Maigret’s Little Joke
Or in the original French, Maigret s’amuse, and, yes, I am reading it in the original French – on my Kindle with the aid of an electronic French dictionary. It’s wonderful: all I have to do is touch a word for a definition to appear. Mind you, it’s not perfect. It sometimes doesn’t have a […]
The London Eye Mystery
A month or two ago I blogged about MURDER IN THE LIBRARY and mentioned a novel on display there, THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY, that sounded intriguing. I’ve read it now and thoroughly enjoyed it. When twelve-year old Ted and and his older sister, Kat, watch their cousin Salim get on board the London Eye, he […]
Little Women
I must have pretty little myself when I last read LITTLE WOMEN, because I don’t think I’ve read it as an adult, at least not all the way through. I decided to return to it after reading Jane Smiley’s THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE NOVEL, which contains some fascinating commentaries on a hundred books, […]
Nothing new under the sun
I’ve been reading about the Fast Diet, which has had so much publicity recently. It involves two days of fasting per week (on 500 calories a day for women, 600 for men) and five of feasting, ie eating what you like. The health benefits, quite apart from losing weight, seem to be considerable and people […]
The scent of a cigar
A while ago I blogged about how much I enjoyed John Mullan’s book about Jane Austen. I followed that up by reading HOW NOVELS WORK by the same author. This too is hugely enjoyable and I found a lot of food for thought both as a reader and a writer. I knew I was in […]
Murder in the Library
If you find yourself near the British Library with some time to spare, they have a small exhibition called MURDER IN THE LIBRARY, which is well worth a look. It’s free, too. It’s arranged alphabetically, beginning – of course! – with A for Agatha. Other categories include R for railways, N for Nordic Crime, G […]
Bath Book
Surely reading in the bath is one of life’s great pleasures? In fact I’d argue that this is one of the best places to read a book. Wallowing in warm water, perhaps scented Neal’s Yard bath oil – though I certainly don’t insist on that – maybe with a glass of wine or, better, an […]
Big in Denmark
There is a wonderful organisation called The Authors Licensing and Collecting Society which collects photocopying rights on behalf of authors. Every year they send me some money – not a great deal – but as with Public Lending Rights, it does mean that I am getting a little extra payment, maybe £100 or £200 for […]
Some Thoughts About Book-buying
For quite a large proportion of my life there have been only two ways to get hold of a book that one wanted to read, either through a library or through a book-shop, which essentially meant W. H. Smith if you lived in the sticks or maybe a second-hand book shop. No remainder book shops, […]
A Race Against Time
I recently read ‘VANTAGE STIKER, a little known Golden Age crime novel from 1931 by a writer called Helen Simpson. Martin Edwards mentioned it to me, and told me it was very difficult to get hold of, but as often happens, the London Library came up trumps. I enjoyed it. She is a lively and […]