My Commonplace Book: September 2026

7 Comments

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

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

~

She was a spirited girl last night and a pensive young woman tonight. Seventeen was the age when they tried on various poses to see which one they liked best, I recalled.

The Heiress of Northanger Abbey by Nancy Bilyeau (2026)

~

The word willing is one of the most useful words in the English language. It’s so easy for people to tell you they can’t do something, that they won’t do it. But hardly anyone will say they’re unwilling to try. Attempt it on someone, if you like. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

The Midnight Guests by Alex Hay (2026)

~

I thought that in mastering spelling I would be led to the promised land of knowing things, how to act in the human sphere. That words were everything. Holding everything together. The countless grains of sand that kept the Cumberland River itself from sinking into the earth. And in knowing words I would not sink myself.

The Newer World by Sebastian Barry (2026)

~

Daphne du Maurier, c. 1930

‘There you go again,’ she said. ‘Such sweet formality. But I will nudge you away from it, for this is what writers do: they prise open all the closed and shuttered places in other people. You didn’t know that, did you?’

The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain (2026)

~

As I’ve got older, I have become more interested in the areas of life where I find I don’t have a strong opinion. There are plenty of things I do feel very strongly about, of course. But as the world and its new media technologies push for more and more polarisation, I treasure the places where I can see more than one side to a question.

The Strangers by Naomi Alderman (2026)

~

How could they know? How could anyone know? If just one person, once, in the whole history of the world, had done just one thing differently from the way they in fact did do it – who could say that it would not have changed the whole future of mankind?

By Horror Haunted by Celia Fremlin (1974)

~

It seemed incredibly insensitive. At times, Mabel felt herself bowled over by the cruelty of other people, unable to function in a world that so often cared so much about the wrong things. At least Mabel tried to do the right thing, even if sometimes the consequences were disastrous.

The Scholars by MacKenzie Common (2026)

~

Portrait of John Law, by Casimir Balthazar

“Fortune may be blind, but it is possible to take her by the hand and guide her. The art of winning lies in the study of why men lose. Indeed,” he ended, on a more pensive note, “that may be the whole art of life. I do not know.”

The Gamester by Rafael Sabatini (1949)

~

“I’m a reliable witness, you’re a reliable witness, practically all God’s children are reliable witnesses in their own estimation – which makes it funny how such different ideas of the same affair get about.”

The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham (1953)

~

‘Life,’ she declares inside her head, ‘is like a wood heap. People do things to ameliorate and to alleviate. With one little detail after another people move through life. It is like taking wood from the heap, one log at a time to the fire, or in summer, the slow stacking of one log upon another, when a wood pile is being moved or rebuilt.’

The Well by Elizabeth Jolley (1986)

~

“It is a theory of mine,” I said, warming to my theme, “that we owe most of our great inventions and most of the achievements of genius to idleness – either enforced or voluntary. The human mind prefers to be spoon-fed with the thoughts of others, but deprived of such nourishment it will, reluctantly, begin to think for itself – and such thinking, remember, is original thinking and may have valuable results.”

The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie (1942)

~

Favourite books read in September:

The Moving Finger and By Horror Haunted

Authors read for the first time in September:

Naomi Alderman, Elizabeth Jolley

Countries visited in my September reading:

England, USA, Australia, France

~

Reading notes: September was another good month for me in terms of the number of books I managed to read. More importantly, I enjoyed most of them, although one or two were slightly disappointing. I was pleased to be able to join in with Short Story September with By Horror Haunted and I also finished my Classics Club Spin book, The Kraken Wakes, before the deadline for once. In October, I’ll be taking part in 1949 Club, the latest of Karen and Simon’s year clubs, which are always something to look forward to! You may have noticed I’ve already read one book for that and am in the middle of a second one.

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

The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie

8 Comments

This month’s theme for Read Christie 2026 is ‘Best According to Agatha’, with the option of choosing any of the books on Christie’s own list of her top 10 favourites which she compiled in 1972. My choice was easy as the only one I hadn’t already read was The Moving Finger.

