France's reading 2024

[Madeleine]

I used to read quite a lot of Nicci French but they got a bit samey after a while ie woman in peril, and the police were always useless so she has to do everything for herself, including, naturally, going alone to an empty house/factory etc,so I lost interest in them.

[France]

Yes, this one had a lot of plot similarities to one I'd read before (the first they wrote I think) and ridiculously  useless police, both in 1990 and 2020.

 

Edited April 10, 2024 by France

[niko]

On 2/18/2024 at 7:36 PM, France said:

Yes, it wasn't bad but the book was much better, imo!

I've been enjoying books much more than movies lately

[France]

I seem to be on a roll with good books at the moment (long may it continue!)

 

The House of Lamentations by Shona Maclean is the fifth in her series about Cromwell's agent Damien Seeker and is as good as the previous ones. She is so good at imbuing her stories with a sense of place.

 

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros is the sequel to Fourth Wing and is very good indeed, the sort of good where you ignore everyone in the room while you get on with the next few chapters. What's not to like about dragons, especially adolescent dragons with attitude? My only criticism is the sex scenes, I may be old and stuffy but my daughters are anything but and they agree, what Violet and Xaden get up to between the sheets does not need to be described in that detail and interrupts the flow of the story which is about dragons , their riders, other magical creatures and battles against evil.

 

Knife Skills for Beginners by Orlando Murrin  is a cosyish mystery written by a TV chef. It's light, well written, well plotted and great fun, prefect for the shift I was on yesterday which was lots of waiting around interspersed with short bursts of activity. One to look out for and I'll be reading his next one.

[muggle not]

I also really liked Iron Flame but I agree with you on the sex scenes as they are way, way, overdone. 

 

Adding to my comment: The sex scenes were so explicit and overblown that it actually perturbed me during the reading of what is a very good book with wonderful stories in it

Edited April 22, 2024 by muggle not

[Madeleine]

9 hours ago, France said:

I seem to be on a roll with good books at the moment (long may it continue!)

 

The House of Lamentations by Shona Maclean is the fifth in her series about Cromwell's agent Damien Seeker and is as good as the previous ones. She is so good at imbuing her stories with a sense of place.

 

 

I'm just reading the 3rd book "Destroying Angel". I was in a bookshop today and saw her new one, "The Winter List" out in paperback.

[friendofbooks]

On 3/19/2024 at 6:37 AM, France said:

I'm trying to be restrained about buying books! It comes out in paperback here next week.

 

How do you do it? Every time I walk into a bookstore, I feel like buying everything at once!

[France]

12 hours ago, friendofbooks said:

How do you do it? Every time I walk into a bookstore, I feel like buying everything at once!

Living in France helps as there are far fewer bookshops with less choice! When I visit the UK it's a different story though. I could literally barely lift my case for books last time and that was before I'd got airside at Gatwick and a look at the large airport only paperbacks!

 

[muggle not]

What about using libraries, especially the digital libraries where you can download to a kindle.

[friendofbooks]

On 4/25/2024 at 2:00 AM, France said:

Living in France helps as there are far fewer bookshops with less choice! When I visit the UK it's a different story though. I could literally barely lift my case for books last time and that was before I'd got airside at Gatwick and a look at the large airport only paperbacks!

 

Oh, I recognize myself in your message I'm glad I'm not the only one.

[France]

On 4/25/2024 at 2:29 PM, muggle not said:

What about using libraries, especially the digital libraries where you can download to a kindle.

Most French libraries have a small selection of English books in paper (most of it donated) but digital books are in French mostly and my French isn't up to reading a book. 

[France]

Funny how you can change your mind - I tried Slow Horses by Mick Herron a couple of years ago and it just didn't appeal. Then after having read his latest book after fervent recommendations I gave Slow Horses another go and really enjoyed it.

 

For those who haven't seen the tv series (and I haven't) it's about a group of apparently washed up spies who for policy reasons haven't been sacked and have been exiled to a building called Slough House to do  boring stuff in the hope they'll be driven to resign. It's twisty, clever, has  unexpected but satisfying plot twists and doesn't take itself too seriously. I'm certainly going to read more in the series.

