Have finally read my first Muriel Spark novel The Public Image, and I really enjoyed it. Looking forward to discovering a new author... She has quite a large catalogue of books.

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She is too fond of books and it has turned her brain - Louisa May Alcott

Book blog: https://GiltAndDust.WordPress.com

I bought an omnibus of The Dark Is Rising quintology back in 2014 and thought it was about time I re-read the books.

Turns out I've never read them before!

It was me! Did you know this is now on Netflix? It's really compelling and I recommend it. I read the sequel too.

Spotted as an ebook on Amazon: A Marriage Under the Terror, Patricia Wentworth's first novel pub 1910.She came first in a publishing competition. I think it was more than my usual price, could have been £3.99 but I've been wanting to read it. I enjoyed it a lot, a familiar scenario - young aristo girl alone in Paris as the Terror gets into its stride, but the hero is quite different. A worthwhile read, with echoes of Baroness Orczy and early GH, but not as goodzooky or forsoothly as the Orczy and not a lot of humour a la GH.

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http://nicolaslade.wordpress.com/

"goodzooky or forsoothly"

Tsk tsk, that should have been 'gadzookery'

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http://nicolaslade.wordpress.com/

Even better!!

I have just finished "Hitler's British Isles" by Duncan Barrett which is about the occupation of the Channel Islands during World War II.

It's a good book for anyone interested in what happened in Guernsey after the CS left.

(The author is involved in the Star Trek Fandom and there is a recent podcast ("Primitive Cultures: Star Trek Sold Me A Lie trekfm) in which he is interviewed in the Guille-Allès Library about his earlier book "Star Trek: The Human Frontier" in which he mentions the influence of the CI occupation on Star Trek particularly in the portrayal of the occupation of bajor)

I've just finished a re-read of all the O.Douglas/Anna Buchan novels. I only discovered her a year or so ago and I wish my mother and grandmother had known about her books. If they'd read them, I'd have read them - I'm really surprised they hadn't come across them, they'd have loved Anna's books! Because of them we're off to the Scottish Borders next month, staying in 'Priorsford' and hopefully taking a look at 'Ryddleton' in the hope of spotting a few D.E.Stevenson heroines.

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http://nicolaslade.wordpress.com/

I love O Douglas but have read no Anna Buchan. Where should I start Nicky?

I am doing a lot of re-reading comfort stuff to get away from the world!

ETA Or are they one and the same. Could google I guess ....

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Cestina's dolls houses - Curtain Up!

Ah - Anna Buchan is her real name, Gil! She didn't want to hang on the coat tails of her famous author brother (that'll be John) so she wrote as O Douglas!

Am also comfort-reading - Elizabeth Fair (as re-issued by Scott aka Furrowed Middlebrow - I love her books, especially A Winter Away and Landscape in Sunlight). Also the Ariana Franklin mysteries featuring Adelia Aguilar - 12th century and a nice long way away from today's traumas!

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http://nicolaslade.wordpress.com/

I've been reading Lady Fanshawe's Receipt Book: an Englishwoman's Life During the Civil War by Lucy Moore - also a comfortably long way away from our current times, though I do feel the two periods have quite a bit in common! It's not quite what it sounds, as it isn't the receipt book itself, but a biography, though the author does use items from the original as chapter themes, and has clearly done a lot of research.

That looks interesting Noreen. I've just been looking at it and I see she grew up at Balls Park in Hertford. Just up the road from where I used to live and a place I used to go for training

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Cestina's dolls houses - Curtain Up!

It certainly kept me amused for a day when I had to have a renal biopsy done recently, cestina. I always feel that it's extra good if a book has a link to somewhere one knows ...

On tiptoes here to say The House at Ladywell is Free today and tomorrow all across Amazon. And that there'll be a novella, Christmas at Ladywell, out on 4th November. (Tiptoes out again blushing with shame at blatant self-promotion)
(And I really am reading it and spotting things I think I could have done better)

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http://nicolaslade.wordpress.com/

I'm all for blatant self-promotion if it means I can download a book worth reading!

I've been very fond of the Flavia de Luce books. I was afraid after reading "As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust" that the series had jumped the shark but "Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd" was back on form.

Unfortunately that's more than I can say for the last two in the series which I feel really have lost their way. I was very conscious of American idioms being used by English characters and found it really difficult to get into the books. The establishment of a detective agency really made me sigh and roll my eyes. A lot of series go on beyond their writer's ability to keep up the quality - this series was originally supposed to be 6 books and I feel it would have been better to stick to that.

I don't think I'll be bothering with any more of these.

I've gotten really into Sharon Kay Penman's Welsh Princes trilogy about 13th-century Wales and England. I've enjoyed a couple of her historical fictions before, but this particular set is fascinating.

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"I -- I didn't think!" -- Carola Johnstone

I love Sharon Penman's books.

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

Me too!

Has anyone read The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. If so what do you think of it?