First published in 1942, this is a Miss Marple mystery, although Miss Marple herself doesn’t appear until near the end. The book is narrated by Jerry Burton, a pilot who has been injured in a plane crash. He and his sister Joanna have decided to rent a house in the small market town of Lymstock so he can get away from London for a while and finish recuperating in peace and quiet. However, life in Lymstock proves to be much less quiet and peaceful than he’d expected! Almost as soon as they arrive, Jerry receives an anonymous letter containing the accusation that he and Joanna are not brother and sister. Knowing this is untrue, they aren’t too concerned and destroy the letter, but later learn that several other people in the town have also been receiving them.

As the letters become the main topic of conversation in the town, some people begin to speculate that there’s no smoke without fire and maybe some of the accusations are true. When Mrs Symmington is found dead after receiving a particularly nasty letter, it’s assumed that she has committed suicide. Now that the writer has had some success, will they stop sending the letters? No, they don’t – and when another death occurs, the vicar’s wife decides to call in an expert, “someone who knows a great deal about wickedness”. The expert, of course, is Miss Marple!

The Moving Finger is a very enjoyable novel. I loved the portrayal of a small community where everyone knows everyone else’s business – the ideal setting for a poison pen letter mystery. I was reminded of Fear Stalks the Village by Ethel Lina White but I think this one is a stronger novel. Despite the book being published in 1942, there are no mentions of the war and the residents of Lymstock seem to be completely untouched by it, something I’ve noticed in other books of hers from that period (N or M? is the main exception). The assumption is that Jerry is an RAF pilot whose plane was shot down, but that’s never actually made clear and there are only the vaguest references to his accident, which happens before the novel begins.

I didn’t manage to solve the mystery – I had narrowed the suspects down to two but neither was correct. Of course, Miss Marple has no difficulty identifying the culprit, using her powers of observation, perception of human nature and knowledge of village life. I’m not sure that there was really any need for her to appear in this book at all, though. She doesn’t arrive on the scene until chapter ten (of fifteen) so it could probably have worked just as well as a standalone novel with a different character, maybe Jerry himself, solving the mystery. Still, it’s always nice to see Miss Marple, even if only briefly!

I’ve now read all of the Miss Marple novels, although I still have one of the short story collections to read. I’ll be returning to the Tommy and Tuppence series for Read Christie in October.

Reviewed for RIPXXI hosted by @perilreaders

All of Us Murderers by KJ Charles

4 Comments

KJ Charles is a new author for me. It seems she has written more than 30 books, most of which are historical romance or fantasy romance, but I’ve never come across them until now and probably wouldn’t have been drawn to them anyway. One of her recent novels, All of Us Murderers, looked and sounded like more of a Gothic mystery and something I might enjoy.

The book is set in Edwardian England and begins with Zebedee Wyckham arriving at Lackaday House, the home of his cousin Wynn. Zeb has met Wynn only twice before in his life and was surprised to receive an unexpected invitation to visit the house along with several other relatives. Soon after arrival, however, Wynn explains exactly why he has summoned them all there.

Due to a family curse which he believes will cause his death before the age of fifty, Wynn has been thinking about the future of his vast fortune and has decided to leave his money to the man who marries his young ward, Jessamine. This news comes as a particular shock to Zeb’s older brother, Bram, who had always expected to inherit and is inconveniently already married. Zeb himself has no interest in marrying Jessamine – he’s gay, although the others don’t know it – but that doesn’t stop Wynn from making it clear that he’s his preferred choice. With their slimy, blackmailing cousin Hawley also one of the party and Zeb’s bitter ex-lover Gideon newly employed as Wynn’s secretary, the whole thing seems a recipe for disaster.

I have to be honest and say that I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I’d hoped to. The title made me expect a murder mystery but there is no murder until late in the book and I felt as if I was just spending a lot of time waiting for something to happen. There was a lot of focus on the relationship between Zeb and Gideon, but as their initial romance and break-up had taken place before the book even begins, it was hard to get emotionally invested. There are also a lot of sex scenes, which aren’t really my thing, and I found myself skimming those.

The Gothic elements are well done and I did enjoy that aspect of the book. We have a large, isolated country house surrounded by high walls and locked gates, a heavy mist descending over the Dartmoor countryside, sightings of ghostly apparitions, and a series of bizarre events that mirror the novels of Walter Wyckham, the cousins’ grandfather, a Gothic novelist based on the real life William Beckford. There’s plenty of atmosphere, although I found it difficult to get a sense of the time period (it’s the Edwardian era but could easily have been earlier). Something else that was interesting was the author’s portrayal of Zeb as an adult with ADHD. As she explains in her author’s note, she can’t refer to the condition by name as it wasn’t recognised until much more recently, but she shows it through his actions and the way other people describe him.

Although I found this book entertaining at times, I’m not sure if Charles is an author for me. She clearly has a very large and loyal fanbase, though, so if you’ve enjoyed any of her books let me know and maybe I can be tempted!

Reviewed for RIPXXI hosted by @perilreaders

The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham

8 Comments

This was the book selected for me in the recent Classics Club Spin. For once, I’ve managed to finish my book before the deadline (4th October).

The Kraken Wakes was published in 1953 and, like most of John Wyndham’s other books, is a classic science fiction novel. It’s narrated by Mike Watson, who works as a reporter for the EBC (a fictional rival to the BBC). At the start of the novel, Mike and his new wife Phyllis, also a reporter, are on their honeymoon on a cruise ship in the Atlantic when they spot something odd in the sky: five bright red lights descending towards the sea and disappearing beneath the water. As more and more sightings like this are reported, it becomes clear that these fireballs are not just falling at random – they are heading for the deepest waters in the world, which suggests that some kind of plan is under way.

When ships mysteriously begin sinking while trying to cross these deep sea areas, panic spreads across the world. Many people blame the Soviet Union, who in turn blame Western capitalist governments – the Cold War is ongoing, after all – but Mike and Phyllis support the theories of Professor Alastair Bocker, who is warning the public that an alien presence, one which can exist only at very high pressures, has settled beneath the sea and is targeting shipping and human life. The Watsons see evidence of this for themselves when they accompany Bocker to the Caribbean island of Escondida and witness strange mechanical ‘sea tanks’ emerging from the sea. Still, Bocker and his theories get very little support, being ridiculed by the media and ignored by governments…until the situation escalates to a point where it can no longer be ignored by anyone.

I enjoyed this book, although not as much as The Midwich Cuckoos or Chocky, which are my favourites by Wyndham. This is a more traditional alien invasion novel in many ways, although there are some unusual elements – for example, we don’t actually see the aliens and they don’t try to interact with humans or make their motivations clear. I don’t want to go into too much detail and spoil the whole plot, but there’s also an ecological thread to the story, mirroring modern climate change warnings, which makes it feel very relevant, probably more so today than in 1953.

I liked Mike and Phyllis and the way their marriage was portrayed as a true partnership based on mutual love and respect. Phyllis is a strong character and it’s good that, rather than being pushed into a minor role, she plays an important part throughout the novel and Mike may not have survived without her intelligence and resourcefulness. The most interesting thing for me, though, was seeing how governments, scientists and the public react to a threat affecting the whole world. I think we got a taste of this during the Covid pandemic – governments being slow to take action, advice and warnings being ignored, public denial and confusion. But this is where I think the decision to have the whole book narrated by Mike was a bit limiting. I would have liked to have seen the situation from other perspectives, to have heard conversations between various government ministers, to have seen what was happening in communities around the world, to have watched Professor Bocker and his fellow scientists trying to come up with answers.

Overall, this was a fascinating read. I’ve now read all of Wyndham’s major novels, but still have his short stories and his early work published as John Beynon to try.

This is book 7/50 from my third Classics Club list.

The Scholars by MacKenzie Common

6 Comments

Having enjoyed MacKenzie Common’s previous book, The Six Murders of Daphne St Clair, about a ninety-year-old woman looking back on her life as a serial killer, I was interested in trying her new one, another crime novel this time set at Oxford University.

