Claire's book list 2013

[bobblybear]

Great reviews!   I've added Newes from the Dead to my wishlist. It sounds like the kind of book I'd enjoy.

[poppyshake]

Thank you, thank you, thank you Kay for giving me this book! I absolutely loved it.

I am very happy indeed        so glad you enjoyed it Claire .. I will keep a look out for the other one too

As bobbs said great reviews .. and I also love the sound of Newes from the Dead .. though the synopsis made me shiver a bit  

[chesilbeach]

Fibber in the Heat by Miles Jupp
 
Synopsis: (from amazon.co.uk)
Fanatical about cricket since he was a boy, Miles Jupp would do anything to see his heroes play. But perhaps deciding to bluff his way into the press corps during England's Test series in India wasn't his best idea.
 
By claiming to be the cricket correspondent for BBC Scotland and getting a job with the (Welsh) Western Mail, Miles lands the press pass that will surely be the ticket to his dreams. Soon, he finds himself in cricket heaven - drinking with David Gower and Beefy, sharing bar room banter with Nasser Hussain and swapping diarrhoea stories with the Test Match Special team. Amazing!
 
But struggling in the heat under the burden of his own fibs, reality soon catches up with Miles as - like a cricket-obsessed Boot from Evelyn Waugh's Scoop - he bumbles from one disaster to the next. A joyous, charming, yet cautionary tale, Fibber in the Heat is for anyone who's ever dreamt about doing nothing but watching cricket all day long.
 
Review:
As we're slap bang in the middle of the Ashes, it seemed like a great time to read this cricketing memoir from comedian Miles Jupp.  We saw this book in The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop in Tetbury a little while back, and as we both love cricket, thought it would be a good read for both of us.  OH nabbed it as soon as we got home, and he's not the fastest reader in the world, so it was a couple of weeks before I could get my hands on it, but when I did, it was worth the wait.
 
From how his love of cricket developed, to how he ended up trying his hand at being a cricket correspondent for the England tour of India in 2006, the book is not just about cricket, but about how the dream job is perhaps not all it seems, why meeting your heroes is not always what you'd hoped, and how bluffing your way into a situation can lead to worry, embarrassment and frustration.
 
But, for a England cricket fan, it is an absolute joy.  Jupp must be a similar age to me, and some of his heroes and his greatest England moments are ones I know and remember, and it was fascinating to get an insight into what goes on among the press corps following an overseas tour.  It was a warm, affectionate, funny and wry look at cricket and I would highly recommend it for any England cricket fan.

Edited August 11, 2013 by chesilbeach

[chesilbeach]

Greenery Street by Denis Mackail

 

Synopsis: (from amazon.co.uk)

Ian and Felicity are shown as they arrive at 23 Greenery Street, an undisguised Walpole Street in Chelsea. Their uneventful but always interesting everyday life is the main subject of a novel that evokes the charmingly contented and timeless while managing to be both funny and profound about human relations.

 

Review:

Another present from Kay, and another fabulous book. We read it over the read-a-thon weekend, and I enjoyed it immensely. The story is narrated by Greenery Street itself, as if the houses draw in young couples just starting out in marriage, but who will grow out of the house within a few years, but in the mean time, they are in the thrall of the street itself. Set in the 1920s, it follows the story of Ian and Felicity from their engagement and through their first year of marriage in their Greenery Street home.

 

The book is a lovely slice of life from the upper middle class of the time, told with wit and affection for the characters, and a cheeky mild lampooning of some of their ideals of marriage and life and the all-knowing way that young people often have. Although nothing major happens in their lives, there is enough of the everyday crises and encounters to keep it moving along at a lickety-split pace.

 

As this was a Persephone book, it will come off my challenge list, but more importantly, it's helped keep up the 100% record of the number of their books I've read that I've enjoyed. I wouldn't say it's my favourite of theirs, but it's certainly pretty near the top.

[chesilbeach]

Lady Into Fox by David Garnett

 

Synopsis: (from amazon.co.uk)

On walk in an Oxfordshire forest, a beloved wife is unaccountably transformed into a fox. Written in 1922 by a member of the Bloomsbury Group, this modern folktale combines humour, fantasy, allegory, and realism in a portrait of a husband's devotion and a woman's struggle to maintain her humanity.

