Nonfiction November: Week 1 – My Year in Nonfiction

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Nonfiction November starts today and Week 1 is hosted by Heather of Based on a True Story who has posted the following questions for us to answer:

Week 1 November 2-8 – My Year in Nonfiction – Celebrate your year of nonfiction. What books have you read? What were your favorites? Have you had a favorite topic? Is there a topic you want to read about more? What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

So far in 2026 I have read seven nonfiction books, which I know isn’t many for a lot of people, but it’s a decent number for me as I usually read fiction. I’ve listed the seven books below:

1. 24 Hours in Shogun’s Japan by Mark Hudson

Using a mixture of fiction and nonfiction, this book takes us hour by hour through a typical day in 1614 Japan, the era known as the Tokugawa shogunate. Each chapter is devoted to one hour and one character, drawn from all walks of life. It’s a good introduction to the subject and I learned a lot from it, although it’s a short book and doesn’t go into a huge amount of depth.

2. The Eagle and the Hart by Helen Castor

A dual biography of Richard II and Henry IV, two English kings who were also cousins. The book gives a detailed, well-researched account of each king’s reign, although I was hoping it would look more closely at the relationship and connections between the two. Instead, it feels more like two separate biographies, but is still an interesting read.

3. The Inner Clock: Living in Sync With Our Circadian Rhythms by Lynne Peeples

This is a fascinating book about the science behind our body’s circadian clock, the part of the brain controlling our sleeping patterns. Peeples looks at the effects that light, food, drink and other factors have on our inner clock and what we can do to improve our sleep.

4. This Dark Night by Deborah Lutz

A new biography of Emily Brontë. I found this an enjoyable read and think it would be a good place to start for people wanting an introduction to the lives of the Brontës. I didn’t really learn much that I didn’t already know, but that’s because there’s just not a lot of information available about Emily, which isn’t the author’s fault.

5. No Fair Maidens by Kim Willis

A memoir of the author’s travels around Britain in search of information on eight mythological women and how she took inspiration from these women to help deal with her own mental health issues. I didn’t learn as much about the myths as I would have liked – the focus is more on the author herself – but it was still an interesting book overall.

6. The Story of Tudor Art by Christina J Faraday

An exploration of the history of Tudor England through its art and objects, ranging from paintings, sculptures, tapestries and clothing to jewels, embroideries and furnishings. It’s a good introduction to the subject and succeeds in showing the overall scope of Tudor art and how things changed between the beginning of the period and the end.

7. The Agatha Christie Cure by Cathy Rentzenbrink

A fascinating book in which the author describes how she embarked on a personal project to read all of Agatha Christie’s novels in order of publication. As a Christie fan myself, who has been working through her books at random, it was interesting to see Rentzenbrink discuss the pros and cons of reading chronologically.

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Most of these are either history or memoirs/biographies, the same topics I’m usually drawn to – although I did also read a science book this year, The Inner Clock, which I think was probably my favourite.

As for what I’m hoping to get out of Nonfiction November I’m simply hoping that it will encourage me to pick up nonfiction more often and that I’ll discover some new books and authors to look out for.

Do you like to read nonfiction books? Which ones have you read this year?

My Commonplace Book: October 2026

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A selection of quotes and pictures to represent October’s reading:

commonplace book
noun
a book into which notable extracts from other works are copied for personal use.

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Someone had said that if you thought about the unthinkable long enough it became quite reasonable.

Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey (1949)

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“Power is not a material possession that can be given. Power is the ability to act and that must always be taken, for no one will ever give that power to you. Those who have power wish to keep it, and those who want power must learn to take it.”

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix (2025)

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Eleanor Cobham and her husband Humphrey in a 1431 illustration

And sometimes – like anyone with eyes and ears – I hear or see what people are saying or doing, and it’s obvious what will happen, because they always do the same thing, over and over, even when it didn’t work before. That’s the strongest foretelling of all – knowing someone’s pattern and watching them repeat it.

Royal Witch by Philippa Gregory (2026)

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‘Have you considered what people would be bound to say?’ Frederick said.

‘No, nor do I propose to burden my head with anything that interests me so little!’ retorted Mr Beaumaris.

Arabella by Georgette Heyer (1949)

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‘Memories and feelings can never be truly destroyed,’ said Winston.

Murder on the Haunted Express by Emma Mason (2026)

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Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, 1969

What is it about death, about grief, that makes human beings clam up? Why do we find it so hard to talk about?