The Scholars follows five students who are awarded Oxford’s coveted Shepherd Scholarship, an award given only to the most exceptional candidates each year, many of whom go on to become world leaders in their fields. This year’s Shepherd Scholars consist of Azelle, a social media influencer from South Africa; Mabel, a young Canadian woman who runs a charity providing clean water to remote villages in India; Hugo, the son of a prominent British politician; and two Americans, Hadley, a history academic who is researching pogroms and riots, and Finn, who is developing an AI grief counselling service.

The five students seem to have very little in common and tensions develop within the group almost immediately. When one of them is killed after falling from a roof, it’s unclear whether or not it was an accident, but rumours quickly begin to circulate that they were pushed – and that one of the other four Shepherd Scholars was responsible. Then it emerges that the dead student has left behind a proposal for a book they were planning to write, featuring four fictional characters with strong resemblances to the four remaining Scholars. If the book had been published, it would have revealed secrets the Scholars have been trying to keep hidden. All four have a strong motive for the murder, then, but which, if any, was the culprit?

The story unfolds from the perspectives of each of the four students, all of whom are unreliable narrators, hiding their pasts from each other and from the reader, until it becomes impossible to keep things secret any longer. Their secrets are terrible ones – the kind that can ruin reputations and careers – and this raises some interesting questions about the integrity of the scholarships, the vetting process and whether candidates should be judged on their current achievements or whether their personal histories should be taken into account. I didn’t like any of the four surviving students and we probably weren’t supposed to, but there were two that I eventually began to warm to slightly and two that I didn’t. I suspected one character of being the killer from early in the book and was correct to suspect them – although a twist right at the end turned everything on its head again!

Although there were things I liked about this book, there were also some things I had problems with. First, once the murder took place I would have expected more involvement from the police and the university, yet the four students just seem to be left to continue their studies as if nothing had happened and even after their secrets are exposed the police still don’t come to speak to them regarding motives etc. The only investigations we see being carried out are by the four students themselves and random people discussing the case on social media. I also felt that although there are some nice descriptions of the city of Oxford, the university setting never really comes to life.

After a slow start, I became drawn into the story, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if there had been even one character I could have liked or connected with in some way. I preferred MacKenzie Common’s previous book, but will still be looking out for her next one.

Thanks to Mountain Leopard Press for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

I’m counting this towards RIPXXI hosted by @perilreaders

The Strangers by Naomi Alderman

8 Comments

A few months after her mother’s death, the author Naomi Alderman tries to keep her grieving father occupied by setting up a camera to take photos of the foxes that visit his garden at night. Examining the photos the next morning, they discover that they’ve captured not only an image of the fox, but also another animal they’re unable to identify. Soon it emerges that other people all over the UK have also seen this new creature – a furry mammal, similar in appearance to a badger but with a flat face and a long nose almost like an elephant’s trunk. People begin referring to it as a mini mammoth, which is then shortened to ‘mimmoth’ and the name sticks.

As sightings of mimmoths spread across the world, scientists, the media and the public try to make sense of this strange new species. Where did the mimmoths come from? Are they as harmless as they seem or could they be a threat to humans? Alderman herself feels an affinity with the mimmoths, finding comfort in their presence, but when she starts to obsess over them, she begins to wonder whether she’s suffering from a condition known as ‘mimmoth psychosis”.

The Strangers is a strange book! It’s part science fiction but also part memoir, in which Alderman uses herself as the narrator and protagonist of the story. Although I’m new to Alderman’s work and I previously knew nothing about her as a person, it seems that she has drawn on incidents and experiences from her own life in the writing of this novel. She talks about the trauma of suffering a series of failed pregnancies, her complex relationship with her mother and learning to feel comfortable with her physical appearance, which I understand are things she has spoken or written about in the past.

I loved reading about the mimmoths. Alderman writes about them in a very convincing, matter-of-fact way that reminded me of John Wyndham’s books where one unusual, unexpected element is introduced into an otherwise normal setting. She goes into a lot of detail describing what the mimmoths look like, how they behave and, most importantly, how humans react to them. There’s a variety of opinions, ranging from those who believe the mimmoths are a nuisance and should be culled to those who welcome them and are happy to live alongside them. I started to wonder whether the book was intended as a political allegory in which the arrival of the mimmoths represents immigration and I think parts of the story could definitely be interpreted in that way.