 

It's been 10 years since Shades of Grey by Jasper fforde came out. It was startlingly inventive even for fforde, about an England where ever since Something Happened people have only been able to see one colour and your status in society is governed by which colour you can see and how much of it.  The Greys, who have no colour vision, are the labourers and have very few rights. It was very witty, very funny and full of wonderfully daft ideas such as the rule that once something was declared apocryphal you literally could not see it, so the Apocryphal Man was able to walk around with impunity with no clothes on, stealing food off plates in the communal dining hall. A sequel was promised and Red Side Story finally arrived this year. It's worth the wait. Shades of Grey had a serious undercurrent, Red Side Story is a lot darker but it's still witty, funny and a crashing good read. I'm really sorry to have finished it.  

[friendofbooks]

23 hours ago, France said:

Funny how you can change your mind - I tried Slow Horses by Mick Herron a couple of years ago and it just didn't appeal. Then after having read his latest book after fervent recommendations I gave Slow Horses another go and really enjoyed it.

 

For those who haven't seen the tv series (and I haven't) it's about a group of apparently washed up spies who for policy reasons haven't been sacked and have been exiled to a building called Slough House to do  boring stuff in the hope they'll be driven to resign. It's twisty, clever, has  unexpected but satisfying plot twists and doesn't take itself too seriously. I'm certainly going to read more in the series.

 

It's been 10 years since Shades of Grey by Jasper fforde came out. It was startlingly inventive even for fforde, about an England where ever since Something Happened people have only been able to see one colour and your status in society is governed by which colour you can see and how much of it.  The Greys, who have no colour vision, are the labourers and have very few rights. It was very witty, very funny and full of wonderfully daft ideas such as the rule that once something was declared apocryphal you literally could not see it, so the Apocryphal Man was able to walk around with impunity with no clothes on, stealing food off plates in the communal dining hall. A sequel was promised and Red Side Story finally arrived this year. It's worth the wait. Shades of Grey had a serious undercurrent, Red Side Story is a lot darker but it's still witty, funny and a crashing good read. I'm really sorry to have finished it.  

I found that book to be mostly super boring. The ending was a bit more lively, but the overall impression of the book was already ruined for me by that point.

[France]

On 5/6/2024 at 5:17 PM, friendofbooks said:

I found that book to be mostly super boring. The ending was a bit more lively, but the overall impression of the book was already ruined for me by that point.

I find that most of the books I really enjoy are Marmite books, some people loathe them, others adore them. I can see why you might have found it boring, the pace wasn't fast at the beginning but the sly humour made up for it imo.

 

Good things reading tastes are so different - it means lots of variety!

[France]

An Inheritance of Magic by  Benedict Jacka  is the start of a new fantasy series set in a London where the use of magic is a preserve of several vastly rich families who as practitioners control it's use and supply. Stephen Oakwood is an orphan, or is probably one, his mother walked out, his father disappeared, but he does have some magical skill. Then a couple of scions of one of the wealthiest families  turn up, claiming he is a cousin, and hoping to use him in an increasingly heated inheritance battle.

 

It's fast moving, refreshingly different from much of fantasy since it doesn't take itself seriously at all and Stephen as a character develops and grows. Not high literature but hugely enjoyable, I zipped through it and am greatly looking forward to the next book.

 

The Golden Gate by Amy Chua The cover is beautiful, the writing is tedious and bangs far too many drums.

 

 Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld  I like Curtis Sittenfeld's writing most of the time and I'd heard  many good things about this romantic comedy between two unlikely figures, a writer on a show clearly based on Saturday Night Live and a glamerous super famous rock star. The first part is great, Sally the writer is sympathetic, smart and her insecurities are believable and the background of the show is fabulous. Noah the rock star is a little one dimensional but hey ho, it's Sally's story. The second part is good too, but it starts getting samey and drawn out and I went from loving every page to rather hoping I was near the end.

 

[Madeleine]

I like the sound of the Benedict Jacka novel.

[France]

It seems to me that Ann Patchett has got better and better ever since she first pulished Bel Canto and Tom Lake has to be up there in contention for my best read this year. 

 

I was initially put off reading it because it was described as a "pandemic novel" and I'm already sooo bored of reading about social distancing, lockdowns and wearing masks but this book isn't one of those. The pandemic is the cause of Lara's three very different daughters gathering on the family cherry farm for the summer to isolate and help their parents bring the harvest in and Lara is profoundly happy to have them around her. While they are working she tells them about when she was an actor and the history of her long ago affair with a now famous film star - some of it, there are things even her daughters cannot know.

 

It's beautifully written with  quiet unshowy prose that leads you from one sentence to the next, the settings both in the cherry orchard and while Lara was acting are completely immersive and characterisation is superb.

 

The plot does assume a certain familiarity with Thornton Wilder's play Our Town, I'm not sure that it matters if you've never heard of it (like me) but it's easyn enough to look it up on line.

[France]

I was really looking forward to reading The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison as I loved the Goblin Emperor but I found this a real slog. It's winfic (which I didn't realise when I bought it ) - fanfic with wings and a pastiche in a fantasy London of Sherlock Holmes too. Sadly, unless you're ready to read anything Sherlock related I'd give this one a miss.

 

Another book I was looking forward to was The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl  Her writing about food is wonderful and a yes, you can practically taste the dishes in his novel about a repressed girl finding her true self in 1980's Paris, but otherwise the storyline is so sickly sweet that I was practically suffering from sugar overload by the end.

 

I enjoyed The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden a lot though it was a bit slow to get going. I've read an awful lot of WWI stories and it was really good to come across one that was decidedly different and yet moving at the same time.

 

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley has been on my radar since it appeared on a Books to look forward to in 2024 list and I was given it as a birthday present. In just a slightly distant future a time machine can pull people who would have died anyway out of history into the present day and there is an experiment going to, see how 5 very disparate characters from different eras can adapt to modern life.  Each one has a mentor, called a bridge, and the story is focused on an arctic explorer from Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition and his unnamed female bridge. it's great fun, well written and you nreally can't see where it's going. Recommended.

 

The Night Hawks by Elly Griffiths , like all the Rutth Galloway books, well written, well plotted, thoroughly enjoyable.

[muggle not]

On 1/6/2024 at 12:59 PM, France said:

