Life must be filled up

The Prostrate Years, Sue Townsend
Acts of Faith, Adam Faith autobiography
Backroom Boys: the Secret Return of the British Boffin, Francis Spufford
Mrs Tim Carries On, D E Stevenson
Alice, Elizabeth Eliot
Caesar’s Wife’s Elephant, Margery Allingham
The Beauty King, Margery Allingham
The Doll Factory, Elizabeth Macneal
The Road to Grantchester, James Runcie
Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford
Don’t Tell Alfred, Nancy Mitford
The Strange Case of Harriet Hall, Moray Dalton
Currently reading this massive tome: A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle, Julian Jackson and in bed, Reasons to be Cheerful, Nina Stibbe
( thoughts (long) )

Mary Wakefield, Mazo de la Roche
The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde , Eve Chase
N or M?, Agatha Christie
Because of the Lockwoods, Dorothy Whipple
Bertie’s Guide to Life and Mothers, Alexander McCall Smith
The Killing in the Café, Simon Brett
Hiss and Hers, M C Beaton
The Unpleasantness in the Ballroom, Catriona Macpherson
Number 10, Sue Townsend
A Summer at Sea, Katie Fforde
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
Variable Winds at Jalna, Mazo de la Roche
The Z Murders, J Jefferson Farjeon
Over the Gate, Miss Read
( thoughts )

Dreams of the Good Life: The life of Flora Thompson and the creation of Lark Rise to Candleford, Richard Mabey
Murder Most Unladylike , Robin Stevens
Touch Not the Cat, Mary Stewart
Wilfred and Eileen , Jonathan Smith
Jill on the Land , Phyllis Matthewman
Timber Girl , Phyllis Matthewman
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Sue Townsend
All Change , Elizabeth Jane Howard
Into the Whirlwind , Eugenia Ginzburg
When We Were Bad, Charlotte Mendelson
( a few thoughts )

Speaking from Among the Bones, Alan Bradley
The Dead in Their Vaulted Aches , Alan Bradley
Life After Life , Kate Atkinson
Valley of the Shadow, Carola Dunn
Kipling, 100 Poems Old and New, ed. Thomas Pinney.
Queen Camilla, Sue Townsend
Object Lessons, Anna Quindlen
The Old-Girl Network, Catherine Alliott 1994
Stage Blood, Michael Blakemore
( opinions )

Raisins and Almonds, Kerry Greenwood. OK, but Phryne Fisher is not for me.
Purbeck Adventure, Eileen Meyler. First book about the Elwood family.
Requiem for a Mezzo, Carola Dunn. My third Daisy Dalrymple book running and I liked it even more than the first two. Set in the world of opera this time when a singer drops dead on stage, with Daisy and Alec conveniently in the audience. The Daisy/Alec affair progresses very nicely.
Good Wives, Louisa May Alcott, re-read
Footsteps in the Dark , Georgette Heyer
The Unfinished Clue, Georgette Heyer
Why Shoot a Butler?, Georgette Heyer
Death in the Stocks, Georgette Heyer
More Work for the Undertaker , Margery Allingham, re-read
I then tried another Heyer but there’s no comparison.
Adventure at Dale House, Eileen Meyler
Behold, Here’s Poison, Georgette Heyer. I perhaps liked this best of all the ones I’ve read so far. I do wonder though why Miss Heyer invented Inspector Hannasyde when so often the mystery is solved by one of the other characters?
Adrian Mole, The Prostrate Years, Sue Townsend. The usual brilliant zeitgeist-y social comment, whether it’s Adrian unable to make a an appointment with his GP or the council menacing his parents for not putting out and removing rubbish bins at exactly the right time. A lot of the charm of the books comes from the atmosphere of extended family and the way figures from the past like Brain Box Henderson still turn up in Adrian’s life. Not a bundle of laughs, though; I found it very hard to read about Adrian’s cancer diagnosis and treatment.
They Found Him Dead, Georgette Heyer
A Peep Behind the Scenes , Mrs O F Walton
Poppy’s Presents, Mrs O F Walton
Back to Me , Marcus Trescothick with Peter Hayter
( Blakes & Blacketts books by Grace James )

There's a thread running on a mailing list I'm on: 'Where did you first read that book'? I was reminded of one book in particular by Private Eye's Literary Review of Garrison Keillor's new book, Liberty. They hate it, of course; they only review in order to be nasty. The anonymous reviewer should at least acknowledge that the first book in the series has something going for it.

I was in Orlando, Florida, in bed in a swish hotel. I knew nothing about the book, the same edition shown here; American with '#1 National Bestseller' on the cover. A few pages in I got to, 'it would make a good picture, if you had the right lens, which no one in this town has got.' I laughed out loud and was converted. The same thing happened with the first Adrian Mole book, which I also started in complete ignorance. I shrieked when the dog came back from the vet's after having a pirate extracted from its paw (you have to have read the book) and there began another love affair. That would have been Christmas 1982, on the sofa. I still re-read Lake Wobegon Days and my current bed book is The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole .

Any books linked forever with the place you first read them?

I see I read more books than I thought I had last month. Here’s the list, with links if I’ve written about the books already.


One Good Turn, Kate Atkinson
Lily A Ghost Story, Adèle Geras. An odd little book, branded a ‘Quick Read’, which I assumed was aimed at older children, but perhaps not. A strange mixture of Jacqueline Wilson and The Girl on a Swing.
The House on the Kopje , Mollie Chappell
The Fortunes of Frick, Mollie Chappell
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen , Paul Torday
Digging to America , Anne Tyler
Stormy Petrel , Mary Stewart
Pilgrimage 1, Dorothy Richardson
Life Skills, Katie Fforde. Always a pleasure.
All the Adrian Mole books one after the other, when I felt poorly. I wished there were more.
Collector’s Progress, Stanley W Fisher

Contrary to certain miserable prognostications, the tulips I bought the other day are still standing up straight and giving pleasure. Fans of Adrian Mole will of course recognise my title as a quote from Barry Kent's prize winning poem from The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole.

Nice, red, tall stiff,
In a vase,
On a table,
In a room,
In our house.

'According to Henderson, Kent's poem shows Japanese cultural influences! How stupid can you get?
The nearest Barry Kent has got to Japanese culture is sitting on the pillion of a stolen Honda.'