The ending of the book disappointed me, though. I felt that we didn’t get a satisfying explanation for the mimmoths’ sudden appearance and what their intentions were; some fascinating threads start to emerge throughout the novel as researchers begin to notice some unusual population patterns seemingly connected with the mimmoths, but none of these ideas really seem to go anywhere and fizzle out towards the end when the focus moves almost entirely onto the narrator’s personal experiences of grieving and healing. For me, the memoir elements and the speculative fiction elements didn’t tie together very well and could almost have been two separate books.

I was left feeling let down by the final 20% or so of the book, but everything that came before that was fascinating so I think this was a worthwhile read overall. This was my first Naomi Alderman book and I would be happy to try another one.

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

Historical Musings #96: HWA Crown Awards 2026

8 Comments

Welcome to this month’s post on all things historical fiction!

This month, I want to highlight the books nominated for this year’s HWA Crown Awards. The longlists were announced last Wednesday by the Historical Writers Association (HWA) and you can find all the details here. There are three separate awards – one for debut novels, one for non-fiction and the other (the Gold Crown) for authors who have been previously published. The shortlists will be announced in October and the winner in November. Although I don’t have any plans to try to read all of these books, I thought it would be interesting to look at what, if anything, I’ve read so far from each list and what else I might like to read.

Debut Crown Award

The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain
Finding Ida by Marya Burgess
Splendour by Elizabeth Jane Burnett
The Show Woman by Emma Cowing
The Beheading Game by Rebecca Lehmann
A Mind Prone to Evil by PS Lynch
When Sleeping Women Wake by Emma Pei Yin
All That is Left is Life by Roberta Recchia translated by Antonella Lettieri
Soon Come by Shuba Shand-Baptiste
Blood Caste by Shylashri Shankar
Jamaica Road by Lisa Smith
The Visit by Neil Tully

Surprisingly, I haven’t read any of these! I’ve usually read at least one or two from the list. I’ve heard of The Show Woman and The Beheading Game but the others are all new to me.

Non-fiction Crown Award

Mad Tom’s Rising: The Revolutionary Mystic Sir William Courtenay and the Last Battle Fought on English Soil by Ian Breckon
Stay Alive by Ian Buruma
Deadwood by Peter Cozzens
Queer Georgians by Anthony Delaney
Margaret Beaufort: Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker by Lauren Johnson
The Zorg by Siddharth Kara
Trafalgar: Battle & Aftermath by Paul O’Keeffe
Wreckers: Disaster in the Age of Discovery by Simon Park
Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War by Jane Rogoyska
A Day in the Life of a Gladiator: Those Who Are About To Die by Harry Sidebottom
The Surgeon, The Midwife, The Quack: How to Stay Alive in Renaissance England by Alanna Skuse
A Shellshocked Nation: Britain Between the Wars by Alwyn Turner

I haven’t read any of these either, although that’s less surprising as I read relatively little non-fiction. As I love reading about the Wars of the Roses, I should probably look for the Margaret Beaufort book, but some of the others also sound tempting, particularly Mad Tom’s Rising, Hotel Exile and The Surgeon, The Midwife, The Quack.

Gold Crown Award

The Bookbinder’s Secret by AD Bell
The Tarot Reader of Versailles by Anya Bergman
The Venetian Heretic by Christian Cameron
The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
Nonesuch by Francis Spufford
A Far-flung Life by ML Stedman
The Last Witch by CJ Cooke
A Scrooge Mystery by Andreina Cordani
The Pretender by Jo Harkin
Lion Hearts by Dan Jones
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
The Winter Warriors by Olivier Norek translated by Nick Caistor

I’ve read two of these and enjoyed both, particularly A Far-flung Life which is one of my books of the year so far. I definitely want to read Nonesuch, although I still need to catch up on Spufford’s other recent books as well, and I already need to read The Pretender for my Walter Scott Prize Project. Of the others, I think the CJ Cooke and Anya Bergman appeal to me most.

~

What do you think of these longlists? Have you read any of these books or are there any you would like to try?