My Commonplace Book: March 2025

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

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

~

You never knew in advance if a decision was the right one. All you could do was try to imagine the future and use that to help you make up your mind in a difficult situation, and if you couldn’t imagine the future, well, you had to make up your mind anyway.

Clear by Carys Davies (2024)

~

Fiction, if it is worth anything at all, is about life but it is not life.

The Game is Murder by Hazell Ward (2025)

~

Miniature of Mary Shelley, Reginald Easton c. 1857

Grief marks a person as fire marks a house. You can paint over the soot and repair the boards, but the rooms will be haunted always by the scent of ashes.

Love, Sex & Frankenstein by Caroline Lea (2025)

~

The last winter days went by like weary brokedown soldiers at the end of a war.

The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry (2024)

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One does not have to leave the old world to find a new one. A new one can be built by changing the old one for the better, one act of love at a time, seeding new memories among the old, so that both can bloom together.

The Darkening Globe by Naomi Kelsey (2025)

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Women who adore chocolate to the same degree enjoy a friendship that can’t be shaken.

The Versailles Formula by Nancy Bilyeau (2025)

~

A carved relief of Cleopatra and her son Caesarion at the Temple of Dendera, Egypt, 1st century BC

What survives our mortal death is our ideas, transcribed in art and words and stone, they are the piece of us that remains. But if that can disappear in a single night, consumed by flame? What then for immortality?

Cleopatra by Natasha Solomons (2025)

~

As in life, so in a game of hazard, skill will make something of the worst of throws.

Moonfleet by John Meade Falkner (1898)

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The lesson, said he, be this – we tell tales of what lurks out in the dark so that we need not acknowledge the truth within.

What truth?

That, oftentymes, the fiend be our fault. Do you understand?

Mother Naked by Glen James Brown (2024)

~

Judy Garland as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, 1939

Finally, Annie looked at Emily. ‘You’re right. We must all follow our hearts, even when it scares us, because the most frightening thing of all is to not do the thing we are meant to.’

Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor (2025)

~

Trials, like life, always go on to some sort of ultimate conclusion, however shockingly they unfold along the way.

A Case of Life and Limb by Sally Smith (2025)

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As individuals, none of us matters much. Our joint effort matters, though, when we work together.

Secrets of the Bees by Jane Johnson (2025)

~

Favourite books read in March:

A Case of Life and Limb, Love, Sex & Frankenstein, Mother Naked and The Versailles Formula

Authors read for the first time in March:

Carys Davies, Hazell Ward, Kevin Barry, Naomi Kelsey, John Meade Falkner, Glen James Brown

Countries visited in my March reading:

Scotland, England, USA, Egypt, Switzerland, France

~

Reading notes: I was pleased to be able to take part in both the Reading Ireland and Reading Wales events this month (and read new-to-me authors for both – Kevin Barry and Carys Davies respectively). I also made some progress with my Classics Club list and the Walter Scott Prize longlist, as well as reading some of my upcoming releases from NetGalley. I’ve only posted reviews for a few of these books so far, but the rest will follow, I promise!

In April, I’m looking forward to 1952 Club, which will be hosted by Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Stuck in a Book. I’m already halfway through my first book for that and have some others I’m also hoping to get to. 21-27 April, if you want to join in.

What did you read in March? Do you have any plans for April?

My Commonplace Book: February 2025

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

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

~

Maybe we just have to react the way we want to. Maybe what we feel and how we feel is the right way to feel about losing someone, irrespective of whether it’s sadness or whatever. It’s just us and how we respond to our own feelings. It’s how we are and we can’t help how we are.

The Other People by C.B. Everett (2025)

~

Ah, blogs. The concept now almost seemed quaint. Everyone had a different take on theirs. The blogs came in all sorts of styles: some simple diaries, some hobby sites, others outlets for political rants…

Strange Pictures by Uketsu tr. Jim Rion (2022)

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Knights obey, and if they don’t, they’re not real knights, and they don’t have honour, and the only thing in the world that’s ever really yours is your honour.

The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley (2025)

~

Bamburgh Castle

Hannah was taken aback by her stepmother’s vehemence. ‘All of history is interpretation to one degree or another,’ she said as mildly as she could, ‘and often there is truth at the heart of these myths.’

