Nothing came to mind when I read this question - no book leaped up to remind me of ”the essence of summer” . Maybe it would be the books I read on holiday, but this question is not about “beach reading”.
Then my husband came up with a perfect answer (why didn’t I think of it?) - Forever Summer by Nigella Lawson. This is a beautiful book full of recipes that you can eat all year round reminding you of summer even in the darker days of winter. I love Nigella’s books as much for her writing as for her recipes:
Summer then, is an idea, a memory, a hopeful projection. Sometimes when it’s grey outside and cold within, we need to conjure up the sun, some light, a lazy feeling of having all the wide-skied time in the world to sit back and eat warmly with friends. I’m not talking about creating some overblown idyll of perpetual Provencal summer, but of extending that purring sense of sunny expansiveness.
In this book are recipes for pasta dishes, salads, Spanish, Italian, Eastern Mediterranean recipes and so on - wonderful desserts, ice creams and summer drinks. Imagine The Ultimate Greek Salad, Red Mullet with Sweet and Sour Shredded Salad, followed by Figs for a Thousand and One Nights, Slut-Red Raspberries in Chardonnay Jelly, Arabian Pancakes with Orange -Flower Syrup, or Margarita Ice Cream!
“Reading Challenges: a help or a hurt? Do you find that the reading challenges keep you organized and goal-oriented? Or, do you find that as you near the end of a challenge that you’ve failed because you fell short of your original goals? As a result of some reading challenges, I’ve picked up books that I would have otherwise never heard of or picked up; that, frankly, I have loved. Have you experienced the same with challenges? If so, which ones? Do you have favorite reading challenges?”
As we pass the halfway point of 2009, how are you doing with your reading challenges? Did you participate in any challenges this year?
I’m always attracted to the reading challenges, full of enthusiasm for reading the books and I joined quite a few last year. But then I found that I wanted to read other books when I “should” be reading the challenge books. Now, bearing in mind that these are all books I want to read I can’t really understand that, except that it’s that imaginary “should” that’s the stumbling block. I’m very much a mood reader!
So, at the beginning of this year I decided to limit myself to just a few reading challenges and I chose What’s In a Name? I took part in that last year and completed it. This has six categories such as read a book with a building in the title, the time of day, the name of a relative etc. I’m doing OK and have read books from two of the categories; as this challenge is for the whole year I reckon I can still easily finish it. They’re all books from my TBR list, which helps.
I can’t say that doing any of the reading challenges has made me pick up and read books I haven’t heard of before, but that’s because I’ve used them to read books I already own or by authors I already know - such as the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge. I’m loving that one - each time I finish one I go to the library and borrow another one. So far I’ve struck lucky, with at least one AC book sitting on the shelf ready for me to read.
There’s a tab at the top of my blog for Reading Challenges where I’ve tried to keep track of them - I need to add the Agatha Christie Challenge to it and update the whole thing!
There’s also Support Your Local Library Reading Challenge 2009 - which is really easy if you read library books. I didn’t have to think twice about taking part - my aim was to read at least 25 library books this year, but as I’ve already read 20 I think I’ll be way beyond that by December.
Share a couple or more sentences from the book you’re currently reading. You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
It was not easy dancing in the graveyard. The dancers tripped over humps and banged into wooden crosses and stone markers, but by now everyone was so merry on the free ale, cider and mead that they roared with laughter each time someone fell over. (page 79)
Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about library borrowing…
Do you restrict yourself on how many books you take out from the library at a time? Do you borrow books if you already have some out? Do you always reborrow books you don’t get to?
I don’t restrict my borrowing - the library does that for me! We’re allowed to borrow up to 15 items, but as my husband doesn’t use up his allocation I can have more using his ticket. But right now I’ve only got 14 books out. I’ve been trying to catch up reading from my own unread books, but the library is so convenient (ten minutes away by car) that I usually visit once a fortnight or so. I don’t wait until I’ve read all the books I have on loan but each time I go I take some books back and usually bring home more than I returned.
What is so good about borrowing books is that I can look at them in more detail that in a bookshop. Sometimes if I really like a book I’ll then buy a copy. If I haven’t read a book before it’s due back, sometimes that’s because I’ve decided not to read it and then I return it. Other times it’s because I haven’t got round to it, so I renew it. I can renew books on-line up to four times, provided no one else has reserved it, after that you have to take the book and have it re-issued. If someone has reserved it you can reserve it again without charge - pretty good really.
Then my husband came up with a perfect answer (why didn’t I think of it?) - Forever Summer by Nigella Lawson. This is a beautiful book full of recipes that you can eat all year round reminding you of summer even in the darker days of winter. I love Nigella’s books as much for her writing as for her recipes:
