MARCH 2024 READING ROUNDUP

Miss Benson’s Beetle – Rachel Joyce. A Re-Read. Hardcover. What a marvelous story. How the unloved and unlovable Miss Benson goes in search of the fabled gold flower beetle of New Caledonia,  hampered by her assistant, the exuberant Enid Pretty. Their lives are transformed during their search,  which becomes a struggle for survival. The story was as fresh and satisfying as the first time around.   Highly recommended.

All the following titles are e-books.

How to be the Best Damn Faery Godmother in the World (or Die Trying ) – Helen Harper. Which has got to be one of the longest sub-titles in publishing history.  I read the entire series: Wishful Thinking,  Wish List, As you Wish, and Best Wishes.  Contemporary grown-up  Fantasy: office politics, faery godmothers being abducted, who is behind the crimes? Plus human interest stories en route. Well written too; a refreshing change. Enjoyable.

A Collision of Calamities . Book #7 in the Gobbelino London series by Kim M Watt. An Action packed finale to the series; Good triumphs over Evil but only after a cataclysmic battle, that really is Armageddon.  Kim Watt manages to include  all the major characters from the preceding 6 books in the grand finale. My favourite characters are the fearsome sorcerer, Ms Jones, wearing Doc Martens and riding a motorcycle, not to be trifled with. And, of course,  Gobbelino, the talking cat . For fans of grown-up*, paranormal, urban  Fantasy, I can confidently recommend this  5* series. I loved it.

The Thin Woman – Dorothy Cannell.   A Rom-Com mystery.  Ellie, overweight and unhappy, hires Ben to pretend to be her boyfriend for a family reunion. After a slow start we finally get a feel-good ending. Engaging characters. A light read.

*grown-up – I hesitate to use the word adult-fantasy-fiction, because these days, the word ‘adult’ generally indicates a sex-fest on every page, which is not the case here. Hence my use of the term grown-up.

MY 2023 READING YEAR

Most unusually  I have not been stumbling through the never-ending forests of the Back Lists.

This year I have been on the limitless  steppes of  Kindle-land, catching e-books on my Kindle Fire, close to launch day.

My rudimentary stats reveal that I’ve read around 100 books in 2023, the majority  being  e-books. It needs to be said that most e-books are relatively short –  sometimes novella length, which can be read in a day.

I’ve all but abandoned hard cover books due to the teeny-tiny print. I’ve tried a couple of Large Print books from the Library, which were readable from the vision point of view,  but alas! the Public Library stock is tiny, and the selection limited. So: back to Kindle-land.

For the first time, I’ve read a number of series this year. Between the indefatigable Joffe Books who appear to have an infinite stock of (mainly) British Whodunnits,  and Kindle who offer a vast choice  of cozy crime, romance and paranormal offerings,  I have succumbed.  With varying degrees of success. The three most enjoyable series I read this year were:

Kim M Watt – Gobbelino London: cozy paranormal mystery. Any book offering talking cats has me from page 1.

Ellery Addams – the Miracle Spring Series – female friendship, Bibliotherapy  and feel-good endings.

Carmen Reid – Annie Valentine, Family, Fashion,  Frocks and Fun. A real tonic!

Whilst not falling into the Series category, I found good, light reads in the Indian Diaspora Category, notably books by Amulya Malladi, Sonali Dev, Namrata Patel among others. Some of the novels were set in India, other in the USA. I’ve always enjoyed Indian novels, and  the genre appears increasingly in the e-book world but  in lighter mode,  as opposed to  the heavyweights like Rohinton Mistry and Amitav Ghosh from earlier years.

In past years I’ve followed the Booker Prize. This year, not so much.  Any on-line Booker novel is one hell of a price, so out of my reach. But after my last Booker defeat with Olga Tokarczuk, (The Books of Jacob: all that mud! all that religion!) I think I may be done with  Booker novels.

For what its worth, here are my annual nominations:

BEST READ OF THE YEAR – When I’m Gone, Look for me in the East – Quan Barry.

                                     Highly Original Buddhist themed novel set in Mongolia

4 FIRST RATE NOVELS –           The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty  – Vendela Vida – unpredictable – contemporary

The Perfect Golden Circle – Benjamin Myers – British contemporary – quirky, original

                                                Eyrie – Tim Winton – Australian contemporary – visceral

West with Giraffes – Lynda Rutledge  -American road trip with ecological message                                                                                     

BEST BIOGRAPHY       Terry Pratchett: A life with Footnotes – Rob Wilkins

BEST HUMOUR           Mr Monk is Miserable –  Lee Goldberg. The agonies of a germophobe confronted with Paris. Laugh out loud read (e-bk)

An honourable mention: Simon Brett’s Mrs Pargeter series – tongue in cheek British humour (e-bks)

BEST MEMOIR            Kept: An American Househusband in India – Gregory E Buford. Good humoured account of culture clash (e-bk)

So there we have it, I wonder what your top reads were ?

Finally:   A special thanks  to Book Jotter, who continues to  provide an invaluable  comprehensive weekly review over the bookish world.

NOVEMBER 2023 READING ROUNDUP

I finally read a paperback whodunnit from my TBR shelf: Vaseem Khan’s delightful Baby Ganesh Detective Agency and Bad Day at the Vulture Club. The delightful aspects were Ganesh, the baby elephant, the  morally upright Inspector Chopra retired from the Mumbai Police Force, the Indian setting; not so delightful was the crime  setting in the Parsee Tower of Silence and the vultures. But I’m a fan of Indian novels, and  Khan’s series in particular, so I bravely read on. A great read.

Remainder of my reads were all e-books.

A short Japanese novella, Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukagawa was another notable November read. What intrigued me was not the theme of what-is-the-meaning-of-life, but the background setting about the treatment of leprosy in Japan, which I found shocking. A quiet, poignant novel, very Japanese  in tone and story treatment. Very different.

And then, in much lighter vein, the wonderful, fantastical world of Kim M Watt’s  two PIs: Gobbelino, the snarky talking cat and his human partner, Callum plunged into umpteen dangerous chases, brawls and escapades (Kim W writes exciting  action sequences ). Mysteries, crimes, and a cast of fantastical creatures – a family of gentrified trolls, angry blue imps attacking like mozzies, the fearsome wizard Ms Jones, she of the Doc Maarten boots, a donkey ruminating on existentialism … to mention but a few of the glorious characters. Love the series, can’t wait to read more .

And finally, good old Sherlock Holmes – see further down under Re-Reads.  I enjoyed the solving of the crimes via Holmes extraordinary powers of deduction, but oh! all that Victorian melodrama as the background setting.  Conan Doyle’s version of women as frail, pale creatures given to frequent fainting when life’s little problems popped up …. that jarred.

FICTION

Bad Day at the Vulture Club – Vaseem Khan – see intro

Sweet Bean Paste – Durian Sukagawa, trans. Alice Watt  –  see intro

The House – Teresa Waugh. Post WWII Britain, gracious old houses & aristocrat owners struggle to survive the new world. Very Downton Abbey read, but enjoyable.

Cremains – Rob Johnson . Keystone Cop type criminals  v.s. Amateur ‘Tec Bunglers in the UK.  Meh .

Gobbelino London and a Scourge of Pleasantries – Kim M Watt – A splendid adventure, featuring a powerful female magician in search of her purloined grimoire. Chaos ensues.

Gobbelino London and a Complication of Unicorns – Kim M Watt – Not as pink & pretty as you might imagine. An introduction to mind-boggling reformed, gentrified trolls. Hilarious!

Gobbelino London and a Contagion of Zombies – Kim M Watt – scary! And unputdownable.

RE-READING

A Study in Scarlet – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  – see intro

The Sign of the Four – – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – see intro

NON FICTION

Kept: An American Househusband in India – Gregory E Buford. A culture clash of note,   but good natured throughout. Enjoyable

Don’t Go There: From Chernobyl to North Korea – Adam Fletcher. Title says it all: DON’T GO THERE.  Short travel pieces from a Brit who should know better. A salutary read.

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