 

Review:

I borrowed this book from Kay, as her review of it was intriguing, and the novella itself is an intriguing little tome too. I imagine it was quite unusual for its time, and what we would nowadays probably call magical realism. It's exactly what it says in the synopsis, the tale of a young woman who turns into a fox one day while out on a walk with her new husband. The story follows them as the husband tries to care for his wife in her new state, and how initially she is still appears to have human sensibilities in her animal form, but over time, more and more of her humanity slips away. It's a fascinating story which looks at love, loss, change and the devotion of a man to his wife.

 

I'm not sure it's an easy book to get hold of, but it you find it, I would recommend reading it. At under 80 pages long, it won't take long to get through, but will be a rewarding and interesting story to read.

[chesilbeach]

My Animals and Other Family by Clare Balding

 

Synopsis: (from amazon.co.uk)

'I had spent most of my childhood thinking I was a dog, and suspect I had aged in dog years. By the time I was ten I had discovered the pain of unbearable loss. I had felt joy and jealousy. Most important of all, I knew how to love and how to let myself be loved. All these things I learnt through animals. Horses and dogs were my family and my friends. This is their story as much as it is mine'

 

Clare Balding grew up in a rather unusual household. Her father a champion trainer, she shared her life with more than 100 thoroughbred racehorses, mares, foals and ponies, as well as an ever-present pack of boxers and lurchers. As a toddler she would happily ride the legendary Mill Reef and take breakfast with the Queen.

 

She and her younger brother came very low down the pecking order. Left to their own devices, they had to learn life's toughest lessons through the animals, and through their adventures in the stables and the idyllic Hampshire Downs. From the protective Candy to the pot-bellied Valkyrie and the frisky Hattie, each horse and each dog had their own character and their own special part to play.

 

The running family joke was that "women ain't people". Clare has to prove them wrong, to make her voice heard - but first she had to make sure she had something to say.

 

Review:

I adore Clare Balding on television and radio; she just has the knack of making people and events interesting, bringing out the best of people she interviews and has a genuine love of life and nature. I've been wanting to read her book since it first came out, and have finally now done so. I love the premise of telling her life story from the lessons that her animals have taught her. She writes with the same enthusiasm as she presents, with added heart and soul coming through on the pages.

 

I'm not a big horsey person (I'm a little bit scared, and a bit allergic too), but she brilliantly expresses the connections she has made with the horses in her life, and growing up as the daughter of a horse trainer, there have been plenty of them! She describes the personalities and quirks of the horses, and makes you realise why they can become firm friends.

 

In addition to the horses, there are also the dogs that were always present in her childhood home, and here I felt much more of a connection, as I love dogs (although allergic to them too ) and could totally understand how much they can mean to their human masters.

 

And then on top of that, you get to read Clare's own childhood and adolescence, including the problems her boisterous nature and trying to fit in at school, as well as the difficulties of being a girl in what, at the time, was a male dominated world of equine business, but still having a determined feminist streak from an early age to prove that women are every bit the equal of men.

 

A joy of a book to read, and probably one of my favourite memoirs for a good many years.

[chesilbeach]

Biting Bad by Chloe Neill

Review:
As this is the sixth book in Chloe Neill's Chicagoland Vampire series, I'm not going to post a synopsis as it may spoil the plots of some of the earlier books. I really enjoy this series for a bit of pure escapism, and this latest one doesn't disappoint. Merit is still the strong, independent, determined heroine that I love to read about, and the development of the Cadogan house vampires story still holds good, and hasn't lost its way as lots of other series of this length (or longer) tend to do.  There's plenty of action, with shocks, thrills and spills, alongside a good health dose of friendship and honour.

I would say the series is a bit more grounded than the Sookie Stackhouse series, but a tad more light-hearted and humorous than the Women of the Otherworld series, so if either of those float your boat, then give Neill's books a go.

[pontalba]

Lady Into Fox by David Garnett

 

Synopsis: (from amazon.co.uk)

On walk in an Oxfordshire forest, a beloved wife is unaccountably transformed into a fox. Written in 1922 by a member of the Bloomsbury Group, this modern folktale combines humour, fantasy, allegory, and realism in a portrait of a husband's devotion and a woman's struggle to maintain her humanity.

