Back to work

 

 

We've had a very full weekend and an enormously enjoyable one, but today it's back to auld claes and porridge, in a manner of speaking, and there's reading to be caught up with.
    I'm well on with Margery Allingham's The Tiger in the Smoke for the Book Group discussion this coming weekend, but the postie has just brought several things to add to the TBR pile, and very good they look.

 

     First up is The Gate of Air: A Ghost Story by James Buchan, described as "a fireside spine-chiller of Victorian vigour and conviction and an exploration of a disturbed modernity" - intriguing stuff, indeed. I see that the author is the great-grandson of John Buchan, and writes with reverence and affection of pigs, an animal I'm keen on and which he keeps (and a further digression, he mentions in that article a wonderful dish involving pork, Agen prunes and Vouvray which I've cooked from time to time). But back to the point, and the unfolding of the tale of Paradise Farm for which the first few pages of the book have really whetted my appetite.
     Next is Susie Vereker's Paris Imperfect, a romantic novel about an Englishwoman in Paris, and first impressions of this suggest a sparky book, funny, bright and pacy. Clio is twice-divorced but craves stability, particularly for her son, Alex, so she puts up with the perfectionism and criticism of her French lover Philippe, but then she meets....No more until I've read it!
     Last of the latest bunch is The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams; "gothic" and "gripping" say the reviews. Set in a crumbling mansion from which moth expert Ginny rarely ventures out, this tale of two sisters looks very promising indeed. 

Comments

[adele geras]

Snap, Cornflower! I had a lovely parcel yesterday which contained Behaviour of Moths...can't wait to read it. And it also contained a proof of the new Joan Bakewell novel which comes out next year....they join my tottering TBR pile but are very near the top!