Murder for Christmas (Vintage Murder Mystery) by Francis Duncan

 

I really rather enjoyed this Christie-esque mystery with its oddball cast of characters, and a rather intriguing amateur detective, Mordecai Tremaine

 

The detective is appealing in a slightly eccentric Poirot way.

 

This Christmas themed crime novel from the late 40s is well-plotted, atmospheric and entertaining - just the kind of cosy crime novel you might want to read at Christmas in fact (as I did!)

Walking Backwards to Christmas: An Advent journey from light to darkness by Stephen Cottrell

           

The story is told with each chapter depicting a different perspective from the people involved, from the shepherds to King Herod to Mary, and several others.

It is a wonderfully engaging and unique re-telling of the Christmas story. It begins when Mary and Joseph are presenting baby Jesus if the temple and goes back to the prophesies of Isaiah and Moses. It's an interesting way of telling the story, but what is so great about it is the writing and the characters. 


I really enjoyed this. 

With the Larks: Starting Again in Cornwall by Tessa Hainsworth

     

Story of how posh well-to-do woman with good connections transplants her out of work actor hubby and two children to live in nice house in Cornwall and becomes a post woman

Autobiography telling the story on starting over in the country, the ups and downs of country life.

 

I enjoyed the escapism to Cornwall.

 

However whilst the descriptions were good, the plot was just a bit weak. ...still I enjoyed it enough to want to finish it.

Creating learning without limits by Mandy Swann

“I create the conditions and they do the learning.” 

This book reports on a school that challenged the thinking of fixed ability and grouping children by their ability. 
It focused on giving children a role in devleoping their learning by suggesting how they could learn, what they wanted to learn and how much support they would need to get there.
It reiterated how important it is to give children ownership of their work and to work for a purpose.

This book is very readable and not heavy on the theory. It left me wanting to go and watch the process in action.

Slade House by David Mitchell

This is a sort of prequel/set along side the Bone Clocks,

David Mitchell does his usual thing of writing a few short stories, and linking them together. 
It is a querky ghost story.
It is short.

I didn't enjoy it as much as the Bone Clocks - maybe because the idea was no longer novel.
The first couple of chapters were good but by the end you knew what to expect.

The Tea Planter's Wife by Dinah Jefferies

I really enjoyed this easy read set in 1920s Ceylon.

I loved the beautiful exotic setting .
It has  enough  mystery to keep you going, with secrets that get revealed little by little.

There were some stereotyped character and unconvincing dialogue.  

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

I loved this book about the  transformations we go through in life and how different events within our life affect, shape us, and make us who we are today.

I expected it to be an easy read and there were many laugh out loud moments but  I did spend some time crying over parts of it.

I did imagine Ove as a man in his eighties and yet the character is only 59 which just threw me all the way throughout the story . 

Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike Book 3) by Robert Galbraith

The story starts with Robin Ellacott  receiving a package containing a woman's severed leg.  This alarms 
Cormoran Strike, who can think of four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible.

I enjoyed reading about Robin and Strike's personal lives.
The killer came across as  creepy, realistic, sadistic.


I didn't like the chapters written from the point of the view of the killer which didn't happen in earlier books

The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker, Sam Taylor

This book was a who-done-it, providing red herrings, changing accounts from many different people, a poignant friendship and an illicit love. 

I liked the passages about writers , writing and publishing.
I liked the portrayal of the feel of small town in New England, its people and the fierceness of protecting their own. 
I am not sure I would class it as a thriller - as at now point was a in anyway mildly scared!
It was long book and in parts felt slow.

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

This tells the story of Griffin, a scientist who creates a serum to render himself invisible, and his descent into madness that follows.

The book is pretty slim and Griffin spends most of it bullying people!
I didn't really enjoy the story - I found the characters uninteresting. 
The plot lacked any real tension.
Griffin himself didn't inspire fear, loathing or even pity. 
There was lot of effort trying to explain what it would be like to have an invisible man in our midst but this left the plot underdeveloped.  

However, it makes you ask the questions what if we gain what we always wanted , what does think the world of an outsider? what are the consequences of what we do?

The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson

I had tears rolling down my cheeks as I read this.  This is the follow up to Notes from a Small Island which I haven't read but is on my must read books!

I loved the  facts and observations; his brilliant capacity for analysis; and the descriptions of Britain's  quaintness.
There is a good mixture of humour, facts and concern about the green belt and Heathrow's third runway! 

However, there are some places he is cutting about - Dover for instance!  And he does come across as a grumpy old man!  

The Betrayal of Trust: Simon Serrailler Book 6 by Susan Hill

So far I think this is the weakest book I have read of the Simon Serrallier series.   It is much ploddier than the others and more predicable.  In places I found it confusing and the characters felt less likable.  