1. The Black Friar S J Maclean ++++1/2

2. The Running Grave - Robert Galbraith +++++

3. Absolutely and Forever - Rose Tremain ++++1/2

4. Yarned and dangerous - Sadie Hartwell +++1/2

5. The Last Devil to Die - Richard Osman ++++

6. The Bookseller of Inverness - S J Maclean +++++

7. Midnight at Malabar House - Vasheem Khan ++

8. My Sister the Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite ++++1/2

9. The Broken Afternoon - Simon Mason +++1/2

10. Grave Expectations - Alice Bell  - lost interest at 50%

11. The Secret Hours - Mick Herron +++++

12. Cover the Bones - Chris Hammer +++++

13. The Red Notebook - Antoine Laurian +++++

14. The Wedding Dress Repair Shop - Trisha Ashley ++

15. Fairy Tale - Stephen King °°°°1/2

16. Iron Lake - William Kent Kreuger ++++

17. The Frequency of Us - Keith Stuart ++++1/2

18. The House of Special Purpose - John Boyne ++

19. Everyone Here is Lying - Shari Lapena ++++

20. Destroying Angel - S J Maclean +++++

21. Recipe for a Perfect Wife - Karma Brown ++++

22. Fatal Legacy - Lindsay Davies +++1/2

23. Ink Black Heart - Robert Galbraith +++++

24. A Stranger in the family - Jane Casey +++++

25. Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros +++++

26. The Fake Wife - Sharon Bolton ++++1/2

27. Hell Bent - Leigh Bardugo ++++

28. Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter - Nicci French ++++

29. The House of Lamentations - S J Maclean ++++1/2

30. Iron Flame - Rebecca Yarros ++++1/2

31. Knife Skills for Beginners - Orlando Murrin ++++1/2

32. Slow Horses - Mick Herron ****1/2

33. Red Side Story - Jasper fforde *****

34. The Stone Circle ' Ely Griffiths +++++

35. Dead Lions - Mick Herron ++++

36. An Inheritance of Magic - Benedict Jacka ++++1/2

37. The Golden Bridge - Amy Chu ++

38. Romantic Comedy -Curtis Sittenfeld ++++

39. Spook Street - Mick Herron ++++1/2

40. Tom Lake - Ann Patchett +++++

41. The Trial - Rob Rinder ++

42. London Rules - Mick Herron ++++1/2

43. The Angel of the Crows - Katherine Addison ++++

44. The Paris Novel - Ruth Reichl +++

45. The Ministry of Time - Kaliane Bradley ++++1/2

45. The Night Hawks - Elly Griffiths ++++1/2

46. The Warm Hands of Ghosts - Katherine Arden ++++1/2

 

 

 

 

 

Where do you think I got the recommendation. 🙂

[Madeleine]

I really must start reading Chris Hammer's books, I enjoyed the TV version of Scrublands but still haven't read it!

[France]

The Mars House by Natasha Pulley.  Oh what a dire, dragging disappointment this was! 

 

I loved Natasha Pulley's first books where she delves into a slightly whimsical alternative world; her last one which was based on Russian nuclear experimentation in the 60's less so but it was still enjoyably off beat in places and the characterisation was great.

 

The Mars House is set in the future with a Chinese colony on Mars and Earth gradually being destroyed by climate change and a war between America and Russia. January, a ballet dancer, leaves behind flooded London to go to Mars as a refugee where as an immigrant he does the menial jobs that the native inhabitants of Mars don't do. The earth immigrants have grown up in a far more powerful gravity than the Martians so are much stronger - dangerously so  and can inadvertantly cause serious injury. The only only way Earth refugees can become actual citizens is by having a highly dangerous procedure to make then less muscular so so less lethal which can cripple them and certainly shortens their lives. Citizens are gender neutral while "Earthstrongers" have gender specific pronouns. There is a movement among Martians to force all Earthstrongers to have the procedure whether they want it or not...

 

Goodness it all got tedious. She says in her acknowledgements that her London publisher refused to take the book and I'm not surprised. What does surprise me is that she found another one to take it.

[France]

It's ages since I did any sort of reviewing of what I've read so here's a quick round up of a few:

 

The Wishing Game - Meg Shaffer Lucy, aged 26, and a kindergarten teacher is desperate to adopt a 7 year old orphaned boy but doesn't meet the financial requirements. Then she hears of a competition run by  the reclusive author of a series that lighted up a grim childhood where the prize is to get what you wished for and she is one of 4 selected to compete. This took me by surprise, I thought it might be standard YA fare but it's whimsical, dark in places and utterly charming.

 

The Cautious Traveller's Guide  to the Wastelands - Sarah Books A closed train runs a regular service through Siberia to Moscow, blinds drawn so no one can look out and be affected by what lies outside in the magical and very strange wastelands. On board is a motley group of passengers, not all of them who they say they are. And things start of happen. I bought this because of the title and I had a gift token to use, I did enjoy it but not as much as I hoped, the setting is great, the characterisation a little static, but still a good read.

 

 Venetian Legacy - Philip Gwynne Jones This series of mysteries featuring Nathan Sutherland, an honorary consul, in Venice is not top notch thriller writing but that doesn't matter, the plotting is good enough, and the setting and sense of place in Venice is absolutely sublime.

 

The Last Murder at the End of the World - Stuart Turton A mysterious fog has killed off nearly everyone on the planet except those on a small island where scientists have discovered a way to keep the fog at bay. The three scientists rule a small, highly structured society, then one of them is murdered, the systems start to break down and the fog begins to move in. There's a race against time to find the culprit and fix the problem before the fog takes everyone. All Stuarts Turton's books are different, this one was a bit of a slow starter but really got going as the clues to what was gong on began to drop. I loved it.

 

 Clara Reads Proust - Stephane Cartier I couldn't resist the title of this book about a hairdresser who picks up a copy of Proust that has been left behind by a client and begins to read it. It's a very French book, a lot of them are short and whimsical but have serious messages as well - this one is  how good literature can enrich your life (particularly Proust!). I can't say that it's prompted to go back and try to read Proust again but I did enjoy it.

