10/02/2007

Today I have been discussing my least favourite author and books. So here is my nomination. Portrait of a Lady - Henry James - what is it about please? It seems so d*mn obvious to me what is going to happen - & it all happens so slowly. Awful -struggled to the end in the hope that something would happen to surprise me and show some subtlety, shed a new light on human nature etc etc - and nope - nothing did! vowed never to read Henry James again – and I haven’t!
On the other hand I have recently read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night and, yes it was excellent - I sort of started reading it with my detective story reading head on - which actually made it more entertaining because there is a spoofy sort of element in there as well.

06/02/2007

I'm reading The Man with the Cane by Jean Potts ...nice old green penguin crime.I wonder if Peter Robinson is any good? I've sold a couple and have been tempted by the blurb - but not read any yet...

21/01/2007

Oh just been talking about the glorious Falco!!! Sadly, sadly even with severe rationing I have now read them all and am up to date - I think there is a new one out in hardback - but I'm a paperback gal - hardbacks take up too much space - so I'll wait for it in paperback. Falco has got to be one of my all-time favourite detectives, certainly on a par with Kinsey Millhone…..not sure he would overtake Albert Campion though, who I still think comes top of my list.

I have lent a couple of the early Lindsey Davis Falco books to a non-detective novel reading friend recently, who has decided she quite likes them…

I'm thinking of breaking my own embargo on buying for me and getting the last Sue Grafton that came out in paperback recently S is for Silence - as I am in the same situation with Kinsey Millhone - but I might wait a bit longer for that one....

21/1/07

Well I've just finished Sara Paretsky's V I for Short - which was excellent.


I am currently reading about 10 books a week - and I haven't decided what to read next. Still got loads to go at from my buying frenzy on ebay last year.

03/01/07 -

Well I think I should say I think the Da Vinci Code was a reasonably good thriller, though I'm afraid it was all a tiny bit too obvious for me - but then I've read a lot of thrillers - and many which manage to disguise flying the homicidal monk to Britain a lot better.
I mean it was far more transparent (ie I had the villain tagged quite early) than a lot which don't get all the hype. I think that it was the subject matter that grabbed the headlines. I solved most of the clues quite easily.

What I mean by “disguising flying the homicidal monk to Britain” is that if you manage to pick out that it is totally pointless to do this - then I'm afraid it takes but a few short steps to work out what the point is - then it all breaks open ...........

It did have tremendous pace and excitement though.

04/12/2006

I have been discussing Cold Comfort Farm, which I loved - though few years since I read it. I don’t think Stella Gibbons wrote anything else. It was very much in the same vein as the early Nancy Mitfords - they are quite similar. - Love in a Cold Climate etc . Also similar is Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle – a much under-rated book which I read a couple of months ago; which bears no resemblance at all to 101 Dalmations.

2/12/06

I have just read: The Da Vinci Code -
The New Sonia Wayward - Michael Innes.
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian - Marina Lewycka( brilliant - and not in Ukranian - if you see what I mean............)

I Am Now about half way through The Eighth Circle - by Stanley Ellin.

I am trying to zigzag through my unread dectective/ thrillers - so I go modern British - Golden Age American - Golden age British - Modern American - something completely different and then back to the beginning again - System doesn't work as I keep getting distracted.............. or forgetting where I was..........