Nightingale Hall by Rachel Burton (2026)

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Darkness needs no shape. It uses. It possesses.

Elidor by Alan Garner (1965)

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She watched a documentary about a family who appeared to lead the perfect life, but underneath skeletons fell from the closet, shattering their world. She didn’t know why she was drawn to these kinds of stories. Perhaps it was just knowing that no matter how tough her life got at times, there was always somebody worse off.

The Witch Elm by Sally-Anne Martyn (2026)

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17th century portrait of Erzsébet Báthory, Hungarian National Museum in Budapest

But like everything here: you get used to it. It is hard to understand how a person can become used to awful things, but Varga said as much; if a man should be bitten one small bite at a time, he will allow himself to be devoured.

The Last Handmaid by Clare Whitfield (2026)

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The thing is, he doesn’t have to be lying to be wrong. He could just be looking at the moment without knowing enough.

The Country Schoolmaster by Kate Grenville (2026)

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Silence is a pause. Silence is a gap, a void, an absence. Silence, between two people, is a weapon selected to wound – or to threaten with the cold, certain inevitability of pain.

Pale Mistress by Naomi Kelsey (2026)

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Favourite books read in October:

Arabella, Brat Farrar and The Country Schoolmaster

Authors read for the first time in October:

Sally-Anne Martyn, Grady Hendrix

Places visited in my October reading:

England, USA, Scotland, Australia, Italy, Cyprus, Hungary, Slovakia

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Reading notes: October was a good month of reading for me. I took part in 1949 Club (and can’t wait for 1973 in April), read some more books for the RIP XXI challenge, got through some of the books on my NetGalley shelf, and found time to re-read a childhood favourite. I also joined a new book group in October and am looking forward to discussing this month’s book, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, next week.

November is always a very busy month in the book blogging calendar and this year is no exception. Here are the events I’m aware of that are taking place:

Nonfiction November
Novellas in November
Reading Scotland Month
German Literature Month
Margaret Atwood Reading Month
SciFi Month

I’ll be taking part in at least some of these!

What did you read in October? Do you have any plans for November?

Elidor by Alan Garner

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I’ve been meaning to re-read this classic children’s fantasy novel for a long time and was motivated to move it further up the TBR pile after reading a wonderful review by Chris of Calmgrove Books earlier this year. I first read it at the age of about nine or ten – or rather, it was read by a lovely teacher who used to read aloud to us at the end of the day. I enjoyed it so much I got my own copy to read for myself a few years later.

Elidor was published in 1965 and has a strong 1960s feel which contrasts with the eerie, otherworldly nature of the fantasy land of Elidor. It begins with Roland Watson and his older siblings Nicholas, Helen and David wandering the streets of Manchester one cold afternoon, looking for something to do to pass the time. The post-war urban slum clearances are under way and the children stumble upon a church being prepared for demolition. When one of them accidentally kicks a ball through the church window, they go in one by one to look for it and don’t return, until only Roland is left.

Following his brothers and sister into the church, he discovers a portal to another land: Elidor, a world that was once beautiful but is now dying and decaying, under attack from the forces of darkness. Here, Roland meets the mysterious Malebron – a blind fiddle player, or is he a king? – who tells him that three of Elidor’s four golden castles have now become dark, but all hope isn’t yet lost. The Watson siblings must find the four Treasures – a stone, a spear, a cup and a sword – and keep them safe in their own world until light can be restored to Elidor.

For a fantasy novel, we spend a surprisingly small amount of time in Elidor itself. Most of the story takes place in Manchester, once the children have returned with the Treasures (which, away from Elidor, are transformed into everyday objects to make them easier to hide). However, the boundary between the two worlds is thin and the dark forces of Elidor begin to find their way through. There was a scene I found quite terrifying as a child, where the hidden objects begin to create static electricity, causing interference with all the electrical items in the Watson household. I still found it very unsettling as an adult! It’s this encroachment on the characters’ ordinary lives that makes Elidor darker than, say, the Narnia books. It reminded me a lot of Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, which also features a battle between light and dark and the intrusion of evil forces on the real world.

Another thing this book and the Susan Cooper series have in common is a strong mythological background, with various allusions to myths and legends woven into the plot. Roland’s name, for example, is significant because the first part of the story has parallels with the folktale Childe Rowland, in which Rowland also has two brothers and a sister, Burd Ellen, who also disappear after kicking a ball over a church. Then there’s the title Elidor, inspired by a medieval Welsh folktale (Elidyr and the Golden Ball); the four castles and four treasures, which correspond to the Irish legends of the Tuatha Dé Danann; and the untamed unicorn, Findhorn, whose song is the key to saving Elidor. Don’t worry, though, if you’re not familiar with any of these myths – they’re not necessary to understanding the story.