The Secrets of the Rose by Nicola Cornick (2025)

~

Truth is merely an abstract concept after all, she muses. Everyone has a different version of it.

The Eights by Joanna Miller (2025)

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‘If there is one thing which stands out more than another in this world – and of course,’ said Derek, ‘one thing always does stand out more than another – it is that there are some things which you cannot explain to a policeman.’

Four Days’ Wonder by A.A. Milne (1933)

~

Nothing has done more damage to modern detective fiction than the invention of the internet. Forget Sherlock Holmes and his ratiocination or Hercule Poirot’s little grey cells. We have all the information in the world at our fingertips and there’s no longer any need for deduction.

Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz (2025)

~

Hand-carved carousel horse by Allan Herschell Company

Perhaps life is like that, Maisie thinks, perhaps life is like a carousel – it has ups and downs but it eventually comes full circle.

The Midnight Carousel by Fiza Saeed McLynn (2025)

~

‘Aunt Jane,’ said Raymond, looking at her curiously, ‘how do you do it? You have lived such a peaceful life and yet nothing seems to surprise you.’

‘I always find one thing very like another in this world,’ said Miss Marple.

The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie (1932)

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There is no perfect ending. There are an infinite number of endings.

The Queen and the Countess by Anne O’Brien (2025)

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From the doomed dying world man had ruined, I seemed to catch sight of this other one, new, infinitely alive, and of boundless potential.

Ice by Anna Kavan (1967)

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Corfu

Corfu light was ineffable, full of shivery tricks that made you see what could not be there, made you unable to see what was there, with an enchantment that meant you heard things too.

The Greek House by Dinah Jefferies (2025)

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‘The truth is like a water creature,’ he continued. ‘Too large for any single man to catch. He can take hold of one tentacle, or a silver tail, or a fin, but he’ll never catch the whole creature, not on his own.’

The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis (2025)

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His answer was to create the bicycling detective. This was a two-fold publicity tactic: he had something other agencies did not – not just a lady detective, but a mobile one; and he was creating the impression of a technologically advanced agency using relatively new forms of transport rather than going out on foot. It was novel, but subject to hyperbole, as Slater referred to an ‘army’ of cycling lady detectives in his adverts, which is unlikely.

Britain’s Greatest Private Detective by Nell Darby (2025)

~

Favourite books read in February:

The Midnight Carousel, Marble Hall Murders, Strange Pictures and Four Days’ Wonder

Places visited in my February reading:

England, Japan, Greece, France, USA, Canary Islands

Authors read for the first time in February:

C.B. Everett, Uketsu, Fiza Saeed McLynn, Anna Kavan, Nell Darby, Xenobe Purvis

~

Reading notes: February seems to have been a very quick month, but it has also been a productive one for me in terms of reading. I managed to contribute three reviews to #ReadIndies month, joined in with the Read Christie challenge and read most of my NetGalley books for March and April. I haven’t posted many reviews, but do have most of them written and scheduled.

In March, I’m hoping to read at least one book each for Reading Ireland Month and Reading Wales Month. I would also like to make some progress with the Walter Scott Prize longlist which was announced a few weeks ago (some of the books on the list are by Welsh or Irish authors, which is perfect).

What did you read in February? Do you have any plans for March?

My Commonplace Book: January 2025

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

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

~

When freedoms are forbidden, their enjoyment becomes an especially delicious pleasure.

The Ghosts of Rome by Joseph O’Connor (2025)

~

‘It’s a terrible thing you’ve lived through,’ she said. ‘And you won’t forget it easily. Perhaps you won’t forget it ever. But we have a saying in Swedish: you cannot prevent the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can stop them from nesting in your hair.’

The Lost Passenger by Frances Quinn (2025)

~

Johannes Vermeer – Woman in blue reading a letter

It is a quiet painting – no bells ring. It is quiet not just because the young woman is reading, but quiet in its colours. There are no shouting bright orange carpets or loud lemon-yellow bodices or flaming red dresses that scream. Everything is muted.

Woman in Blue by Douglas Bruton (2025)

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Biography and good novels were his favourite reading, a discovery of his own as he grew up since he came from a family who only read if they were ill in bed. But for him such books helped to satisfy the acute curiosity about what people did and why they did it that made him a notable detective.

Tea on Sunday by Lettice Cooper (1973)

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Most people just want an easy life. It’s unsettling when someone starts pulling apart the stories we’ve stitched together, the things we tell ourselves for comfort.

The Sirens by Emilia Hart (2025)

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Japanese embroidered Temari balls

“I’m not saying he was a bad man, but when you withdraw from the world like that, you end up closing in on yourself. Take, for example, the stories that everybody talks about, only then to forget them the very next day. Well, he held on to them, you see, deep inside himself.”

The Little Sparrow Murders by Seishi Yokomizo (1959)

~

She wonders when it became so difficult to find answers. Or has the truth always come hard won? People rarely say what they mean, relationships are fraught with misunderstandings, who can really be objective? How can she even hope to pinpoint motives and actions, drives and desires when they are all so muddled and slippery, even in the best of us? Who among us really knows our own heart, let alone someone else’s?

Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd (2025)

~

‘No, no,’ says Lou, and her top hat shakes in the moonlight. ‘Tastes can develop, certainly, but at any given time, one’s opinion on art is certainly valid. ‘Tis the point of art to stir us whether we have studied paintings for fifty years or are looking upon our first painting. Be confident in your tastes, Alice. But do be open to the notion that they are wilful and unpredictable and will almost certainly change.’

The Portrait Artist by Dani Heywood-Lonsdale (2025)

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The Tuatha Dé Danann as depicted in John Duncan’s Riders of the Sidhe (1911)

I asked him later if he wanted to know how and when he would die. He laughed and said, ‘Sure, stories don’t die.’ But they do. They die and they are forgotten and new stories take their place, just as kings follow kings.

The Morrigan by Kim Curran (2025)

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To think of anything else except the way things are is just to live in a world of the imagination – fine for some things but not for real life. Don’t you agree?

This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith (1960)

~

Favourite books read in January:

This Sweet Sickness, Woman in Blue and The Lost Passenger

Authors read for the first time in January:

Lettice Cooper, Dani Heywood-Lonsdale, Kim Curran

Places visited in my January reading:

Italy, Vatican City, England, Australia, Netherlands, Japan, Ireland, USA

~

January reading notes: This was a good start to the year for me, reading-wise. Most of the books I’ve read are NetGalley books being released over the next few months, so I’ll be posting my reviews around the publication dates. I also managed to read a book for the Japanese Literature Challenge and may even have time to fit in another one in February! Another event I’m hoping to join in with in February is #ReadIndies hosted by Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Lizzy’s Literary Life. I’m also planning to participate in #ReadChristie2025, as next month’s book, The Thirteen Problems, is one I haven’t read yet.

How was your January? Do you have any plans for your February reading?

My Commonplace Book: December 2024

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

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

~

“That,” said Lazare, “is a pity. Have you ever reflected, Miss Sally, how much wasted energy would be saved if people would do at the beginning what, in the end, they will certainly have to do.”

The Red Lacquer Case by Patricia Wentworth (1924)

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Life was a puzzle box. It was made up of innumerable little drawers – some locked, some not, with glinting clasps and metal teeth. Someone was playing a game with her.

The Queen of Fives by Alex Hay (2025)

~

Interior of the Morgan Library, New York

But at his core, Sean was captivated by Helen as no one else had ever been, and he coaxed from her all that was special. The most important thing to her was that he accepted her, just as she was.

The Ghost of Madison Avenue by Nancy Bilyeau (2019)

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It reminded her that you can throw away the rules of life and let your creative instinct take over; that you can put strange, unfitting parts together and create something atypical but beautiful, something truly unique.

Carrion Crow by Heather Parry (2025)

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“We’ve got to take our chance. But if we don’t, it may never come again. Not like this. If we love one another, nothing else matters. Nothing. Get that straight. Love is something which you can’t order on a plate. It just serves itself – or doesn’t – whether you’re German or American. We must just take it – it may never be offered us again.”

A House on the Rhine by Frances Faviell (1955)

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Guillemot eggs

Each bird laid an egg that was unlike any other that had ever been laid by any other guillemot in history. In the high-density fields of the North Yorkshire cliffs, where birds might roost at the rate of fifty pairs to a square yard, it was required that a bird knew exactly which egg was theirs, so that it didn’t end up warming one six inches to the left, or an inch to the right.

The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer (2025)

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My peers made arguments aplenty in their lilting Latin platitudes: that dreams lack reason, which is the truth of all matters. That dreams defy logic, which is the root of all things. That in dreaming, we surrender our enlightened mindfulness to baser, animalistic instincts and, in doing so, negate the essence of our humanity. I listened to the arguments unconvinced, for it often seemed to me that I was more human for dreaming.

The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap (2025)

~

“But you know, my dear,” said Poirot gently, “people are never like what you remember them. You make them as the years go by, more and more the way you wish them to be, and as you think you remember them. If you want to remember them as agreeable and gay and handsome, you make them far more so than they actually were.”

Third Girl by Agatha Christie (1966)

~

Canaries, St Lucia

Her enthusiasm always surprised Agnes. ‘How you so, Margaret? You always happy and you have so much energy I wish I had.’

‘My mother always told me life don’t wait for no one. You have to make it yourself.’

Island Song by Pepsi Demacque-Crockett (2025)

~

Also, I got just gently interested in history. I said to the history teacher, Miss Nelson, ‘The reason I like this subject is because everything in it is safely in the past, so I don’t have to get worked up and worried about it,’ and she replied that she thought this was ‘a very odd and ignorant attitude to have and really not true at all.’

Absolutely and Forever by Rose Tremain (2023)

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‘Sofi!’ There is an unusual edge to her tone and she darts a look at my drawing. ‘Do not speak so when you only see half the story. Why do you always fixate on circumstances that do not concern you, when you could be improving your own?’

The Woman in the Wallpaper by Lora Jones (2025)

~

Favourite books read in December:

The Impossible Thing, The Resurrectionist and Island Song

Authors read for the first time in December:

Heather Parry, A. Rae Dunlap, Lora Jones, Pepsi Demacque-Crockett

Countries visited in my December reading:

England, Scotland, Germany, Wales, USA, France, St Lucia

~

Reading notes: I took part in Dean Street December this month, reading two very different books published by Dean Street Press – The Red Lacquer Case and A House on the Rhine. As you can see, I’ve also been reading some of the books on my NetGalley shelf with publication dates in January and February, which I’ll be reviewing nearer the time.

In January, I’m hoping to read something for Japanese Literature Month but otherwise I’m just looking forward to starting a fresh new year of reading!

What did you read in December? Do you have any plans for your January reading?

Happy New Year!

My Commonplace Book: November 2024

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

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

~

‘I don’t study paintings from a technical viewpoint, because I don’t know how. I believe that a painting should be a work of beauty, something that you never cease wanting to look at. With too much knowledge you can find fault with each one and it takes away the sheer joy.’

The Hidden Girl by Lucinda Riley (2024)

~

‘Maybe his conscience got to him,’ suggests Aaron.

‘Maybe,’ I agree. ‘It would be so much easier to go through life if you didn’t have one, don’t you think?’

Fire by John Boyne (2024)

~

There are no words. I cannot describe what happened to my brain. I can only tell my feelings, which never stop. Feelings are beyond words; beyond action; beyond reason. They are the only true and constant indicators we ever have in this cruel life.

What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust by Alan Bradley (2024)

~

Piazza Maggiore, Bologna

What I do know is that all happiness had been torn from within me, leaving an open wound. But an open wound needs to be cauterised and I have become an adept surgeon, worthy of the medical school at the city’s university. Recollections serve no purpose and I shook my head to chase them away.

City of Silk by Glennis Virgo (2024)

~

But lies are so intriguing, aren’t they? Why people tell them, how little they think through the consequences, how desperate they become when in danger of being found out. To my mind, lies are second only to secrets, and those I find deeply exciting.

The Neighbour’s Secret by Sharon Bolton (2024)

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‘I’ve heard it all before, officer,’ she says sadly to you. ‘When you get to my age, you lose faith in the authorities. Justice is for the rich and powerful.’

Murder in Tinseltown by Max Nightingale (2024)

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‘The heart of a woman is a strange thing,’ wrote Fryn. ‘Human beings, especially women, are bound not only by money, by loneliness, but by the hope that they are needed.’

The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place by Kate Summerscale (2024)

~

Portrait of Cassandra by Evelyn de Morgan, 1898

Ordinary people. She’d forgotten how often he uses that phrase, always with the same…well, what is it, exactly? Curiosity? Fascination? As if ‘ordinary people’ were some kind of exotic species you’d be lucky to spot twice in a lifetime.

The Voyage Home by Pat Barker (2024)

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But few human heads are capable of remaining cool under excitement. Those who are not present think how stupid must have been those who were; those who are reflect afterwards how simple it would have been to do this, that, or the other.

The Dancing Partner by Jerome K. Jerome, from Deadly Dolls: Midnight Tales of Uncanny Playthings (2024)

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I’ve seen photographs of her, naturally, but when you’re young you’re not storing away memories or impressions. Life just washes over you – it happens, uncommented on.

Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd (2024)

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“We are strangers,” Peter said darkly. “Whom do we know? One – if you’re lucky. Not many more. Looks like we’ve got to learn how we can trust each other. How we can tell…How can we dare…Everything rests on trust between strangers. Everything else is a house of cards.”

Mischief by Charlotte Armstrong (1950)

~

Joan of Kent

Jeanette looked round, seeing their environment with new eyes. ‘You have a veritable store of tales and legends,’ she said.

‘Everyone should. Stories stir men’s minds, hearts and souls until they become part of it. And then they live in the tale and the tale lives in them – and both become immortal.’

The Royal Rebel by Elizabeth Chadwick (2024)

~

Eleanor learned another lesson – and that is that the vast majority of people can’t see what’s in front of them. They say they never forget a face, but the same face without makeup, a different setting? John – or Mr Rogers or whoever he really was – was right. It’s easy to become an entirely new person. One only needs audacity…

Poor Girls by Clare Whitfield (2024)

~

‘But drawing is one of the best things in the world! I can’t think how you can live in London and not want to draw! Everything is so beautiful and so interesting I could be drawing for ever. And it is so useful; it helps you to remember what you have seen.’

Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken (1964)

~

Favourite book read in November:

Deadly Dolls: Midnight Tales of Uncanny Playthings

Places visited in my November reading:

England, USA, Italy, Germany, Spain, Greece, France

Authors read for the first time in November:

Glennis Virgo, Charlotte Armstrong, Clare Whitfield, Max Nightingale, Adèle Geras, Brian Aldiss, Camilla Grudova, Frederick E. Smith, Robert Aickman, Vernon Lee, Ysabelle Cheung

~

Reading notes: November was an excellent month of reading for me. I was able to participate in Novellas in November, Witch Week and Nonfiction November, although I didn’t manage to join in with the other events taking place this month (but I’m halfway through a Margaret Atwood book I picked up for Margaret Atwood Reading Month). Instead, I concentrated on catching up with the books on my NetGalley shelf and am now all up to date for 2024, although I do have some January 2025 releases to read soon.

I have some books lined up for Liz’s Dean Street December, which begins tomorrow, and I’ve already started reading one of them. Also in December, I’ll be posting my annual list of historical fiction to look out for in 2025 as well as choosing my books of the year for 2024!

What did you read in November? Do you have any plans for your December reading?

My Commonplace Book: October 2024

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.

~

‘Yet beautiful words are the surest way past science to the real truth of life, just as beautiful paintings are,’ Blake said, watching as I began to pick up the hothouse lilies one by one, trim their stems and put them in the silver vase.

The Bells of Westminster by Leonora Nattrass (2024)

~

I shook off my moment of melancholy and determined not to think of loss. Life held sadness for us all, but there was joy too, and being of an optimistic nature, I would always choose enjoyment over sorrow.

The Lost Queen by Carol McGrath (2024)

~

Minotaur in the Labyrinth (engraving from the Medici Collection, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence)

“The evaluation of any work of fiction is to a large extent based on one’s personal preferences. I suggest we all frankly share our opinions, and from there we can discuss fully each other’s views and arrive at a joint conclusion.”

The Labyrinth House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji (1988)

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She wore successive states of mind like layers of petticoats picked up and put on at random, so that it was a matter of chance which one was innermost and which would show when she hitched her skirt.

God is an Englishman by RF Delderfield (1970)

~

That evening, in a whirlwind of spite, I turned out our office drawers for more paper to light the fire. Leadership Training Event, Delegation Welcome Pack, Change Management and Synergy Workshops. Was this all we’d done with our lives? It was like mining through layers of igneous rock. If I dug deep enough, perhaps I would get to the core, to the heart of the matter?

The Significance of Swans by Rhiannon Lewis (2024)

~

The Rio dei Vetrai, Murano (photo by Wittylama)

It was like that for some: coming out of quarantine was almost harder than being in it, When locked in, there were few decisions to make: all you could do was to wait and keep yourself alive in the meantime. Once out, suddenly there was freedom, and with it, choices.

The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier (2024)

~

Hadn’t she been trying to find him? Trying to find the love and closeness that had been missing between them? True, the way she had chosen to look for it was a twisted, dishonest way; childish, and childishly cruel. She would never look that way again. But there were other ways…honest, adult ways…shining, sunlit ways, strewn with bright canvases, with sawdust and splashes of paint…with laughter and gay discussion far into the night…

Don’t Go to Sleep in the Dark by Celia Fremlin (1970)

~

Politicians don’t have time to look at the world they’re living in. They see the country they’re living in and they see it as one vast electoral platform. That’s quite enough to put on their plates for the time being. They do things which they honestly believe will make things better and then they’re surprised when they don’t make things better because they’re not the things that people want to have.

Passenger to Frankfurt by Agatha Christie (1970)

~

Favourite books read in October:

God is an Englishman and Don’t Go to Sleep in the Dark

Authors read for the first time in October:

None this month

Places visited in my October reading:

England, Wales, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Holy Land

~

Reading notes: Apart from the Christie, which was a big disappointment, I enjoyed everything else I read this month. I was pleased to be able to take part in 1970 Club and to read a few more books for this year’s RIP challenge (I managed six in total during September and October). Also this month I celebrated my 15th blog birthday!

November is the busiest month in the book blogging calendar. Nonfiction November is already underway, as is Witch Week, which focuses on Joan Aiken’s work this year. There’s also Novellas in November, SciFi Month, German Literature Month, Margaret Atwood Reading Month and Norway in November – I hope I haven’t missed anything! Will I be able to take part in all of these? I doubt it, but I do have books lined up for at least some of them.

How was your October reading? What do you have planned for November?

My Commonplace Book: September 2024

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.

~

“A man is responsible for his deeds, and not just the deeds, but for the consequences of those deeds, as well.”

Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie (1958)

~

Venetia Stanley, c. 1914

Yet there was no such thing in politics as true friendship. There could never be absolute trust, not when one was Prime Minister.

Precipice by Robert Harris (2024)

~

She remembered something her revered German teacher at Oxford, Cecil Fairfax, liked to say. That there were two kinds of people, those who made something of their life and those to whom life merely happened.

Midnight in Vienna by Jane Thynne (2024)

~

Had she but known it, it was the happiest time of her life. If there were only some guide near us all, to cry halt when we reach the summit of our joy, to say, ‘Pause here, do not waste time looking back, do not try to rush forward, for there is nothing better to come,’ how different life might be!

Tales Accursed: A Folk Horror Anthology selected by Richard Wells (2024)
Quote from The Country-Side by Elinor Mordaunt (1917)

~

Binaural microphone

The speaker said life is about change. That’s how we grow and develop, but to change we have to let go of the past. Most of us, she said, are bad at this, especially when a situation that was good turns bad. We cling to the past and deny the need for change, telling ourselves everything is as fine as it ever was, when it isn’t.

The Examiner by Janice Hallett (2024)

~

Favourite books read in September:

The Examiner, Precipice and Midnight in Vienna

Authors read for the first time in September:

Jane Thynne, Fiona Macleod, AC Benson, Algernon Blackwood, Elinor Mordaunt, Ulric Daubeny, Margery Lawrence, MR James, Eleanor Scott, Frederick Cowles, HR Wakefield, William Croft Dickinson, LTC Rolt

Places visited in my September reading:

England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Austria

~

Reading notes: I didn’t finish many books this month, for various reasons, but I enjoyed most of what I did read and that’s more important. I also have a long list of new-to-me authors read for the first time this month, thanks to the short story anthology Tales Accursed. As you can see, I’m behind with reviews again but will try to catch up with those in October. Also in October, I will be joining in with 1970 Club hosted by Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Stuck in a Book, and have already started my first book for that event.

How was your September? What will you be reading in October?