The Grand Reopening Of Dandelion Cafe (Cherry Pie Island, Book 1) by Jenny Oliver

This was cheap 99p kindle amazon offer, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bought it.

 A feel-good, fun, flirty book, perfect for combating vampires. It was very quick to read.
I loved the descriptions of food and the fact it had rowing in it.

'Salem's Lot by Stephen King

I don't think I would have picked this vampire novel if we weren't reading it for our book club.

Stephen King is excellent at building suspense and developing a sense of foreboding.
I liked the way the novel dealt with the mystery of the town more than the creepiness of the vampires. 

However overall story was a little slow at parts and I wasn't as carried away by the narrative or the characters as I would have liked. And it felt a little long!

Murder on the Orient Express (Poirot) (Hercule Poirot Series Book 10) by Agatha Christie

    

An Agatha Christie - what is not to love!

Tremarnock: The Lives, Loves and Secrets of a Cornish Village by Emma Burstall

A 59p deal from Kindle - an easy read.  Quite enjoyable, no thinking needed! 

The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota

 

This is the story of the difficult lives of four Indian immigrants in Sheffield.

At times is a stressful book to read, but relevant and necessary story. Everything about the book is depressing - the characters, their desperation, the futility of their dreams and the shocking realities they find themselves in, in land they're not fully familiar with.

There is however too much description and mundane background details.

I couldn't really get into the stories of any of the main characters to any great depth and struggled care about their hardships the way I did in A Little Life.    

The Chimes by Anna Smaill

 

 I often seem to enjoy books that have a slightly science-fiction feel, where the author has imagined a whole different world. Here The Chimes is set in a reimagined London, in a world where people cannot form new memories, and the written word has been forbidden and destroyed.  In the absence of both memory and writing is music.

It was sometimes hard to follow as the author used various musical terms. 

Some issues were definitely left unresolved.

The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma

 

The story is narrated by Ben, both as a 10-year old child and an adult man looking back. Ben is the 4th son of a tightly knit Nigerian family that begins to unravel when the disciplinarian father takes a job at the Nigerian Central Bank in another city.  The story is presented as a fable, with nearly each chapter named after an animal and beginning with who that animal represents. 

I didn't enjoy the first half of the book which is heavily involved in the setting, but the second half is moving and memorable.  

Sleeping on Jupiter by Anuradha Roy

 

 This story provides a fascinating mix of characters (a young woman with a tragic past, a photographer with a violent streak, three women with winter in their hair and a pilgrimage long time coming, a tour guide coming to terms with his homosexuality when he finds himself attracted to a boy working in tea stall, and the owner of tea stall who sings songs about melancholic earth and bright paddy field) with a main narrative that covers a few days when their lives intersect, set in India. However, the excellent gripping start slows down in the middle and I struggled to finish it.

Did You Ever Have a Familyby Bill Clegg

I really enjoyed this book where the chapters are told from the point of view of different people and over the course of the book you piece together why things happened the way they did,  Each character her their own guilt and misconception,due to one moment of miscalculation or misdirection.
It is fast-paced and easy to read.
The characters are so well written you feel like you know them personally.
It is a depressing story.

Satin Island by Tom McCarthy

I loved the odd book which is a story told from the point of view of a corporate anthropologist working for a large consultancy firm which has just won a large government contract. 

I like the way book meanders along but never seems to go anywhere (which is how the main character feels).
It is a series of seemingly unrelated anecdotes -- interesting historical facts, observations of people , random musings about things.
It is quite dark.
I like the sub-chapters - makes you feel like you are reading an actual academic report.  

The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami

This is a story of \ disastrous attempt at conquest by the Spanish retold from the point of view of a Moroccan slave. It is based on a true  expedition (known as the Narvaez) which happened in 1527 – 1536.  Four survivors (out of 600) were reunited and among the survivors was a Moroccan slave known in the accounts by his enslaved name Esteban or Estebanico (whose is the fictional voice we read).

 The writing is well imagined - the brutality on both sides is evenly recited; the flora and fauna are beautifully described.
 it's well-paced.
The historical details are fascinating.


A few of the characters felt a bit flat.
At times you know it is woman writing as a man.
A couple of  the historical details are inaccurate.  

The Green Road by Anne Enright

 

Spanning thirty years and three continents, The Green Road tells the story of Rosaleen, the matriarch of the Madigan family, and her four children, two boys and two girls.   The story then follows the family throughout three decades.

Good points:
Anne Enright knows how to get inside her characters.
Some beautifully written phrases.

Bad points:
It is  similar to "A Spool of Blue Thread" in that here is a lot of whining, although the reason behind it is unclear.  
The first half was a chapter book. Each chapter about a different person in the family. The second half they come together and you see the workings of the family and that's it. Nothing. No ending no point.  

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

 

An absorbing, brutal novel about Jamaican Drug Gangs and Bob Marley's murder.  I hated it at the start but by the end I thought what an amazing book!

It's a really fascinating story, well-researched and well-conceived by the Jamaican author Marlon James. It combines politics, gang violence, drug wars, journalism, and the CIA.


There's lots of obscene language, much of it in Jamaican patois which is quite interesting to read.
It is quite a challenging book to read because it spans several timelines and locations, and a large and varying cast of characters.
Each chapter is told from the point of view of a different characters which at times I found confusing.Marlon James does helpfully provide the reader with a list of characters at the start, but because I was reading it on my kindle it was hard to refer to. 

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

 

This story is about the rivalries and tensions of families everywhere – the essential nature of family life.

Good points:
I like how the story unfolded like a spool of thread - it just unwound and unwound
You feel like you are part of the family.
Anne Tyler brings her characters to life through the smallest of details - I like how they are quirky, eccentric - realistic

Bad points:
I was waiting for a climax, but it never came.

   The chapters about Red's parents seemed like filler.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

 

This is an amazing book, essentially a character study of the effects of childhood sexual and psychological abuse, which tells the story of decades long friendships of four men who meet in college.

It contains beautifully written prose making you feel you a living a version of the main character's life.

The topics covered makes it a hard book to read.

I loved how parts of the story where told from different perspectives. 

The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna van Praag

This is the story of a magical place to escape to when real life gets to be a bit too much set in Cambridge. I didn’t LOVE it, but I enjoyed it.

Good points: 

The story was whimsical and fun.
I enjoyed the references to the literary greats in the book as well as other famous women in history and I want to go and read some of the other novels referenced in the book such as Rebecca. Middlemarch and A Room with a view.

Bad points:

Plot development was rather slow.

The narrative was sometimes confusing by the constant changing point of view.

It was predictable - unfortunately too cheesy and perfect.

Miss Garnet's Angel by Salley Vickers

      

A gentle story of Julia Garnet, a retired teacher, and her transformation in old age when she moves to Venice for six months following the death of her life-long friend.

Good points

I liked the interlinking story of Tobias and the Angel.

A story with many layers.  

Middle-aged single women may recognise bits of themselves in the main character 

Bad points:

Often characters serving the plot popped up rather too conveniently. 

I found some of the characters in the novel slightly unconvincing - the twins restoring the church and the older would be lover fancying the younger pupil 

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer

The story is an account of trauma, grief, and a realistic glimpse mental illness. 

Good points:
I liked how the story keeps jumping around in time - similar to how I remember things.
Filer uses his own experience as a mental health nurse to inform the novel and the passages set in the treatment centre were convincing but makes it realise it must be quite grim 

Bad points:
Whilst I did enjoy it I didn't find it deeply moving or compelling.

After Dark by Wilkie Collins

    

This is a collection ofsix short stories mystery, suspense and romance revolving around a portrait artist who must temporarily stop his work to rest his damaged eyes.
 I like the descriptions of atmosphere and personality.
But I didn't find all six of the short stories equally compelling and some of them were rather slow

 

A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie

 

Within its 300 pages, a story unfolds that covers the travels of the fifth-century BCE explorer Scylax, working on behalf of the Persian king Darius I; an attempt by early 20th-century archaeologists to recover the circlet worn by Scylax; the outbreak of the first world war; the experiences of Indian Army troops on the western front and later as injured servicemen in Brighton hospitals; the rise of the non-violent independence movement in Peshawar and the bloody killing of non-violent protesters by the British Army in 1930, in Peshawar
  
Good points:
A great deal of armchair travelling, which I absolutely loved
Beautiful description of places

Negative points:
Ploddy and lacking in real plot
Almost tries to do do much I would have liked more detail about the horror of the trenches, life as a nurse etc.  
I never felt emotionally drawn to the characters

Dorothea's War: The Diaries of a First World War Nurse by Dorothea Crewdson, Richard Crewdson

  

In this book there is no action, no romance, no scandal - just everyday feelings of being part of the war through the initial hopes and then the despair of the great campaigns. In some ways, it is quite dull as there is no
surgical operations and the real horror of war as she remained mostly on the periphery in her role as a volunteer.

It is quite interesting reading about the entertainment enjoyed by staff and patients, the feel for the coastal town and the surrounding countryside and the culture of the day--such as chaperones accompanying the women.

I also really enjoyed post war when she visited the trenches.