Although I enjoyed reading Elidor again after so many years, I didn’t find it an entirely satisfying book. There’s not much worldbuilding regarding Elidor itself; we only get a brief glimpse of it early in the novel and we never really learn exactly why it is being destroyed, who the evil forces are or what their aims are. Everything is kept intentionally vague and although this does add to the general eeriness of the book, I would have liked to have known more. We aren’t told the ages of the children either – we just know that Nicholas is the oldest and Roland the youngest. I found it surprisingly frustrating not knowing how old they were! Of course, none of this bothered me the first time I read it and it is a children’s book, after all.

I’m not sure if I ever read any of Alan Garner’s other books and can’t remember them if I did. Maybe I should try some of them now that I’ve reminded myself of this one.

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Vampire Books for Halloween!

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This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is: “Halloween Freebie”.

I’ve joined in with the Halloween Freebie topic every year for the last few years and have already posted lists of books with Halloween related words in the title, horror novels I read before blogging, books with monstrous animals and creatures, and books about witches. This year, I’ve chosen books with vampires in them. I decided to only include books I’ve actually reviewed on my blog – as you can see, I struggled to find ten, but managed it in the end!

1. Dracula by Bram Stoker – The obvious first choice for any list of vampire books! I enjoyed this one, but as with any classic story that has become such a big part of popular culture, it’s difficult to fully appreciate it the way readers at the time would have done.

2. The Vampyre by John Polidori – One of the earliest vampire stories and an influence on many that would follow. I read this along with Byron’s unfinished Fragment of a Novel and both are fascinating to read from the perspective of understanding the origins of vampire fiction.

3. White Teeth, Red Blood: Selected Vampiric Verses – A poetry anthology with a vampire theme. It includes classic poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christina Rossetti, Rudyard Kipling and Emily Dickinson as well as some contemporary ones.

4. The Nightingale’s Castle by Sonia Velton – The story of Countess Erzsébet Báthory, a Hungarian noblewoman accused of murdering hundreds of peasant girls (and sometimes considered to be an inspiration for Dracula).

5. Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu – Le Fanu’s classic novella about a lesbian vampire is thought to have influenced Dracula, which was published more than twenty years later, but it’s also an entertaining story in its own right.

6. Vlad: The Last Confession by C.C. Humphreys – This is not technically a vampire novel, but historical fiction about Vlad Dracula (also known as Vlad Tepes or Vlad the Impaler), the real life Prince of Wallachia whose name inspired Bram Stoker’s character.

7. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness – Matthew Clairmont is one of several vampires who arrives at Oxford University in search of a magical manuscript discovered by Diana Bishop, a witch. Matthew and Diana’s story continues in Shadow of Night, but I never read the other books in the series.

8. He Who Whispers by John Dickson Carr – There’s no actual vampire in this book, but it deals with a murder in which the prime suspect is a woman believed to be a vampire!

9. A Remedy for Fate by MA Kuzniar – Although he’s just a minor character, Wojslav the vampire runs an antique shop in the Magic Quarter, a magical land hidden beneath the streets of 18th century Prague.

10. The Lady of the House of Love by Angela Carter – This is a short story which appears in The Bloody Chamber and features a beautiful vampire countess who lives in an abandoned chateau in Transylvania.

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And that’s my Top Ten for this week. These books don’t all contain vampires, but they do at least have vampiric connections! I wanted to include Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian, but I read that one just before I started blogging. I’m also currently reading The Last Handmaid by Clare Whitfield, another novel about Countess Erzsébet Báthory.

Have you read any of these or any other books with vampires in them?

The Country Schoolmaster by Kate Grenville

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This book wasn’t what I was expecting at all. It was listed as fiction on NetGalley but feels much more like non-fiction, although I can understand why the author and publisher could be hesitant to describe it that way as there is a lot of imagination involved! Regardless of the label, I found it absolutely fascinating.

Kate Grenville begins by describing a visit she made to the NSW State Archives to research her mother’s life. During this visit she came across a file relating to Currabubula Public School and was immediately intrigued by a collection of letters written by or about the teacher Joseph Connor implying that he was abusive towards the children. Deciding to dig deeper, Grenville read all eighty-eight letters in the file, dating from the 1880s to 1890s, changing her mind back and forth about Connor with each new piece of information. Were the allegations against him true or was he the victim of a vendetta pursued by a group of parents for reasons of their own?

