What’s your favorite “cozy” book — and, by that, I’m meaning “curl-up-on-a-cold-day comfort read“? Or, if you don’t have a particular book, what genre do you most feel like reading when the weather starts to turn colder?

For me it’s a ‘curl-up-on-a-rainy-day’ rather than a cold day. As a child on rainy days I used to love sitting inside watching the raindrops running down the window, curled up in front of an open fire with a book to read. Usually it was an Enid Blyton book - Mallory Towers for example, or one of the Heidi books, or What Katy Did. Over the years I read these many times.

These days, on rainy days I like to read a book such as One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes, a nostalgic look at England just after the Second World War. Anything that transports me to another world is good. It may be a book I’ve read and enjoyed before such as Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, which would whisk me off to sunny Italy. It’s nothing like the film they made of it – the book is much better. Or it could be historical fiction such as this one I’ve been looking forward to reading for ages, Helen of Troy by Margaret George.

Monday Musings is hosted by Should Be Reading.

This week’s question is:

What are you currently reading? Would you recommend it to others? Is it part of a series (if so, which one)? What are you thinking about it? What book(s) would you compare it to, if any?

Currently I’m reading A Dark Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine. I think it’s the first one Ruth Rendell wrote under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. I’m still in the opening chapters and working out the relationships between the characters. It’s a psychological crime novel about a family with secrets. The blurb reads:

Brilliantly plotted. Vine is not afraid to walk down the mean streets of the mind and can build up an almost tangile atmosphere of menace and unease. (Daily Telegraph)

It’s not part of a series, although the Vine books are all psychological crime novels and from what I’ve read so far I would certainly recommend it if you like that sort of book.

I’m also reading Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie, featuring Hercule Poirot. I haven’t read this before, although I’ve seen the film with Peter Ustinov as Poirot and the TV version starring David Suchet, so as I’m reading it I’m remembering what happens and can visualise the setting in Egypt on the Nile alongside the Pyramids. I like the way Christie sets up so many possible suspects and then reveals how each one couldn’t be the murderer. I think I remember who did it, and how – but I could be wrong. As I like Agatha Christie I’d recommend any of her books, and this one is a classic.

I have a third book on the go, although at present it’s lagging behind as I’m enjoying the other two books so much. It’s Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett, historical fiction set in Tudor England (Henry VIII) with Thomas More’s family. That’s not to say that I’m not enjoying this book, but it’s quite slow to get going – or rather I’m slow at reading it, because it is quite detailed and not a lot happens at first.

It covers the same period as Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, when Henry VIII wants a divorce from Katherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn, but there is little comparison between these two books apart from that. I suppose I’d compare it to Philippa Gregory’s books. And if you like detailed and well-researched historical fiction, then it is for you.

What do you think of books that receive a lot of hype? (think of the “Twilight” saga, or “Harry Potter”, or “The Da Vinci Code”). Do you read them? Why, or why not?

I suppose I’m a bit contrary, because I tend to shy away from over-hyped books. I like to make up my own mind about the books I read and often don’t read reviews if they’re about books I already intend to read – such as A Thousand Splendid Suns by by Khaled Hosseini.  Books like the Twilight series have absolutely no appeal for me in any case, but I do like other fantasy books and read the first Harry Potter book soon after it came out and all the ones that followed, although I was happy to wait for the paperback versions.

I don’t know if I’d have read The Da Vinci Code when people were either raving about it or reviling it, but as I’d found it before that, I’d read it without being affected by any of the hype that later surrounded it. I found it entertaining and  interesting, but I think I’d have been disappointed by it if I’d read it expecting to find it really controversial – it is just fiction after all.

Books like The Thirteenth Tale were hyped up too and I thought that book was disappointing, similarly I wasn’t overfond of  The Time-Traveller’s Wife. Another book people have written loads about either loving or criticising it is Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. I was intrigued enough to borrow this from the library when I came across it and was glad I did. It’s a book of many parts – some good, some not so good.

Currently there are a few that I’m avoiding reading such as The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie – the titles alone are enough to put me off, never mind the hype. But if I find them in the library in a few years time I may have a look at them.

So, in the main I avoid hyped books, but I can be tempted to read them sometimes.

Where do you keep any books borrowed from friends or the library? Do they live with your own collection, or do you keep them separate? Do you monitor them in anyway.

But I do have a few  borrowed from friends that I’ve yet to read and return.  Some are from one friend who, since I’ve moved house, lives about 300 miles away. She lent them to me ages ago and when I knew I was moving I gave them back. Or rather I tried to, but as I hadn’t read them she said I could keep them, which was lovely – thank you M.

I also have one from my nephew, one from a colleague where I used to work and some from my son. I feel bad that I haven’t read them and returned them yet. I will, though.

I’m always borrowing library books and I keep these separate  from my own books. They’re easy to spot anyway but I usually keep them in a pile either by the bed or in the living room. I don’t monitor them except to check when they’re due back. Maybe I should do the same with books borrowed from other people and set myself a due back date.

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about tidy bookshelves.

Are your bookshelves strictly books only? Or have knick-knacks invaded? Do your shelves also shelve DVDs? Photos? Why not snap a photo – I’m sure we all like to spy on other’s shelves!

My bookshelves are not tidy.

Since we’ve moved house I’ve only unpacked a few boxes of books, so the bookshelves are mainly empty, except for those that have odds and ends dumped on them temporarily. One bookcase is nearly full. This holds unread books:

On the top are a set of three little notebooks, a wooden teddy bear with its hands covering its eyes and a wooden cat peering down over the bookcase. I put these there by chance as I unpacked them, but they are quite representative of my interests – books, bears and cats.  The guitar belongs to my husband.

The top two shelves are double shelved, there is a coffee tin holding coloured pencils on the third shelf and a pile of waymark discs (oops, wonder where they came from?) and on the bottom shelf there are a few odd things – a toy rabbit (this belonged to my sister), a photoframe (this belonged to my mother-in-law) and a pile of Alphapuzzle books (I’m addicted to Alphapuzzles, aka Codewords). Eventually the bottom shelf will just hold books.

The other boxes I’ve unpacked held both fiction and non-fiction and for the time being they’re on the shelves just as they came out of the boxes, in no particular order at all. Other non-book items have found their way onto some of the shelves – CDs, speakers and my mother’s sewing box, etc. In other words it’s all a bit of  lucky dip.

 The remaining boxes of books are spread throughout the house. Some unopened … 

and some opened.

 One day I’ll get organised!