  

Seiobo There Below by Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Ottilie Mulzet

This book won the Man booker International Prize this year.  It's an interesting, challenging and unusual book, of interlocking short stories about art, beauty and the sacred; such as a heron stands perched above a stream, waiting in perfect tension to catch its prey; monks pray to a statue of the Buddha, knowing every detail of its tarnished face but yearning to recognize and be enveloped by the Buddha's infinite compassion; a cynical tourist wanders in a museum in Venice, but sees a half-remembered painting of the dead Christ and is overwhelmed by pathos and emotion; a Japanese goddess descends to earth, bearing a fruit of immortality, searching for perfection.

 I loved the chapter numbers - instead of the usual order, they are Fibonacci numbers.

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

 

I had difficulty getting into the story and found the first 100 pages slow going but I was quite glad I struck with it as the second half of the book really worked for me. But I did fine the main character unbelievable - it was unconvincing that an eighteen year old girl would have wisdom and assurance. I also felt disappointed we never learnt more about the Miniaturist.

 

French Leave by P.G. Wodehouse

We read this for our book club.  It was based on typical Wodehouse humorous misunderstandings, but was not as good as the Jeeves story.  I felt nothing very much happens to the main characters, I got a bit in muddle with who was who and the plot twists are predictable. 

The Shadows in the Street: Simon Serrailler Book 5 by Susan Hill

This is an absorbing mystery with many layers to the plot but there the victim who is recovering from an attack conveniently remaining unable to speak until the plot has almost run its course is a bit far-fetched

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Hercule Poirot Series Book 1) by Agatha Christie

 

 I do love an Agatha Christie as I never can work out "whodunit" until the big revel. 

Meadowland: the private life of an English field by John Lewis-Stempel

I loved this book where John Lewis-Stempel charts a year in the life of a field on his farm on the Herefordshire. It is amazing how much goes on at all levels of flora and fauna. He weaves nature, folklore, geography, history and meteorology with vivid and beautiful description. 

Aunts Aren't Gentlemen: (Jeeves & Wooster) by P.G. Wodehouse

 

 I love Jeeves and Wooster - it makes me laugh out loud!  I did enjoy this one (the last) but it it wasn't as funny as some of the earlier ones. 

The Vows of Silence: Simon Serrailler Book 4 by Susan Hill

I am really enjoying this series, although it is starting to feel a little formulaic.  The most enjoyable bits of the book are the interpersonal relationships.

Children Act by Ian Mcewan

This is a well thought out and structured novel. The novel is short but has some vivid characters and scenes. Many of the issues are not new but you can imagine such things really going on. My enjoyment of this book slowly crept up slowly and by the end I decided how much I had enjoyed it.  

Casino Royale by Ian Flemming

The first novel in the James Bond series and even though I love the films I had never read any of the books before.  The novel itself is short but enjoyable. It is very similar to the Daniel Craig film and it was hard to read without picturing the film, especially because the film people stuck close to the novel in their adaptation.

 

Ebola: The Natural and Human History by David Quammen

 

This is a very easy read telling of the medical and biological features of Ebola in a non-hysterical manor.

It is a small book that covers a lot concisely, with enough detail of what we know and what we need to know.  I am looking forward to reading the longer book, Spillover, where this formed a chapter.

The Pure In Heart: Simon Serrailler Book 2 (Simon Serrailler series) and The Risk of Darkness: Simon Serrailler Book 3 Susan Hill

I read the next two books in the Serralier series... I really enjoyed them.  Both books tell the same story.

The Various Haunts Of Men: Simon Serrailler Book 1 (Simon Serrailler series) by Susan Hill

 

Having read an autobiography of Susan Hill I thought I ought to read some of her fiction.

I really enjoyed this detective story.
It is a gripping, page-turning thriller with engaging characters, a tight and twisting plot.
Serrailler's family come across as smug, middle-class.

The Magic Apple Tree by Susan Hill

A book read for the book club, although I later found my Mum had read it when she was my age and did so because her dad had read it and recommend it.

I like how it was organised into seasons with when to plant what and how to avoid neighbours you don't want to talk, although there are some random recipes which I felt made me lose the flow of the narrative.
It tells the story of everyday life in a small country community.

I am not sure why her apple tree was magical. 

The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

   

This story was recommended by a friend at work.  It tells of one man's walk along the length of England to save the life of a dying woman.

It is a gentle read containing sadness, some touching moments, and some humour.
It tells of all the things we leave unsaid  and of regrets we try to forget.
It feels like the story moves very slowly but when you get the end you realise what a lot was covered. 

The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Theriault

 

A short easy read novel dealing with obsession, friendship and haiku writing.

I loved its beautiful love story.
The poetry is beautiful with an introduction to haiku.  
At about a 100 pages, it does a lot in a short space.

The ending is guessable from quite early on.