 

Review:

I borrowed this book from Kay, as her review of it was intriguing, and the novella itself is an intriguing little tome too. I imagine it was quite unusual for its time, and what we would nowadays probably call magical realism. It's exactly what it says in the synopsis, the tale of a young woman who turns into a fox one day while out on a walk with her new husband. The story follows them as the husband tries to care for his wife in her new state, and how initially she is still appears to have human sensibilities in her animal form, but over time, more and more of her humanity slips away. It's a fascinating story which looks at love, loss, change and the devotion of a man to his wife.

 

I'm not sure it's an easy book to get hold of, but it you find it, I would recommend reading it. At under 80 pages long, it won't take long to get through, but will be a rewarding and interesting story to read.

 

You've certainly intrigued me with your review Claire!  Thanks.

I did find a free copy for the kindle...haven't looked at it yet, but downloaded it earlier from Amazon.

[Karsa Orlong]

Fibber in the Heat by Miles Jupp

 

 

 

Miles Jupp cracks me up, I may have to have a look at this one    Thanks for the review Claire  

[chesilbeach]

Teacher, Teacher by Jack Sheffield

 

Synopsis: (from amazon.co.uk)

It's 1977 and Jack Sheffield is appointed headmaster of a small village primary school in North Yorkshire. So begins Jack's eventful journey through the school year and his attempts to overcome the many problems that face him as a young and inexperienced headmaster.

 

The many colourful chapters include Ruby the 20 stone caretaker with an acute spelling problem, a secretary who worships Margaret Thatcher, a villager who grows giant carrots, a barmaid/parent who requests sex lessons, and a five-year-old boy whose language is colourful in the extreme. And then there's also beautiful, bright Beth Henderson, who is irresistibly attractive to the young headmaster...

 

Review:

What a lovely, nostalgic book this was to read.  I'm not sure how fictionalised this account of the authors first year as the head of a village primary school is, but it's a told with a warmth and generosity to the life and times of the school, its pupils and their parents, and the villagers of Ragley, who make the new head teacher welcome.  It's a gentle slice of life from the late seventies, with mentions of the politics, fashions, pop culture and general feel of the time.  Very reminiscent of the style of James Herriot and Gervase Phinn - I'm sure the author was writing with a pair of rose coloured spectacles on - and I loved getting to know the children and the staff, and the gentle everyday life of the school.

 

A very good decision to swap this book with frankie - I'll be adding the next book in the series to my wish list.

[Athena]

Nice reviews, Claire!

x

Where Have All The Boys Gone? by Jenny Colgan

x

This is going on the wishlist . 

x 

No and Me by Delphine De Vigan

x

Nice to read your review on this one, I recently read it so it's nice to hear what someone else thought of it. 

x 

The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen by Syrie James

x

Also going on the wishlist!

[chesilbeach]

Road To Rouen by Ben Hatch

 

Synopsis: (from amazon.co.uk)

Ben Hatch is on the road again. Commissioned to write a guidebook about France (despite not speaking any French) he sets off with visions of relaxing chateaux and refined dining. Ten thousand miles later his family's been attacked by a donkey, had a run-in with a death-cult and, after a near drowning and a calamitous wedding experience involving a British spy, his own marriage is in jeopardy. A combination of obsessions about mosquitoes, French gravel and vegetable theme parks mean it's a bumpy ride as Ben takes a stand against tyrannical French pool attendants, finds himself running with the bulls in Pamplona and almost starring in a snuff movie after a near fatal decision to climb into a millionaire's Chevrolet Blazer.

 

Funny and poignant, Road to Rouen asks important questions about life, marriage and whether it's ever acceptable to tape baguette to your children's legs to smuggle lunch into Disneyland Paris.

 

Review:

I really wanted to enjoy this book, as I love travelogues and memoirs of the British in France, but unfortunately, I found it a bit of a struggle.  It's not that it was bad - it was very well written, and at times funny and honest - but the problem I had was that it was so focussed on marriage and travelling with young children, and I just didn't identify with the situations at all.  I also felt that for a lot of the book, it could have been anywhere, and there was little of the flavour of France in it, which I felt a bit disappointed in.  I think if you're a parent who has experienced travelling long distances with young children, you'll probably enjoy this book a lot, and there's plenty in there for you to reminisce about, but for me, I was just a bit bored most of the time.

[chesilbeach]

The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin

 

Synopsis: (from amazon.co.uk)

Richard Cadogan, poet and would-be bon vivant, arrives for what he thinks will be a relaxing holiday in the city of dreaming spires. Late one night, however, he discovers the dead body of an elderly woman lying in a toyshop and is coshed on the head. When he comes to, he finds that the toyshop has disappeared and been replaced with a grocery store. The police are understandably skeptical of this tale but Richard's former schoolmate, Gervase Fen (Oxford professor and amateur detective), knows that truth is stranger than fiction (in fiction, at least). Soon the intrepid duo are careening around town in hot pursuit of clues but just when they think they understand what has happened, the disappearing-toyshop mystery takes a sharp turn...

 

Review:

I'm still not quite sure what to make of this book. As a detective story, it's middling, but also a bit of an old school farce at times. The madcap Fen goes off in tangents and is rather Sherlockesque, as he solves the murder before anyone else, but doesn't reveal whodunnit to the others, instead leading them on a cartoonish chase through the streets of Oxford, while avoiding contact with the police due to another misdemeanour that seems to take on farcical proportions of police interest in comparison to the pettiness of the crime committed.

 

It is amusing at times, and there are some brilliant little literary games that Fen and Cadogan play to while away the minutes or hours when they're waiting and watching for someone.

 

I think the main reason I still feel a bit ambivalent about it, is that I think Cadogan as narrator means that you miss out on getting to know Fen better, and his eccentric and flighty ways made it tricky for me to follow his line of reasoning and where the story was going at times.

 

Despite that, I did quite enjoy it, but I do have a complaint about the paperback edition. I love the cover of the Vintage edition, with the inviting picture evoking the period of the book, but I hated the typeface. I think that modern typefaces are much easier on the eye to read, and that the look and spacing of the text has improved enormously since the old hand typesetting of the last century, so why go out of your way to recreate that old look - it just makes it more difficult to read for me! It's one of the reasons why I often prefer ereaders to a book now, as I can adjust the font style and size to suit me.

[chesilbeach]

Gods and Warriors by Michelle Paver

 

Synopsis: (from amazon.co.uk)

Hylas is only a boy but he knows three things:

 

The Gods exist.

Magic is real.

Somebody wants him dead.

 

Hunted and alone, Hylas is desperate to find his missing sister. His quest takes him across the hostile mountains and treacherous seas of Ancient Greece. His only friend is a girl on the run. His only guide is a wild dolphin.  And his murderous enemies are closing in...

 

Review:

I loved Paver's previous children's book series, The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, and in her new series, she's moved from the Stone Age, to Ancient Greece in the Bronze Age.  This first book drops you straight into the action as we meet Hylas, a young goatherd who is under attack by warriors, who have killed his dog, and in the fracas, he has lost his sister.  Desperate to evade the warriors and find his sister, his life on the run begins.

 

As in her earlier series, Paver captures the natural world brilliantly, and encompasses this with the mythical beliefs of the age, to add to a heart-stoppingly good action story. From the food he has to forage for, all the while leaving a gift of thanks for the gods, to his quest to find his sister, Hylas's journey rarely lets you stop to take breath. Alongside this, we meet Pirra, the daughter of a Priestess who is being sent off to be married. There are twists and turns along the way, and if this first book is anything to go by, this series will equal the earlier one for fantastic writing for children.  Highly recommended!

[poppyshake]

I came across this when I was browsing Mr B's site Claire and wondered if you'd seen it and whether it would fit in with your Jane Austen challenge? .. or maybe it's a step too far.

Also, I meant to ask you before .. how did you like Jane's unfinished novels? I really liked Sanditon and thought it might have been something a little bit different because of the seaside setting etc .. just a few brief pages though so hard to tell .. still, wish she had finished them

[chesilbeach]

I came across this when I was browsing Mr B's site Claire and wondered if you'd seen it and whether it would fit in with your Jane Austen challenge? .. or maybe it's a step too far.

 

Funnily enough, when I was in Mr B's a couple of weeks ago, I did pick it up and look at it, but I'll wait for either the paperback or the Kindle version as it was a bit expensive in hardback.

 

Also, I meant to ask you before .. how did you like Jane's unfinished novels? I really liked Sanditon and thought it might have been something a little bit different because of the seaside setting etc .. just a few brief pages though so hard to tell .. still, wish she had finished them

 

I've only read The Watsons so far, which was interesting to read, but clearly needed more work, as it was still a bit bare in terms of characterisation. I haven't visited the challenge much this year, so need to pick it up again at some point. I was thinking of trying the audiobook of Mansfield Park after I've finished listening to the last Harry Potter book again, as I've found I prefer books and the spoken word when driving, and I've nearly run out of HP, so that might be a good one to go for.

[chesilbeach]

Oh man, I'm so far behind!!!! I'm not sure I'll actually catch up to be honest, but reading has been mostly uninspired stuff over the last couple months as work and other tasks have been eating into my reading time. In fact, over the last week or so, I've struggled to even read at work during my lunch break, as going from concentrating on work to try and relax to read has just made me feel sleepy, and I've either read the same page over and over again for minutes of end, or read a chunk of my book only to come back the next day and realise I'd taken none of it in! Things are much better now though, and hoping to have some free time to get back to some serious reading. I think the week between Christmas and New Year is often my most productive week of reading in the entire year!

Over the last few weeks, I have managed to read Lighthousekeeping for the Reading Circle, but it didn't grab me, although that may have been due to the general reading issues I've mentioned above. Having said that, I loved the ending, and made me think I should probably go back and read it again when I'm more involved in my reading, as I think I'd enjoy it more.

I also started Barchester Towers for the English Counties Challenge, but have put it to one side for now until I can actually concentrate properly.

[Athena]

Awww Sorry to hear your reading hasn't been going well. I hope you'll read a nice book or multiple nice books in the week between Christmas and New Year .

[chesilbeach]

Thanks Athena.

I've had a good day today and managed to finish a book! Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey is a YA Victorian ghost story, and it was pretty good. I thought the main characters were very good, but I did think the secondary characters were a bit thin, and often confused them when they came into contact with the main plot, but the story itself was well plotted and led to a thrilling denouement. And I was pleased to see it was a complete story and didn't end on a cliff hanger or deliberately set it up for a continuation of the story in a series of books. It could easily be carried on into a series if the author decided it, but if there weren't any more, you wouldn't feel hard done by!

[Kidsmum]

Sorry to hear you've got a wavering mojo at the moment Claire   I think mines suffering from the same seasonal affliction , i'd promised myself i'd do a lot of reading today yet here i am still sat at the computer 

[chesilbeach]

Still behind with the reviews, but I was a very lucky girl and got some lovely books for Christmas:
 

 
The list is:
 
Christmas at High Rising by Angela Thirkell
How To Eat Out by Giles Coren
Saplings by Noel Streatfeild
Sky Hawk by Gill Lewis
Alex, the Dog and the Unopenable Door by Ross Montgomery
Frost Hollow Hall by Emma Carroll
Metropolis by Shaun Tan
Meringue Girls Cook Book (this may turn into my favourite cook book ever as I adore meringues!)
 
I also had some gift cards and bought some more cookery ebooks:
 
Short and Sweet by Dan Lepard
Celebrations from The Primrose Bakery
Home Sweet Home from The Hummingbird Bakery

Edited December 26, 2013 by chesilbeach

[Janet]

Christmas at High Rising by Angela Thirkell

How To Eat Out by Giles Coren

Saplings by Noel Streatfeild

Frost Hollow Hall by Emma Carroll

Great haul! The ones quoted are on my Wish List.

[chesilbeach]

My friends and family must have good taste then, Janet.  In fact, Kay gave me the first three, so that's stating the obvious!
 
I finished Christmas at High Rising earlier.  It's a collection of short stories mostly based on the characters in Thirkell's Barsetshire series, and as I mentioned over in the Book Activity thread, I think I would have benefited from having read one (or more) of the books in the series before starting the short stories, so I was more familiar with the characters and their relationships.  Having said that, after the first couple of stories, it was much easier to follow, and on the whole, they were entertaining to read, and have made me want to go and read the rest of the books in the series, as I would definitely like to find out more about the people and their back stories.  I also love books set in the middle/upper classes of the 1920s and 1930s, so I think they'll be right up my street.

[Athena]

Nice haul! I hope you enjoy the new books .

[Devi]

Nice pile of books you got there for christmas!