 

Walking the Night - Kate Ellis  I read this, obviously to the end as I gave it three stars and can remember practically nothing about it at all.  Enough said, I think.

 

 Bonjour Sophie - Elizabeth Buchan  A "wonderful coming of age" story according to the reviews. No it wasn't. It's dire. Preposterous and dull.

 

[France]

A quick catch up (yet again).

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefeteri.  I'll have to put my cards on the table here and say that in general I really don't like books which aim to wring your emotions, especially when you can see it coming  before you even start the first page, so I wouldn't have read a novel about refugees if it hadn't been a book club choice. The subject was very moving but the way in which it was written got between me and what was happening to the characters, especially the occasional way in which the last word in a chapter would be the heading for the next. It was a literary trick that added absolutely nothing to the story. So did it make me newly aware of the plight of refugees - to a limited extent, I was already pretty aware. Did I enjoy it? No. Would I recommend it?  Probably not.

 

French Exit by Patrick Dewitt  was another book club choice and another I didn't particularly enjoy though it was an interesting read.  Frances a widow who has run through her money and her "toddler brained" son Malcolm (he's childish rather than impaired) decamp to Paris so she can spend everything she has left. Patrick Dewitt is an excellent writer and the novel is described as blackly funny, I didn't find anything funny about it but it's certainly black in places, the problem is that I found Frances and Malcolm so unappealing that I couldn't raise any interest in them.  Not a waste of time though.

 

 Day One by Abigail Dean started very well indeed with a school shooting and a witness who may or may not have been telling the truth. Then it went downhill, fast.  The plot is driven by conspiracy theorists who claim among other things that it never happened that one if the victims never existed etc etc and you have to be a really good writer t make endless conspiracy theories interesting after the first one or two. Abigail Dean isn't. I won't bother with any more of her books.

 

 

[France]

And three very different good ones. 

 

Killing Time by Jodie Taylor is the fifth in her Time Police series and just as good as the previous ones.  Great fun and very funny.

 

. All The Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker is unusual to say the least. It's about the enduring relationship between two children, both outcasts in their own ways, from 1970's small town America to nearly the present day. Patch (he has only one eye) saves a  schoolmate from abduction by a serial killer and is abducted himself.  After he is rescued he becomes obsessed with finding the other missing girls and maybe even saving one or two. The plot dives all over the place, it lags occasionally but the last 20% is genuinely unputdownable.  

 

 The Offing by Benjamin Myers .  Richard aged 16 leaves his Durham mining village just after the war to wander around for a few months, doing odd jobs to pay his way and sleeping in fields, comes across an elderly eccentric woman, totally unlike anyone he has ever met, and stays on to d this and that for her.  I'd never come across Benjamin Myers before so this took me by surprise, his writing is exquisite, it's short, a very gentle book ( so not a huge amount happens) and completely mesmerising. Without doubt one of my books of the year .

[muggle not]

On 10/25/2024 at 11:26 AM, France said:

And three very different good ones. 

 

Killing Time by Jodie Taylor is the fifth in her Time Police series and just as good as the previous ones.  Great fun and very funny.

 

. All The Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker is unusual to say the least. It's about the enduring relationship between two children, both outcasts in their own ways, from 1970's small town America to nearly the present day. Patch (he has only one eye) saves a  schoolmate from abduction by a serial killer and is abducted himself.  After he is rescued he becomes obsessed with finding the other missing girls and maybe even saving one or two. The plot dives all over the place, it lags occasionally but the last 20% is genuinely unputdownable.  

 

 The Offing by Benjamin Myers .  Richard aged 16 leaves his Durham mining village just after the war to wander around for a few months, doing odd jobs to pay his way and sleeping in fields, comes across an elderly eccentric woman, totally unlike anyone he has ever met, and stays on to d this and that for her.  I'd never come across Benjamin Myers before so this took me by surprise, his writing is exquisite, it's short, a very gentle book ( so not a huge amount happens) and completely mesmerising. Without doubt one of my books of the year .

I have Colors of the Dark on hold at our library. It seems to be very popular here as our library has 27 digital copies and there are 693 people on the hold list.

 

Edited January 5 by muggle not