Stories floated up but then sank again. Characters came forward as one thing but on a second look turned into something else. Meanings took shape, then evaporated. My sympathies, like a school of fish, wheeled towards Joseph Connor. With the next letter, they gathered, regrouped, wheeled the other way.

Currabubula is a rural village in New South Wales where Kate Grenville’s grandmother, Sarah Catherine Maunder, grew up (her story is told in Restless Dolly Maunder). In 1884, Joseph Connor was appointed sole teacher of Currabubula Public School, responsible for up to seventy children at a time. The recent Public Instruction Act had made school attendance compulsory in NSW and teachers willing to go and work in small rural communities were in high demand. Grenville’s first impression of Connor, as she worked through the letters and other documents in the file, was of “a straightforward, honest fellow doing his guileless best”, a man trying to educate children in an overcrowded classroom, having to virtually beg for money from the Department of Public Instruction to purchase new chairs or get the toilets cleaned, while also dealing with the needs of his own rapidly growing family.

Some of the complaints against Connor seem malicious and spiteful, but others are more convincing. Grenville examines the complaints, along with the responses given by Connor and the School Inspector and the outcomes of inquiries and court hearings and tries to decide what was really going on. Was he really beating the children and punishing them excessively? Was it true that he was keeping livestock in the schoolyard where the children played? Was he being unfairly strict in enforcing the rules regarding non-attendance? With no evidence beyond the documents in the file, Grenville tries to read between the lines, studying the choice of words and phrases and filling in the gaps by imagining how the people involved may have felt.

Grenville doesn’t reach any real conclusions about Connor or any of the mysteries surrounding him – for example, the cause of a rift with his eldest daughter Bridie, also a teacher, is never revealed – but she encourages us to form our own opinions from the limited clues available. She explains in her author’s note that due to the assumptions she makes about Connor and the other residents of Currabubula and the possible theories she builds around them, she decided to change the names of Joseph Connor and the other key players in the story.

I think how much you enjoy this book will depend on whether you’re interested in historical research, archival information and interpreting sources. It won’t appeal to everyone, but for the right reader it’s a wonderful read. I loved it, partly for the glimpses into the history of education in Australia and the daily lives of people in a small village like Currabubula, and partly for the exploration of how stories can be made from a mixture of fact and fiction.

Thanks to Canongate for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Murder on the Haunted Express by Emma Mason

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This is the second book in Emma Mason’s mystery series featuring retired police officer Midge McGowan. I enjoyed the first, Murder Most Haunted, with a few reservations, so was happy to give this one a try. You could definitely start with this one if you wanted to as it works as a standalone mystery, but reading in order will help you understand the backgrounds of the main characters and the relationships between them.

The novel begins with Midge’s friend, struggling pop star Rona, inviting her on a trip to the Scottish Highlands by steam train. Midge doesn’t really want to go, but accepts, thinking that at least it should be a relaxing break and a chance to do her embroidery. On arriving at the station, however, she finds that Rona, as usual, hasn’t been completely honest. The trip is actually part of a funeral procession, carrying the body of a recently deceased artist to his final resting place. Worse, the train itself has a tragic history and one of the carriages is said to be haunted – much to the delight of paranormal podcaster Noah, another friend who has joined them on the journey.

Before the train reaches its destination, a passenger is found dead in a locked carriage with no obvious cause of death. As the only detective on board, it naturally falls to Midge to investigate, but she’ll need to solve the mystery quickly before the killer strikes again. The suspects include a prisoner on temporary release to attend the funeral, accompanied by his prison guard, an undertaker responsible for the safe transport of the coffin, and a writer working on a biography of the dead artist. Is one of these people the murderer or could there be a more ghostly explanation?

First of all, I love the character of Midge McGowan; she feels so real and human. As a neurodivergent woman in her fifties with a bad knee she’s used to being ignored and underestimated and having spent most of her police career pushed into a backstage position in the property office, she’s an unlikely detective. But over the years Midge has learned to listen, observe and draw her own conclusions, skills that are invaluable when it comes to solving mysteries. She can be prickly at times – she likes her own space and to be allowed to do things in her own way – but her grief for the recent loss of her wife Bridie, who died of cancer, shows a more tender side of her personality. It’s good to see that the friendships with Rona and Noah formed in the previous book have continued although, as someone who hasn’t had many friends before, Midge isn’t always sure how to navigate those friendships.

My problem with the book was the same as with the first one: that apart from Midge, none of the other characters feel like real people and are a collection of stereotypes. Rona, for example, is the classic ‘pop star’ character – temperamental, entitled, in and out of rehab, obsessed with her appearance – and both she and Noah seem to be mainly in the book to provide some comedy. The same goes for the other characters who seem to have no personality beyond being an undertaker, a prisoner, an art curator etc. This isn’t a huge problem as these books are clearly intended to be funny and not taken too seriously (as you can tell from the titles) but I think they would definitely be improved by stronger characterisation.

The mystery is interesting, with some twists and turns, and I would never have guessed the solution! Trains are the perfect setting for locked room mysteries with all of the suspects and potential victims together in close confines, separated from the outside world until they arrive at a station. Despite Noah’s fascination with the ghost supposedly haunting the train, this is never really considered as a plausible theory by Midge, but it does provide some atmosphere.

Like the first book, this one was enjoyable enough to leave me looking forward to the next one. I’m assuming there will be more as this one ends with a new development in Midge’s life which should be interesting to explore.

Thanks to Bantam for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Reviewed for RIPXXI hosted by @perilreaders

Some thoughts on Shakespeare’s Othello #ShakespeareRetold

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I hinted earlier this year that I had a new project planned where I would be reading (or re-reading) some of Shakespeare’s plays and following them with modern retellings or books inspired by those plays. With that in mind, I included some Shakespeare on my current Classics Club list and I’ve decided to begin with a re-read of Othello. Although Othello is not one of my favourite plays, it’s a special one for me because it was the first I read for myself outside of the ones we read at school.

The play begins in Venice with the discovery that Othello, a general in the Venetian army, has secretly married Desdemona, the daughter of the senator Brabantio. His ensign, Iago, hates Othello because he has promoted another man, Cassio, to lieutenant rather than himself. With the help of Roderigo, a young Venetian gentleman who is in love with Desdemona, Iago vows to take his revenge. As the action moves to Cyprus, he does this by convincing Othello that Desdemona and Cassio are having an affair, using lots of psychological manipulation – and a carefully planted stolen handkerchief.

Rather than reading the play in a standalone edition, I read it in my RSC Shakespeare: Complete Works, a book I would recommend (apart from it being physically difficult to hold). It contains detailed introductions to each play, key facts, photographs from RSC stage productions and definitions/glossaries at the bottom of each page of text. The introduction to Othello helps to put the play into context, looking at Shakespeare’s main source for the play, the 1565 novella “Un Capitano Moro” (“A Moorish Captain”), by Giraldi Cinthio, and discussing how audiences at the time would have viewed a Moorish, or Muslim, character like Othello.

Othello has a relatively simple plot, which makes it easier to follow than some of his other plays (which doesn’t mean it has no depth, of course, but the complexities are in the psychology and in trying to understand Iago’s motivations rather than in following the story itself). The main themes are also quite obvious: jealousy – first Iago’s jealousy of Cassio, who gets the position he believes should have been his, and then Othello’s jealousy, which comes about through Iago’s manipulations; trust – both lack of trust and misplaced trust; racism and prejudice – does Othello have underlying insecurities due to his race and age that lead him to doubt Desdemona (a younger white woman) and fall for Iago’s lies so easily?

I also noticed how little humour there is in this play. There’s a brief appearance by a clown figure in Act III who delivers some puns and wordplay, but otherwise there’s not much light relief even in comparison to Shakespeare’s other tragedies. As ever, though, there are words and phrases from the play that have become part of everyday speech:

“I will wear my heart upon my sleeve”
“The green-eyed monster”
“One that loved not wisely but too well”
“A foregone conclusion”

There are probably more that I missed!

Retellings

I don’t think I’ve read any Othello retellings yet, although I’ve read books that reference it in some way. Farewell, the Tranquil Mind by RF Delderfield takes its title from a line from the play (“Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!”), while in Agatha Christie’s The Rose and the Yew Tree, which I read earlier this year, the narrator, Hugh, directly refers to Othello several times throughout the book and reflects on Iago and his motives.

I’ve just started to read Naomi Kelsey’s new novel Pale Mistress, which is about Bianca, a minor but important character in the play.

Here are some other books about or inspired by Othello. Have you read any of them? Do you know of any more?

New Boy by Tracy Chevalier
Chasing the Stars by Malorie Blackman
I, Iago by Nicole Galland
Desdemona by Toni Morrison
Iago by David Snodin
Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis