Currently Reading

Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon: Gripping Accounts of All Known Fatal Mishaps in the Most Famous of the World's Seven Natural Wonders by Michael Patrick Ghiglieri and Thomas M. Myers - If you were planning to visit the Grand Canyon before reading this book, you'd change your plans PDQ.  This could also be titled 'Seven Hundred Different Ways to Die in the Grand Canyon' and it starts with a compelling (recent) story of a woman who got drunk and fell over the side.  Having visited the GC, I can tell you that you look at it, think 'Bloody Hell' and then you look down and in that instant you can imagine falling down there, and you inevitably wonder how many people have actually done that - in fact, the book says that its one of the most frequently asked questions of park rangers - 'do many people fall over?' - well, falling over is only one way to die or injure yourself in the GC, and this book plumbs the depths (literally) of recorded deaths, misadventures, murders and suicides over the past hundred or so years.   Some of the stories are a bit too meandering, but others are harrowing and there is occasionally the funny one, though I am sure the victims did not think so at the time.  This book does not just deal with death - it also features miraculous escapes and amazing rescues, and this really brings home to you just how vulnerable the human being is.  An interesting read.  Just do it after visiting.

Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett - I wasn't so keen on the last Ken Follett I read which was actually his first work - Pillars of the Earth (which was a very early work and meandered on for several hundred pages, about three hundred and fifty of which could have been cut out) - but this book is of a different order; well written, great characters and a fab story.
Set during WW2, this is a tale of the first order of a German Spy and British Secret Agencies and a remarkable woman - at least two stories go on at the same time and until the last few chapters you aren't very sure why they are relevant to the each other, but they aren't - from 'Amazon' the synopsis is as follows:

"His weapon is the stiletto, his codename: The Needle. He is Hitler’s prize undercover agent - a cold and professional killer.

It is 1944 and weeks before D-Day. The Allies are disguising their invasion plans with a phoney armada of ships and planes. Their plan would be ruined if an enemy agent found out... and then The Needle does just that. Hunted by MI5, he leads a murderous trail across Britain to a waiting U-Boat. But he hasn't planned for a storm-battered island, and the remarkable young woman who lives there . . ."
Highly recommended.

The Royal Governor and The Duchess - The Duke and Duchess of Windsor in the Bahamas 1940-1945 by Owen Platt - take a spoiled American adventuress who broke the heart of a nation, a weak and good for nothing man who once was king and a nation who decided to send them far far away to an (at the time) unimportant outpost of the Commonwealth, and you have the core of the story.  Machinations of the Germans (once again) who are suspected of wanting to take control of the now semi-royal couple, suspicions of their Nazi sympathies and the pressure cooker environment of a small island and you have the crux of this short but interesting book.  I couldn't help but want to slap the ex-king and his new wife for their condescension, snobbery and spoilt behaviour, but this in the end is a book about how England had a lucky escape from these two thoroughly not very nice characters who really should have been sent to Siberia rather than the Bahamas.

Garden of Beasts by Jeffrey Deaver - yet another book based in WW2, I really did not expect to enjoy this story as much as I did, despite it being written by Deaver, who rarely disappoints.
Assassin Paul Schumann is offered a chance to avoid the electric chair or prison. All he needs to do is travel to Berlin for the Olympics and take out Ernst, chief of the bureaucrats who is building German's military might for Hitler with a sideline on a particularly nasty scheme to impress Hitler.
In Berlin an honest police officer Willi Kohl finds himself on Schumann's trail without any idea of what he is up to; his forensic work, given the limitations of the time is well deduced and intelligent, and the research that Deaver has obviously underaken shines through; the Nazis are as bad as you might imagine them, but Schumann, himself a hitman, has flaws and complications of his own and as a reader you might find your sympathies misplaced - until the end.  Roadside Crosses by Jeffrey Deaver - Deaver is one of my favourite authors for a good, gripping thriller/adventure and this one certainly did not disappoint.  A police officer notices a memorial cross at the side of a road but stranglely the date on it is the following day - the day the police find a kidnapped teenage girl, left for dead in the trunk of a dumped car.

Special Agent Kathryn Dance, the kinesics expert with the California Bureau of Investigation, is on the case. The girl points her to an online community where accusations against a boy at her school turn vicious; it seems the bullying went too far, and he has snapped.
More crosses appear for future victims, linked to a names of users on a website where classmates have been busy attacking the boy; Kathryn Dance has to race against the clock using all her knowledge of kinesics and human behaviour to find the attacker before he can carry out any more attacks.   This is a book closely linked to the internet and Deaver throughout has links to actual web pages (which I confess I did not read) - an interesting idea, though for me the best part of this work was the suspense and the characters - a fab book, had me guessing (wrongly!) until the very end. 

Currently Reading...

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin.   I adored this book; beautifully written by a talented author, this is the story of Alice Liddell who was the real Alice in Wonderland - its not a biography, its fiction with a lot of facts and because of that, the story of this child who was the muse of Lewis Carroll is very readable.   I had heard (I think) several years ago that there was some minor scandal involving the author and his possibly inappropriate attachment to young girls but this story fleshes it out.  Alice Liddell at the age of seven believed herself an adult whilst Lewis Carroll (the name was a nom de plume, his real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) appeared to believe himself still a child.   Alice's life was in many ways affected by the story of Alice in Wonderland, in many ways that were not happy or positive and she only came to capitalise on her fame as the Alice in the story when she was an old lady - at which point her audience was suprised and somewhat disappointed to find that Alice had grown old.   Her life was sad, surprising and in the end, uplifting, as was the authors and this book has inspired me to read more about the real-life stories of Alice and Lewis Carroll. 

Weave, Wrap, Coil - Creating Artisan Wire Jewelry by Jodi Bombardier - I have shelves full of jewellery making books - I can't tell you quite why I love to hoard this genre of book so much, but my studio floor positively groans under the weight.   In fact, I had a good reason to purchase this particular one as most of my jewellery is wire-work - I love to work with wire and I love to look at the work of other people who work with wire.  When I see a piece by someone else, I enjoy mentally deconstructing it and learning from their technique - I've wanted to begin making rings for some time, bought ring mandrels late last year but still haven't managed to find the time to make anything.   This is another fab book published by Interweave Press which, like all my other jewellery-making books, I know I will never use to replicate any of the projects, but the deconstruction and information on how to create the 25 projects are invaluable to me in the learning process - and if you were looking to work the projects, the photos are fab, the instruction excellent and this is well worth the money. 

The Forest by Edward Rutherfurd - I read Rutherfurd's 'New York' some time ago and adored it, and this work is equally as amazing.   The central character is the New Forest in England, told through the stories of the human and animal inhabitants over centuries; from the the founding of the Forest during William the Conquerors's time up to the present day; the historical research the author must put in to each of his works is astonishing.   The story does hop around from century to century which can be a little distracting and as with some books read on my Sony E-Reader this can be difficult to keep hold of when you can't just flip back through the (paper) pages of a book to refresh your memory on a particular character.    I visited the New Forest as a child and it is every bit as magical as Rutherfurd's depiction and I cannot wait to get hold of more of this author's work. 

Heartstone (Matthew Shardlake Series 5) by C. J. Sansom - the 'Shardlake' series is one of my absolute favourites; it is historical fiction at its absolute best - as with the previous author (Rutherfurd), Sansom's hard work and research shines through the writing and the sense of being in the time and place (Tudor England) is absolute.   In this installment of the series, Henry VIII's disastrous invasion of France mounted by Henry VIII has been answered with a vast imposing French fleet making preparations to cross the Channel.    At Portsmouth, the English navy is readying itself for the battle of its life; England, reeling under the debasing of its currency to pay for the war, is suffering crippling inflation and economic meltdown. (If the thought of Britain's involvement in controversial foreign wars while suffering an economic crisis remind the reader of contemporary parallels, there is little doubt that is what  Sansom intends.)  
I especially found the portions of the book featuring the sinking of the royal ship the 'Mary Rose' fascinating because as a child, I remember vividly the raising of the same ship from her resting place of hundreds of years, in fact my parents thought it was important enough that we missed a whole morning's school to watch the event on TV.  Mary Rose Official Website (no wonder I love English history these days!)

Against this tumultuous backdrop, the lawyer Matthew Shardlake is presented with a difficult case via an elderly servant of Queen Catherine Parr which will plunge him into the labyrinthine toils of the King's Court of Wards. Shardlake’s job is to look into wrongs which have been done to the young ward Hugh Curteys by a Hampshire landowner, and (as is customary with most cases involving Shardlake) murder is soon on the agenda.

If this is the sort of fiction you enjoy, I haven't yet found better than C J Sansom - at over 600 pages long it does require some dedication, but the sense of atmosphere, of living the events is amazing and as always with Sansom's writing, it leaves me wanting more of the same, and very soon.

Currently Reading

"Books have to be read. It is the only way of discovering what they contain. A few savage tribes eat them, but reading is the only method of assimilation revealed to the West." - E.M. Forster
Currently reading....

The Island by Victoria Hislop - what a wonderful book; beautifully written, full of empathy and you'd happily adopt the characters into your own life. 
Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother Sofia's past life on Crete which is a mystery to her. When Alexis decides to visit Crete with her boyfriend, she is given a letter by Sofia to take to Fotini, her Mother's childhood friend, who Alexis hopes will shed light on her heritage.

Alexis finds the village lies a stone’s throw from the deserted island of Spinalonga – Greece’s former leper colony. When she meets Fotini, she finally hears the story that Sofia has hidden: of Eleni, her great-grandmother and a family split by sadness, passion and war.   I enjoyed this book so much, the characters were absorbing and real, but the book covers so much, such a breadth of years and events that I felt parts - especially the ending, seemed rushed - like there was a list or a series of tick boxes the author had to get through; although a long book, it would quite perfectly well have stood another 50 pages, and its a shame because so much of the work is beautifully written and worked.  Or is this just me being greedy?

Authenticity: Clearing the Junk: A Buddhist Perspective by Venerable Yifa - I'm not one for religion - spirituality is a different thing entirely; I believe in the good in people rather than feeling the need to go to church to find that, or whatever it is each person looks for when they practice their religion.   The one religion I can see the sense in though is Buddhism; the gentleness, the understanding and the overall common sense of it appeals to me greatly.
Venerable Yifa is a Buddhist monk, and here she writes about our lives being overwhelmed with junk.  From a rather flippant context of considering the state of my studio, I can see the sense in considering the junk we surround ourselves with - junk food, junk mail, junk culture, junk relationships.  She argues for finding and connecting with a deeper meaning in all aspects of our lives, and that makes sense on so many levels.  This book is short but full of layers of meaning and guidance - its one of those books you'll have to read over and over again to find new messages each time.   Common sense guidance from a gentle soul.  And who could argue with that? 

The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory - despite the soul damaging 'Wideacre' mentioned in last month's 'Currently Reading', I picked up another Philippa Gregory book because I love her characterisations and the pictures she paints of history.  The Other Queen mentioned in the book is Mary, Queen of Scots, but this book is about three women - Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and Bess of Hardwick Hall and Chatsworth (both near here) in the Peak District.  Her characterisation of all three is fabulous, and as always, there are new historical glimpses to be had, though some of the facts have of course been re-worked to give a better story.  



Pompeii by Robert Harris - Pompeii is somewhere I've always wanted to visit.  The thought of an entire culture and time being stopped, frozen and preserved is fascinating to me.   The Roman culture is not one I have done as much reading about as I have in terms of British history, but again, its an area I will explore in the future.  Harris' Pompeii brings the culture, the time and his characters to life quite beautifully, so much so I found myself holding my breath.   Two central characters, a now rich and powerful ex-slave and a waterworks engineer, make unlikely heroes and villains, supported by a cast of many others including Pliny.   There is a terrible inevitability to the whole tale of course, rather like waiting for the Titanic to sink.   I know Harris got at least one fact wrong, because there were no cats in Pompeii at the time of the eruption (ref: The Character of Cats, Stephen Budiansky) which made me think ha!, but its the one thing I could find to criticise; you find yourself hating the villain of the piece as you do with the best villains; and you hope the hero gets it together with the girl he falls in love with.  A great beach read, started off my Roman/Pompeii research reading at entry level, I enjoyed this very much.

Currently Reading

A is for Alibi - B is For Burgular by Sue Grafton 

This author is working her way through the alphabet, the next in the series being C is for Corpse so you get the drift.  The central character, Kinsey Millhone is a Private Detective, a straight talking divorcee who lives in a fifteen foot room and drives a beat-up old car; the books detail multi layered adventures, each story following fleshing out the character (I know this because I've already started B is for Burglar...!) - 'A' being the first book the character and the writing is a bit unformed but I can see myself tearing through the whole alphabet over the coming weeks and months - 'A' is enjoyable, a bit on the light side but it has possibilities (which are borne out in the next letter of the alphabet) and this one comes with a surprise ending which I won't spoil for you.   

Scarves and Wraps - 25 Gorgeous Designs by Jill Denton

I've realised that felting is seasonal - I have the most gorgeous pile of felting wools in my work-room (a.k.a. the spare bedroom) but I haven't once had the urge to do anything with them since the sun started shining (though now its raining constanly maybe I will do something...) - I've found that hot weather is not conducive to sweating over a great long piece of wool - and the physical process of felting is just that, physical - its hard work, and no-one wants to be panting over a sheet of wool in the summer, it just does not seem right somehow.
Having said that, its the most perfect time of year for learning, and this book offers lots of inspiration to the felter - I've not been doing it long and so I'll take any help I can get - I look at the work of others and wonder 'how did they do that'.  Each chapter develops work around a different 'natural' theme - lots to go on, maybe a bit light on in-depth techniques though that is easily worked round by looking up anthing you might need on the internet - Jill Denton also has a nice website, which can be found here.

Wideacre by Phillipa Gregory - sometimes when reading something you become mesmerised, but not necessarily in a good way - a bit, I imagine, like coming across a snake and being too scared to move.  Not that this book scared me, but I came away from reading it feeling thoroughly grubby and as though my soul had been slightly damaged.  This sounds amazing as the result of reading a book but the central character somehow does this to you; imagine Scarlett O'Hara on acid, and you've got Beatrice Lacey, the 'heroine' of this piece.  Its not that I don't recommend the book, but it should come with a health warning; murder, incest, you name it, its in here; riveting - certainly, entertaining - possibly, but dark, dark, dark - most definitely.

Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King by Antonia Fraser - this is one you are going to love, it is incredibly evocative and brings to life this most astonishing King of France; not only does it do this to perfection, but it also does the same for the women in his life; mistresses and wives, mothers and daughters - this book explores the relationships between The Sun King and his women, including Louis XIV's mistresses, Louise de La Valliere, Athenais de Montespan, and the puritanical Madame de Maintenon, but also the wider story of his relationships with women in general, including his mother Anne of Austria, his sisters-in-law who were Duchesses d'Orleans in succession, his illegitimate daughters, and Adelaide, the child-wife of his grandson; highly recommended, Antonia Fraser never disapppoints.  

Currently Reading

Miss Chopsticks by Xinran - the story of three sisters born into a poor family in a small northern Chinese village. The book cuts to the heart of the way women are perceived - because of the shame of by their mother's inability to 'lay eggs' (bear sons), the girls are given numbers instead of names. Women are like chopsticks, their father tells them; fragile and expendable. Sons, however, are the roof beams which hold up a house. After the eldest sister drowns herself in a well when she is sent to marry a man she does not love, sister Three leaves to find her fortune in Nanjing, followed by Five and Six, one of whom is presumed (wrongly) to be stupid.
The girls make their way, finding jobs, friends and a life, but each story ends differently, ultimately proving that girls can also be 'roof beams'.  
The book is gentle, enchanting and beautifully written - I always enjoy Xinran's writing, and the translator has done a great job, making sure the reader has a grasp of the subtleties of the original language.  The author wrote the book based on the stories of three women she had met, and because the culture is so different from my own, I love to read literature about China and Japan - highly recommended.

The African Queen by C.S. Forester - I confess I've only ever seen snippets of the film featuring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn - for some reason I've just never fancied it that much.   I saw the boat, The African Queen, used in the film as it is moored in Key Largo, several years ago on a holiday - and I could not imagine how a film could be based around something so tatty and unpropessing.   Having read the book, I can both appreciate the story and the little boat, and that means I will definitely make an effort to watch the film.

The writing is so descriptive, so evocative and so wonderful that it is almost as if the reader is right there, with the story, and the story itself is quite wonderful.

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
So many people had told me that this was such a great book and that I had to read it. Certainly, it is ambitous and considering the author was only 25 when he wrote it, its a considerable achievement. Almost a thousand pages long, its subject is medieval life and the trials and tribulations of a group of characters, a monastery and the machinations of royalty, peasants and any one else in between. As you might expect, because of its length, it rambles some and I felt some tight editing would have improved the experience - towards the last third of the book you start to lose your way and the characters start to merge a bit, so you end up racking your brains as to whether this is someone new or someone from seven chapters back - or maybe that's because I'm dim or something. Anyhow.
The author has obviously done a lot of research, but probably not enough for a book of this breadth and ambition. This is not a book for the faint of heart - it features two graphic rapes which I hadn't been prepared for and whilst I wouldn't describe these as gratuitous, perhaps we didn't need quite as much detail. Follett wrote a follow up book which I will read, but again, here is a book which does not stand up to comparison with the CJ Sansom 'Shardlake' books (Dark Fire, Dissolution, Sovereign etc).

Josephine: A Life of the Empress by Carolly Erickson; I confess to having listened to this as an audio book rather than having gone for the hard slog and read it. Not that it was a hard slog, it was readably wonderful though the central character is presented in an unfailingly positive light when in fact she appears to have been a venal spendthrift; it is evident that the author had done a great deal of research. I had not known much at all about Empress Josephine other than she was Napoléon's wife and wore some pretty darn cool tiaras before this book, but I learned a whole lot more here.

Born Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie in Martinique (known as Rose), she had quite a life before ever setting eyes on Buonaparte who was six years her junior. Married to an alternately indifferent and cruel aristocratic husband, Alexandre de Beauharnais who, despite being a leading light in the French Revolution was himself guillotined, she survived him in the French prisons awaiting execution herself by being too ill to be guillotined.
Having risen alongside Napoléon to the apex of Society, Josephine ruled with him as Empress; during her life with him she endured many cruelties inflicted by his family; however it was her inability to produce an heir - perhaps due to her tribulations in prison during the Terror, that brought about their divorce in 1810 in order than Napoléon could marry Marie-Louise of Austria by proxy; Napoléon remarked after marrying Marie-Louise that "he had married a womb."
Josephine and Napoléon remained on good terms, he said the only thing to come between them was her debts.
Joséphine died of pneumonia in May 1814; despite his numerous affairs, their divorce and his remarriage, Napoléon's last words on St. Helena were; "France, the Army, the Head of the Army, Joséphine."

Currently Reading...

Currently reading.....

Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir - the story of Lady Jane Grey, a tragic, sorry tale...I enjoy Alison Weir's historical fiction for the background detail as much as the central story - the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I are fascinating - although I'd read a littlle about Lady Jane Grey as a footnote in history, this book fleshes out the human being and brings to the foreground the absolute tragedy of a sixteen year old child who was manipulated, bullied and ultimately faced the chopping block for the ambition and advancement of others.

Fatal Voyage by Kathy Reichs - Tempe Brennan, the same character featured in the TV series 'Bones' is an intriguing, strange character and the stories are usually absorbing.   A plot within a story within another plot, and the layers are riveting - this is a great read, a well written story and interesting characters - recommended.   An aircraft crashes leaving Tempe with a sea of dead passengers, on top of which she discovers more remains, going to great lengths to establish these are nothing to do with the aircrash, and everything to do with a secret society...  I finished this book in one day though no-one got a word out of me and dinner was 'whatever you might be lucky enough to find in the fridge'....!

The Disastrous Mrs. Weldon: The Life, Loves and Lawsuits of a Legendary Victorian by Brian Thompson - this sounded like such a good book - talk about being talked up on the front cover!! I don't know whether Mrs. Weldon was a scandalous Victorian or a legendary one, but the first part of this book bored me stiff. Its possible that the second half consisted of all the exciting stuff, but as I kept falling asleep every time I tried to keep going with this one, I just gave up in the end. Maybe, when I am down to my last book on my e-reader I'll give it another go, until then, life's just too short to read stuff this dry.

Ill Wind by Nevada Barr - another of the 'Anna Pigeon' series - a Park Ranger who solves mysteries - these are unchallenging but entertaining and remind me a lot of the Nancy Drew Mysteries I read as a youngster....Anna is called upon to solve a mystery of a dead ranger and recurrent mysterious illness in Park Visitors...I'd guessed the ending half way through the book; unchallenging but enjoyable. 

Currently Reading....

New York by Edward Rutherfurd - what a fabulous book.  A huge thumping read making the city of New York the central character, starting when Manhattan was a swamp, taking us right through to 9/11 and onwards and linking New York with a series of families and characters that fascinate and interest the reader just as much as the place...generations of the city, generations of families, with layers and layers of engaging history (though the section about the American Revolution did go on a bit..) that cannot fail to interest and entertain; the amount of historical research the author must have undertaken must have been astonishing - the accounts of the Draft Riots, the building of New York's skyscrapers, the great depression, the diversity of the population of the city - Poles, Germans, British, Italian, Irish, and the contributions they all made to the place. 
The only criticism I have is that the book does have a character list which runs into the (seemingly) thousands...fair enough, considering the book spans hundreds of years, but I found this - having said that, this has been researched well and the characters are engaging - I am sure I will read this again in a year or two and enjoy it just as much.  Highly recommended.

