Reading as a cheap hobby

Wednesday2000

I started reading The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley today. I'm still waiting for three library books so it is on my kindle.

Brambling

MrsStepford said:

Reading a new (to me) detective series by Rachel McLean, set in Dorset e.g. Lyme Regis, Wareham, Bournemouth, Winfrith, Sandbanks. Pretty good stuff. 

I like her Dorset books as well I grew up near Wimborne so I know the area.  I'm currently reading Neil Lancaster's  'Detective Max Craigie' books

Coxy11

Have finished 1979 by Val McDermid - bit of a slow start but fairly enjoyable towards the middle/end. Wouldn't rush to read any others of hers though. This was passed on by my sister.

Now reading The Cows by Dawn Porter which I picked up at a WI book sale.

MrsStepford

From Hello! 15 books to read this summer:

The Last Devil To Die - Richard Osman
Maybe in Another Life - Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Housemaid Is Watching - Freida McFadden
Things No One Taught Us About Love - Vex King
Ugly Love - Colleen Hoover
A Court Of Thorns & Roses  - Sarah J Maas
Funny Story - Emily Henry
Same Time Next Summer - Annabel Monaghan
Paris For One & Other Stories - Jojo Moyes
It Ends With Us - Colleen Hoover
The F**k It List - Melanie Cantor
Romantic Comedy - Curtis Sittenfeld
One Last Summer - Kate Spencer
Daisy - Alice Feeney
Good Pop Bad Pop - Jarvis Cocker

Not enjoying the Luke Sackville series from S J Richards. Sackville is a former DCI, working as Head of Ethics for a family-run outsourcing business in Bath. Plots are generic but far-fetched, as if MI6 would be involved in murders of thugs. I tried two, to be fair but nope...zzzz..

alicef

I'm so pleased to have reserved, and now with me, a plethora of new additions to our library -

The Lost Paths by Jack Cornish

The Clearing by Samantha Clark

The World According to Colour by James Fox

The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

All My Wild Mothers by Victoria Bennett

and the one I am reading

A Mudlarking Year by Lara Maiklem

Brie

Took "The Man who died Twice" off on holiday with me and typically finished it before the holiday ended.  So in a hotel in Germany which had a "Bibliotech".  Trotted off to have a look on the off chance that they would have something in English.  And yes they did!  Bram Stoker's Dracula and Austen's Pride and Prejudice.  Pumped for the P&P thinking that I would leave it when we left but just couldn't as I was enjoying it so much.  Not sure how many times I've read it but it is so very good.  (even without having that scene of Darcy in a wet shirt.....)

btw - also in the biblio was some Enid Blyton.  In German.   

PipneyJane

Brie said:

Took "The Man who died Twice" off on holiday with me and typically finished it before the holiday ended.  So in a hotel in Germany which had a "Bibliotech".  Trotted off to have a look on the off chance that they would have something in English.  And yes they did!  Bram Stoker's Dracula and Austen's Pride and Prejudice.  Pumped for the P&P thinking that I would leave it when we left but just couldn't as I was enjoying it so much.  Not sure how many times I've read it but it is so very good.  (even without having that scene of Darcy in a wet shirt.....)

btw - also in the biblio was some Enid Blyton.  In German.   

I love this @Brie.  I loved my Enid Blyton. So glad that they’ve been translated so that German children can enjoy them too.

I’m currently re-reading Simon Garfield’s World War 2, Mass Observation diary collections, We Are At War and Private Battles, How the War Almost Defeated Us.  I’m 50 pages off finishing the former.  Only two of the five diarists transfer from We Are At War to Private Battles and both of them are the sort of women with which I’d like to be friends (Pam Ashford and Maggie Joy Blunt).  There’s also a third book, Our Hidden Lives set in the years just after the war.  I’m convinced I have a copy of it but I can’t find it anywhere.

Also on the go, on my phone, is Lucy Worsley’s excellent biography of Agatha Christie.  

Has anyone else watched Richard E Grant’s series, Write Around The World?  It was broadcast on BBC a year or so ago.  We recorded it at the time, but I’ve only just seen it.  He visits cities in Italy, France and Spain and talks about the books set therein.  Fascinating.  My browser now has a dozen tabs open on the Amaz0n pages of the various books mentioned, which I’m currently resisting purchasing.  

ETA:  Write Around The World is not currently available to view on iPlayer.  Most disappointing.  Hopefully, it’ll get repeated soon.

- Pip 

Brie

PipneyJane said:

Brie said:

btw - also in the biblio was some Enid Blyton.  In German.   

I love this @Brie.  I loved my Enid Blyton. So glad that they’ve been translated so that German children can enjoy them too.

I've never read any Enid Blyton but have heard the books talked about a lot.  Actually my family did have a Noddy book but the pictures terrified me as a child so I didn't want to look at it let alone read it at all.  It's the same with a lot of books that are considered childhood standards - I never came across a lot of them until I was in my 20s and taking a degree in literature.  A lot of them I considered over-rated and incredibly dull.  Or certainly didn't see the charm in them.  

Brambling

I wonder if the German translations have been updated to be more PC as well? I was a fan of her Famous Five, Secret Seven and Malory Towers books, I don't remember having Noddy books 

I'm currently reading and enjoying The Woman who Lied by Claire Douglas so was happy to pickup another one of hers in the charity shop this afternoon, I didn't plan to buy 5 books either  I just popped in on the way back to the car.  Unfortunately none of the CSs in town do really cheap books but I don't mind paying a £1 each and I know my sister will read them and pass on after me 

Brie

Brambling said:

I wonder if the German translations have been updated to be more PC as well? 

I always wonder at making books more PC.  I don't like a lot of the sexist, racist, xenophobic attitudes that were considered normal and acceptable in bygone days but I do think that books should be read in context.  Frankly I think that almost any book more than a decade or two old will exhibit some surprising views but that's part of the learning process to understand what was then and what is now.

Or am I completely mad?