And the Classics Club Spin number is…

May 20, 201322 Comments

Number 6!

Last week I decided to take part in the Classics Club Spin. The rules were simple – list twenty books from your Classics Club list, number them 1 to 20, and the number announced today (Monday) represents the book you have to read during May and June.

The book at #6 on my list is:

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

There were other books on my list that I was looking forward to more, but I’m quite happy with this one, I think. I haven’t read anything by Stella Gibbons yet and have been wanting to for years!

Have you read it? Did you enjoy it?

If you participated too, I hope the Spin has selected a great book for you.

Another Classics Club Spin!

May 14, 201330 Comments

It’s time for another Classics Club Spin!

Here are the rules:

* List any twenty books you have left to read from your Classics Club list.
* Number them from 1 to 20.
* Next Monday a number will be chosen.
* This is the book you need to read in May and June!

And here is my Spin List:

Five books I’ve been looking forward to reading:

1. Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier
2. Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
3. The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte M. Yonge
4. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
5. Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton

Five books from the 20th century:

6. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
7. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
8. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
9. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
10. The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

Five long Victorian books:

11. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
12. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
13. Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
14. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
15. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

Five picked completely at random:

16. The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
17. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
18. The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal
19. The Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott
20. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Now I have to wait until Monday to find out what I’ll be reading…

The Classics Spin!

February 16, 2013February 19, 201323 Comments

When this new Classics Club game was announced a few days ago I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to join in or not, but in the end I couldn’t resist. Here are the rules:

Pick twenty books that you’ve got left to read from your Classics Club List.
Try to challenge yourself: list five you are dreading/hesitant to read, five you can’t WAIT to read, five you are neutral about, and five free choice (favorite author, rereads, ancients — whatever you choose.)
Post that list, numbered 1-20, on your blog by next Monday.
Monday morning, we’ll announce a number from 1-20. Go to the list of twenty books you posted, and select the book that corresponds to the number we announce.
The challenge is to read that book by April 1

And here is my list:

Five books I’m looking forward to reading:

1. The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte M. Yonge
2. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
3. Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
4. Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas
5. Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier

Five books I’ve been hesitant to read:

6. The Odyssey by Homer
7. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
8. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
9. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
10. Washington Square by Henry James

Five Victorian books

11. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
12. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
13. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
14. Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
15. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

Five from the twentieth century:

16. The Painted Veil by W Somerset Maugham
17. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
18. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
19. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
20. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Now I just have to wait for Monday to find out which book I’ll be reading!

UPDATE: Monday 18th February 2013

So the number has been announced and I will be reading…

#14 – Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon!

I’m very happy with this as it’s a book I’ve been wanting to read for a long time and as I loved the other two Braddon books I’ve read (Lady Audley’s Secret and The Doctor’s Wife) I’m expecting to enjoy this one too.

Best Books of 2012

December 28, 2012December 28, 201225 Comments

It’s that time of year again when I look back at the best books I’ve read over the last twelve months. And unlike last year, when I had so much difficulty narrowing down my choices, this year I found it very easy…

My favourite books of the year

The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett

Not one book but six: The Game of Kings, Queens’ Play, The Disorderly Knights, Pawn in Frankincense, The Ringed Castle and Checkmate. I don’t think anyone who has been following my blog all year will be surprised to see this series at the top of my list!

From my review of the final book, Checkmate: For anyone who has yet to read these books, I can promise you that although they’re not the easiest of reads, it’s definitely worth making the effort and getting to know Francis Crawford of Lymond, one of the most complex, charismatic, fascinating characters you’re ever likely to meet in literature. Working through the six books of the Lymond Chronicles has been one of the greatest experiences in my lifetime of reading.

The House of Niccolò by Dorothy Dunnett

Again I’m including six books here: Niccolò Rising, The Spring of the Ram, Race of Scorpions, Scales of Gold, The Unicorn Hunt and To Lie with Lions. There are actually eight in the series, but I haven’t finished Caprice and Rondo yet and still need to read Gemini.

From my review of The Spring of the Ram: One of the things I love about Dorothy Dunnett’s books is that they give me an opportunity to learn about people and places I might never have known anything about otherwise. Dunnett’s novels open up whole new worlds, focusing on periods of history and geographical locations that are usually ignored in historical fiction.

Other books I enjoyed this year

Here Be Dragons by Sharon Penman

From my review: Here Be Dragons is the first in Penman’s Welsh Princes trilogy and follows the lives of King John’s daughter, Joanna, and her Welsh husband, Llewelyn ab Iorweth (known as Llewelyn the Great)…The relationship between Joanna and Llewellyn forms a big part of the plot, but that’s not all this book is about. As well as romance, the story also includes political intrigue, battles, feuds, rivalry between brothers, betrayal and forgiveness.

Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

From my review: From the wonderful opening line of this 1921 novel by Rafael Sabatini (“He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad”) I could tell I was going to love Scaramouche! And I did – it’s one of the best books I’ve read so far this year.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

From my review: It was good to read a novel that showed Cromwell not as a villain, but as an intelligent, charismatic, complex human being with both positive and negative qualities…Every little piece of information Mantel gives us, however trivial it may seem, helps to slowly build a full and vivid picture of daily 16th century life.

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

From my review: A quick read and lots of fun too: a combination of swashbuckling adventure story, historical fiction and romance. It’s one of those novels where you sit down planning to just read one or two chapters and before you know it you’re halfway through the book!

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

From my review: What makes this book so disturbing is that the type of community Atwood is writing about is not completely far-fetched or implausible. Many of the things she describes are things that have actually happened in some part of the world at some time in the past, or that might even still be happening at this moment, and so the depiction of Gilead is terrifyingly believable.

The Master of Verona by David Blixt

I finished reading this book on Christmas Eve, just in time for it to make an appearance on this list. I haven’t had a chance to post my thoughts on it yet, but I loved it and am looking forward to reading the sequel.

And these deserve a special mention too:

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye
The Sultan’s Wife by Jane Johnson
The Conductor by Sarah Quigley
Madensky Square by Eva Ibbotson

Have you read any of these? What are your favourite books of the year?

September Reading Summary

October 1, 20128 Comments

I never know how to begin writing these monthly posts, so without further ado I’ll just go straight into my summary of September’s reading.

I started the month with the new Philippa Gregory book, The Kingmaker’s Daughter, fourth in her Cousins’ War series, telling the story of the Wars of the Roses through the eyes of some of the important female figures from the period. This one is narrated by Anne Neville, daughter of the Earl of Warwick and wife of Richard III. Not my favourite book in the series, but still one that I enjoyed reading.

I was already familiar with Anne Neville’s story before reading The Kingmaker’s Daughter, but I also read two books in September that introduced me to some historical figures I knew little or nothing about. In The Conductor by Sarah Quigley I met the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich and learned about the circumstances that surrounded the composition of his Leningrad Symphony. And in Melanie Benjamin’s The Autobiography of Mrs Tom Thumb I found out what life was like for Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump, who measured only two feet eight inches tall.

I also read three books for R.I.P. VII. The first was The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. I haven’t had time to write about the other two yet: The Quarry by Johan Theorin and The Seance by John Harwood. The Seance, which felt like a Victorian sensation novel, was a book I had expected to enjoy and I did, though I didn’t like it quite as much as John Harwood’s other book, The Ghost Writer. The Quarry is the third in a planned quartet of crime novels set on the Swedish island of Oland, but although I loved the first two in the series, this one was a slight disappointment – I’ll explain why when I post my review.

Back to historical fiction, and another book I still need to post my thoughts on is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I started reading it in August as part of a readalong, but fell behind with the schedule after the first couple of weeks. I did still manage to finish it before the end of September and was very impressed. I can see exactly why it has been so successful. Finally, anyone who has been following my blog for a while will know that I’m currently working my way through Dorothy Dunnett’s House of Niccolo series. Yesterday I finished the fourth in the series, Scales of Gold, and although I did enjoy the previous three, this one was the best so far for many reasons, not least the wonderful Timbuktu setting and the shocking cliffhanger ending!

Newly acquired books

The Unicorn Hunt by Dorothy Dunnett
The English Monster by Lloyd Shepherd
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The Queen’s Promise by Lyn Andrews

Apart from the top one, which I bought myself so I can continue with the House of Niccolo, the other three are review copies.

Clarissa Group Read

I haven’t posted any updates on my progress with the group read of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa since March, but I am still reading it and am finally beginning to catch up after coming close to abandoning it earlier in the year. I’m reading the Kindle version which is in nine volumes and have just started volume seven, so I think I will probably be able to finish it before the end of December as scheduled.

I hope you all had a good September and enjoy your reading in October!

August Reading Summary

September 2, 2012September 2, 201210 Comments

Now that September’s here it’s time to look back at my August reading. I read eight books, which seems to have been about average for me this year.

I started the month with Seventy-Seven Clocks by Christopher Fowler. I’m slowly working through Fowler’s Bryant and May mysteries and this was the third in the series. My second book in August was In a Treacherous Court, a historical fiction novel by Michelle Diener which introduced me to two little-known characters of the Tudor period – Susanna Horenbout and John Parker. I enjoyed it, although it was a very light read. However, my desire for something deeper and more complex was satisfied by Race of Scorpions, the third book in Dorothy Dunnett’s House of Niccolo series. This was one of my two favourite books of the month – the other was The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy which I loved and wished I hadn’t waited so long to read!

I also re-read Emma by Jane Austen and was pleased to find that I enjoyed it much more than I did the first time I read it! And then I read The Dog Stars by Peter Heller, a post-apocalyptic novel – definitely not the type of book I usually choose to read, so it was an interesting experience! Finally, in the last week of August I decided to read two of the shorter books on my Classics Club list, The Princess of Cleves by Madame de Lafayette and The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope. As usual, I have not had time to post my thoughts on all of these books but will try to do so within the next few weeks.

New book arrivals

Here are the books I’ve acquired in August:

Scales of Gold by Dorothy Dunnett
The Autobiography of Mrs Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin
The Nightingale Girls by Donna Douglas
Jasmine Nights by Julia Gregson
The Conductor by Sarah Quigley
Archipelago by Monique Roffey
The Kingmaker’s Daughter by Philippa Gregory

I’m still trying not to buy any new books so most of the above are review copies, apart from Scales of Gold. Have you read any of them?

Did you have a good August? What are you hoping to read in September?

July Reading Summary

July 31, 201210 Comments

July has been a good reading month for me – I’ve read eight books and enjoyed most of them – but not a good blogging month! I’ve only had time to write about three of the books I read, so I’ll have to catch up with the others in August.

Here are the three I’ve posted about:

Sylvia’s Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart
River of Destiny by Barbara Erskine

And here are the other books I’ve read this month. I’ll be posting my thoughts on them soon, I promise!

The Second Empress by Michelle Moran
To Defy a King by Elizabeth Chadwick
Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson
In Her Shadow by Louise Douglas
The Spring of the Ram by Dorothy Dunnett

New Book Arrivals

As I can never seem to find time to highlight my newly acquired books, I thought it might be a good idea to incorporate them into my monthly summary posts. Here are some I’ve bought or received in the last couple of weeks (titles link to the Goodreads synopsis for each book):

The Queen’s Confidante by Karen Harper – I requested this through Amazon Vine as I had enjoyed Karen Harper’s last two books. This one sounds a bit different to the usual Tudor novels, focusing on the death of Henry VIII’s brother, Prince Arthur, and the mystery of the Princes in the Tower.
In a Treacherous Court by Michelle Diener – Review copy from Simon & Schuster. I haven’t heard anything about this book or author but it sounds like another interesting historical fiction novel.
Race of Scorpions by Dorothy Dunnett – Third in the House of Niccolo series. I bought this for myself so I would have it ready for when I finished reading The Spring of the Ram.
Goodbye for Now by Laurie Frankel – Review copy from Headline. Another book I knew nothing about, but I’m intrigued by the synopsis.
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller – Another review copy from Headline. This is a post-apocalyptic novel, not one of my favourite genres but I’ll give it a try.

I don’t really have many plans for my reading in August, but I’m intending to take part in the Austen in August event hosted by Adam of Roof Beam Reader. I’ve already read all of Jane Austen’s novels, but I want to read Emma again as it was the only one I didn’t enjoy the first time and I would like to give it another chance.