Riders by Jilly Cooper...this book has one of 'those' reputations.   Its set largely in the 1970's which was a bit of a historical exercise for me because I was only pea-sized during that decade, and of course it was the horses that attracted me.   I have to say that in terms of 'that' reputation I found it tame - maybe we're just used to more shocking stuff these days.   I did get to the end of the book, and its fine as a beach read though dated...the characters are overblown and larger than life...how many of these people would you actually meet in a lifetime, let alone meet in one book?   Moderately entertaining, with the horses being the stars.  I only wish my rear end looked as good as this woman's on the cover.....

206 Bones by Kathy Reichs....I always have high expectations of Kathy Reichs, mainly I suppose based on the TV series 'Bones' (which to be honest has taken a nosedive recently) but I am often disappointed.   I can't really put my finger on it.  Maybe its in comparison to Patricia Cornwell's 'Scarpetta' who goes the other way and often shocks and revolts all in the one paragraph.   Somehow Tempe Brennan is a bit warm and fuzzy and Reich's characterisation and storylines are often weak.  It does not however stop me from reading her books because they are unchallenging and don't leave nightmare tracks across your brain before bedtime.    OK on the understanding its not going to make it onto your '100 books I most loved' list.

The Courts of Love: The Story of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Jean Plaidy.....
This is the story of the mother of Richard the Lionheart, who was so much more than that.  I'd already read the book by Alison Weir (Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England) - its interesting how much detail one author can fill in over another - I can't say that Jean Plaidy's style is as beautiful as Alison Weir's, or that the story is any better for the historical fiction treatment and the narrative in the first person sounds distinctly un-queen-like; fairly entertaining but not a book I'd probably read again though I'm glad I did for the background atmosphere on the subject.

Currently Reading

Library of Shadows by Mikkel Birkegaard....sigh...I had such high hopes for this book, I don't know how I manage to get suckered into this sort of thing time and time again, because the end result is always disappointment.   Here, once again, we have a Da Vinci Code Wannabe.  Here, once again, we have a Da Vinci Code No Where Near As Good As The Real Thing.   When, oh when will I learn not to waste my money.   I can't even bring myself to finish it, and I am kicking myself for the utter waste of time I put in it to get to the half way point, knowing I will go no further with it.   Get my drift?  Not even worth borrowing from your local library.

Enchanted Adornments: Creating Mixed-Media Jewelry with Metal Clay, Wire, Resin, and More by Cynthia Thornton - interesting, challenging, visually beautiful and inspiring with lots of diversions in terms of little side-articles that take you away from 'just' jewellery design and making and into the realms of symbolism of design and other interesting avenues.
A charming and useful book, highly recommended, if you only use it for eye-candy and those days where you sit at your workbench, stumped, (though it offers so much more) this is well worth reading.
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman - I like the film, but I LOVE the book.   Of course often books and film bear little resemblance to each other, and this is somewhat the case here.  Hoffman's writing is full of feminine wisdom and she feels like the sort of person you'd love to have as a friend.  Having said that, the ending is slightly out of whack considering she's been working so hard to have all the female characters as strong and independent (can we feel a bit of arm twisting by the publishers there?) but if you overlook that as more than likely 'office politics' this is a charming, unusual and life affirming book that no-one should miss.   Lovely, lovely, lovely.
Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton - oh my goodness, another wonderful book!!  I stayed up all night with matchsticks propped up under my eyelids to read this, it is fantastic (I constantly promised myself 'just one more chapter, then I'll go to bed....well, I just read and read, right to the very end).   If you want a great story with fab characters, this one is it...I'd never read anything by Michael Crichton before, but as this one was already getting great reviews all over the place, how bad could it really be?, I reasoned.   I am so glad I decided to go for this one, and I will certainly be reading more of Crichton's work - this particular book was apparently found amongst his papers as a complete novel after his death in 2008.   Its full of swashbuckling, derring-do, frankly fairly unbelievable stuff, but still, very very entertaining and very evocative.   Don't miss it.  

Currently Reading....

