The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I was drawn to this book in the book shop because its edges are black!  It is a fantasy story of love and magic set in a travelling circus. Having talked to people about it this book seems to be like Marmite - you either love it or hate it.

I was captivated by the beautiful descriptions of the circus. 
I couldn't see where it was heading which I love in a book, although I was a little disappointed by romantic subplot.

The first couple of chapters have some cruelties in and I would have liked some more later in - to give it more of an adult feel.

Queen Lucia by E. F. Benson

Having watched Mapp and Lucia over Christmas I wanted to read one of the books. This is the first in the series, describing Miss Elizabeth Mapp, the socialite of the small town of Tilling.  I look forward to reading some more.

"The hours of the morning between breakfast and lunch were the time which the inhabitants of Riseholme chiefly devoted to spying on each other."
 

Hilarious - life in "backwater" England with a flair unmatched...from yoga to opera to seances, the jockeying of the village's inhabitants to hold onto (or pilfer) their "next great thing" is well worth reading.
I loved the flamboyancy of the characters and just how funny E. F. Benson’s writing is.
It has a very dry sense of humour.

There are some things that grated at first; for example how Lucia speaks baby to her friend Georgie but you quickly get over it.
There is the description of the mysterious Indian Guru which is the talk of the village.  It is un-pc by today’s standards but written in the 1920’s and set very much in that era, people did have such prejudices.

The House of Silk: The Bestselling Sherlock Holmes Novel by Anthony Horowitz

The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz is the first officially sanctioned take-off of Sherlock Holmes by the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate. Anthony Horowitz is a famed writer of young adult action novels (the Alex Rider series) and also an acclaimed writer of the PBS series Foyle's War.

Horowitz writes with an authentic Watsonian voice with all the regular characters being here - Inspector Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Mycroft. 
The story is multi-layered, the characters diverse.
I loved the patient gathering of clues, the unravelling of corruption and diabolical plans. 

However there are a couple of other clues that suggest this not a Coyle books; for example Holmes does not come across as arrogant as in the original books. 

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield

    

This was a great book written by an astronaut and has logged nearly 4,000 hours in space. I enjoyed reading anecdotes such as how he broke into the Space Station with a Swiss army knife, disposed of a live snake while piloting a plane,and was temporarily blinded while clinging to the exterior of an orbiting spacecraft.

It was full of insights into what it takes to achieve success.
It is engaging and not dry.

I really liked the small details, such as how do you wee in space.

Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane

      


The book is organised around a series of features of mountaineering--glaciers, summits, unknown ranges--and each chapter explores the scientific, artistic and cultural discoveries and fashions that accompanied exploration.

I love Macfarlane's writing - although this felt much more of an essay than a personal account as is the case in his later books.  

The Iceberg: A Memoir by Marion Coutts

 

An account of her husband's demise through a brain tumour,  charting the stages in the illness and finally death of the author's husband.  

It was unsentimental, with much observation and thoughts.

I enjoyed the charting of her son's language development contrasting with the loss of her husbands.

However, at points it feels as if the story leaps about.  

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald.

 

An autobiography set in Cambridge also taking about TH White - it sounded amazing!  The nature and the self seem to be a new genre for nature writing and I look forward to reading more in this genre.

I loved the descriptions of her grief and the hawk. She has beautiful observant descriptive prose.
 Some of TH White writing felt like an add on - it look away from the beautiful writing about Mabel (the hawk).

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh

I couldn't put this down or stop thinking about it.  Really fascinating account of the (depressing) cases of a brain surgeon.  Each chapter describes specific cases, from the initial consultation, through to the diagnosis, then the operation, and finally the (usually depressing) outcome.

His description of his own mother dying left me in tears.
It highlights the life-and-death decisions he wrestled with daily - would the surgery be worth it?