Another book shop bites the dust
Well, a branch of Blackwell’s, rather than the company itself. Last week I went into Broomhill in Sheffield as I do every six weeks or so to have my hair cut and signs were up in the windows of Blackwell’s announcing that everything was half-price because the shop was about to close. I don’t know […]
Present Tense
Yesterday I was browsing in Smith’s on Sheffield station and my eye was caught by a promising book title: Autumn Killing by Mons Kallentoft. I hadn’t read anything by the author before, but when I’d scanned the blurb, I felt inclined to buy it. I love Nordic crime and this was set in Sweden, one […]
The tale, not the teller
I’m returning to a lot of old favourites at the moment – I might explore the reasons for that in another blog – and as I planned another raid on the shelves of the London Library for Maigret novels I reflected not for the first time on the discrepancy between the man and the books. […]
Montalbano
Readers of my earlier blogs might remember my admiration for Andrea Camilleri’s Montalbano series. I’ve read all those that have been translated into English and have enjoyed them all. And I’ve enjoyed the series of TV programmes based on them, too, showing on BBC 4 on Saturday evenings. Luca Zinagretti is excellent as Montalbana and […]
Don’t you hate it when . . .
our hero doesn’t call for back-up, but just goes straight in to tackle the bad guy. This happened in a novel I read in the summer (I won’t name names). There was no good reason why she (yes, I am afraid it was a woman) should not have waited, but she didn’t and one of […]
The Laughing Policeman
After I’d enjoyed working my way through Magdalen Nabb’s novels early in the year, I thought I’d do the same for Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. This Swedish husband and wife writing team wrote ten novels over ten years. THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN has probably been the most frequently reprinted of their ten novels and certainly […]
Those Were the Days
The summer holidays are over, school has started, and it is time to start blogging again. There’s a lot I want to blog about, and it’ll take me a while to catch up, but I’ll start with the Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters.I read these avidly at least twenty years ago and have dipped into them occasionally […]
Having a Break
I’ve got a busy summer ahead so will be posting only intermittently, but I will be back before too long to blog about my summer reading.
More Dancing To the Music of Time
‘Generals, as a collective rank, incline to be physically above or below, average stature. Aylmer Conyers, notably tall, possessed in addition to his height much natual distinction.In fact his personality flled the room, although without active aggression.At the same time he was a man who gave the impression, rightly or wrongly,that he would stop at […]
A Dance to the Music of Time
Two or three months ago I decided to re-read Anthony Powell’s A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME. I’d been meaning to do this for a while. I read the first two volumes in the mid 1970s and the other eight between August 1981 and August 1982. I know this because in those days I […]