I am currently reading...
Alligators, Old Mink and New Money by Alison Houtte -oh this is a charming book, it just whips by and suddenly you're at the end wanting more - this is a true story of a New York model/socialite who runs her own vintage clothing shop - the book wanders through her life, the story of the clothes, the people who buy them and the shop itself - the characters are great, the clothing even better...brilliant.

Small Wars Permitting - Dispatches from Foreign Lands by Christina Lamb - this is another fabulous read with the most wonderful writing and story-telling by the author who is a journalist and has reported from some of the most fascinating - and the most dangerous - places on earth - there isn't a moment in this book that falls flat.  

England's Mistress - The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton by Kate Williams - I am reading this book a second time - it is so beautifully written, so well researched and so interesting that I think I would get more out of it every time I took it down from my bookshelf.  Lady Emma Hamilton, who took one look at Lord Nelson and despite being married, fell at his feet, is the subject and what a fascinating one at that - her story is amazing, and the other stories that Kate Williams has woven around her life are equally absorbing - the story ends tragically and its sad to realise that Emma Hamilton ended her days exiled, left out and uncared for after the death of Nelson when he specifically asked the nation to take care of her - his memory was honoured, but she was left out in the cold, and I can only reflect that society treated her dreadfully for the crime of loving someone so deeply she gave up everything for him.

Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell - this grabbed me from the opening line, describing Fashion Week in New York - I stayed at the Bryant Park Hotel in NY with Mum the year before last so I knew exactly where the author was and I loved this book by the author of Sex and the City - the characters are bigger, louder and brasher than those in SATC if you can believe that, and this is one of those books which might not challenge the brain cells, but will certainly keep them amused; I stayed up all night until I read this in one huge e-book gulp...

Currently Reading...

This is what I have been reading recently...

African Queen: The Real Life of the Hottentot Venus by Rachel Holmes - this book promised much but delivered relatively little - a slim volume documenting the life of Saartjie Baartman, a member of the South African of Hottentots who was basically brought to England and then to France to go on display as a living exhibit as a curiosity...her story was a sad one, but the book fails to deliver in terms of her early life and is lightweight with regard to her feelings on the whole episode - she died young in France sadly never returning to her homeland whilst alive and her bones were not repatriated to South Africa until 2002 when she received a number of posthumous honours which were arguably politically motivated.   All her life, she was used and abused, and in death she was also a symbol which could be used.  Interesting and worth reading, but bear in mind, it feels like this piece of work is missing vital parts.

The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory - historical fiction account of the life of Catherine of Aragon, wife of the tyrannical Henry VIII - as always with Gregory's work, this is a wonderful piece of work which evokes the times, the smell and the feel of the era, puts the reader into the life of this abused princess and queen, and gives a different perspective to the life of one of Henry VIII's queens, all of whom seem to have eclipsed one another - a great read and highly recommended; a lot less flowery than the cover suggests!

1000 Years for Revenge: International Terrorism and the FBI- The Untold Story by Peter Lance - a fascinating account of the apparent errors which have been made by the security services in detecting and preventing the current terrorist threats - the book deals with the American authors' perspective and deals with the first bombing of the Twin Towers in New York and the missed opportunities in detecting the greater threat that this presented and how that went on to manifest itself - its a bit long-winded but interesting - though, I guess we'd all have to say 'hindsight is a wonderful thing' and my perspective is that even the FBI is probably human....

Adept by Robert Finn - this book really interested me from the synopsis description on the cover - Described as "An impressively ambitious debut that marries the crime novel with the occult thriller...It's a British variant on The Da Vinci Code and The Rule of Four..." - well, I don't know what that reviewer read, but I found my credulity being stretched until it snapped - I stayed with it until I finished the book, but at the end wished I really hadn't bothered....I believe that this is one of a series, this being the first and I am afraid I won't be paying out good money to snap anything else, including my patience...

Currently Reading...

This is what I am currently reading...

