3rd in the Campion series. Each better than the previous
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They look interesting.
steve
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My niece got hold of a set of the Chalet School books (Chalet School - Wikipedia), and she and I are reading through them. I’ve read the first 2, she’s read 14. They are books written in the ‘20s through to the ‘60s, set in an English school in the Tyrol with extremely posh middle-class pupils. It’s quite fascinating to re-read books I read as a kid and see the blatant class and gender assumptions which I suspect completely went over my head when I was under 10.
I’ve spent the morning at my sister’s, she was not impressed as her 35 year old Oxford English graduate daughter and her 59 year old brother had a long discussion about a series of kids’ books. (We also branched out into comparisons with Enid Blyton as we’d had a similar binge on her school books a few years ago.)
Read those decades ago. More recently, I watched the dramatizations on BritBox.
In a similar vein, I just finished The Christie Affair, a new mystery inspired by Agatha’s disappearance for 11 days in 1926.
It may not be up with Garp or Owen Meany but despite all the panning by critics I am enjoying it immensely. A hoot
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Latest in a long line of excellent historical fiction / fantasy books by Canadian author Guy Kay. Although they aren’t a series, exactly, the world events and some characters appear in multiple stories so it is worth reading them more or less in order. For fans of language and stories that weave together.
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Bunnyman : Will Sergeant
Cracking page-turner - police procedural set in stiflingly hot gritty up-country NSW with an overlay of big business shenanigans. Better than his last couple which were only OK.
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Enjoying this crime mystery novel by John Banville. It’s been a few years since I ready any of his novels. Set in the late '50s, tells of a Protestant detective investigating the murder of a Catholic priest in an aristocratic family home.
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I have a thick, dog-eared Penguin paperback at home, very beaten up, which contains John Buchan’s five Richard Hannay novels, starting with the immortal ‘The Thirty-Nine Steps’, which has been adapted for film on (at least) five occasions. Buchan referred to them, self-deprecatingly, as ‘shabby little shockers’, but they are much better than that, genuinely thrilling, beautifully written thrillers. Perfect for taking away for a holiday read, I can’t recommend the books highly enough.
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You could be reading Ring Resounding…
Just saying.
You’re absolutely right, David, except that I’m still not home yet, and I still don’t have the book.
I am looking forward to it, though, and to hearing what Decca have been able to do with the new remastering of the LPs.
I just have to escape my incarceration first, sadly!
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Totally agree. There’s more depth in these books than first meets the eye.
John Buchan was an incredibly prolific and talented writer. His influence during his political and diplomatic life is fascinating.
His history of the first world war is a fantastic collection. Published as it unfolded in part (I understand) to support Nelson publishers, eventually ended up as a 24 volume set.
I have a (1st edition?) set of these bought many years ago at a book fair in York, for £125. I hesitated at the time, but it’s a lovely collection.
That is a fascinating glimpse into an area of John Buchan’s life that I knew nothing of. I thought that it was quite enough for him to be a prolific author, as well as Governor General of Canada!
He must have been an extraordinarily accomplished man. He studied at Balliol College in Oxford (which even in my day had a reputation for taking in bright Scottish undergraduates), and won the University’s Newdigate Prize for Poetry, amongst other things. He must have been one of those extraordinarily talented people who could have succeeded in anything that he set his mind to.
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If you haven’t already read it, I recommend Andrew Lownie’s biography of “John Buchan - The Presbyterian Cavalier”
Thanks, I will have a look for that. I might have to read the Hannay novels again first, though!