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice; this was a happy accident - .  it jumped off the shelf in a book-shop.   I have started this series out of sequence as it is one of a large series, but I plan on reading the others - vampire books are not usually a genre that appeal to me one iota, but this is fun; the central character Lestat (who as you might surmise is a vampire) should be an unappealing and hideous character but as a reader, I found myself liking him very much; the first book in the series is 'Interview with the Vampire' which I plan on sinking my teeth into as soon as possible...
The Horse Dancer by JoJo Moyes - a young girl lives with her Grandfather, who was a  long time ago a member of the elite French 'cadre noir' - a bit like the Spanish School of Riding but in France.   She lives on the wrong side of the tracks in a rough part of London and the one bright part of her life is her horse Boo; with her Grandfather she has been working on haute ecole movements with the horse which will one day, he hopes, give her a way out of the rough environment.   The grandfather has a stroke and the girl ends up in care...believing that she will have the horse taken off her, she chooses to conceal it which causes her terrible problems.  A lot of difficulties ensue for the carers and the child, which culminates with the child riding to France to try to show the Cadre Noir her horse; there is a second story going on about the carers, and a couple of others about the characters in the story so its not 'just' a horse-and-a-girl type book.   Even if you are not into horses, this is one of those wonderful tales that would be excellent for both adults and older children.  The result is unexpected, poignant, but ultimately positive. 

Art Journals & Creative Healing (Restoring the Spirit through Self-Expression) by Sharon Soneff and Mindy Caliguire - even had I been able to buy this as an E-book I wouldn't have done so, because this sort of book has to be read, handled and enjoyed - I toy with journal-keeping on a sort of wistful basis most of the time - its basically creative diary keeping, or a process of working through an event or an emotion or a way of keeping an art-based journal on whatever subject you choose.  Its a great idea, and I have lots of ideas for working on a variety of subjects...I'll occasionally start one and then other creative stuff will come along and push it aside and I feel ashamed of my pathetic efforts to keep up with it.  Journal keeping doesn't really have rules other than  you actually have to write it and keep up with it....and as good as my intentions are, I just cannot seem to do that.   The process though, when I do put effort in is rewarding and I have (in theory, at least, at various stages of being worked on) several which focus on my animals, my work, and so on.  This book's title is self-explanatory...the scope of the work and the subjects is inspiring.   I always feel that my journals should be more beautiful but the process is designed for the writer/author to work through that subject and not for the books to be open to the scrutiny of others.  In this book though, we do get to scrutinise the journal-keeping work of others...the book is full of advice and inspiration, so perhaps this one will make me put some work into the process.

The House on The Strand by Daphne du Maurier - it comes as a surprise to me how accessible and readable du Maurier's work is when I have not picked up one of her books for a while.  Considering her work was written a relatively long time ago, I sometimes fall into the trap of imagining it to be stuffy and stiff.   Not so.  She produced a lot of other work besides her most high profile books, Jamaica Inn and Rebecca, which are fabulous reads.   The House on the Strand is a story of drug-induced time-travel - which sounds a bit weird but is an original and inventive bit of storytelling with great atmosphere.   I loved this one; I plan on re-reading Rebecca and Jamaica Inn as soon as I can find the time. 

Currently reading...

Books I am currently reading...

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell - this is so beautifully written, a story about a young woman who finds out she has an aunt who has been in a mental institution most of her life, just as the institution is about to close.  Despite not wanting to, she becomes drawn into the story of Esme and the resulting story is wonderful, happy, tender and so worth spending the time reading.
Creative Time And Space by Rice Freeman Zachery - Rice's books are always a visual treat, and this new one is no exception....the writing is pretty darn good too!  I have a billion and one things to do for work right now, and all I have managed to do is flick through and bookmark here and there but I am constantly distracted by it...visually it draws the reader in; it truly is a work of art in itself, I managed to read a bit of it whilst the equine dentist was looking at my horse's teeth a few days ago (which is probably a first for this book generally!) - this is a beautiful book that artists of all kind will enjoy and use constantly.Goodbye, Dear Friend - Coming To Terms With The Death of A Pet by Virginia Ironside...I am sad to be once again reading this book; I am struggling with grief following the death of my beautiful pussycat Cleo who was my constant companion.  This book has gently guided me through the loss of other deeply loved feline companions in the past, and I am working through its wisdom again.   I miss my pretty girl every day, and my heart is breaking from the sadness.   This book is a much needed resource; this is one to remember for times like these.    
Becoming Queen by Kate Williams...this author writes wonderfully - her style is faultless, beautiful and readable...I loved her previous book about Emma Hamilton, the mistress of Lord Nelson and this one is every bit as good...the book, whilst about Queen Victoria, begins with a the fascinating and tragic story of the previous heir presumptive, Princess Charlotte which was a rather unusual start to a book about Queen Victoria...but as I had not read anything on Charlotte before, I found this in itself very interesting.  The ensuing work on Victoria is very good too.