Usual disclaimer: I wouldn’t normally include kid’s books in a ‘what I am reading list’, but I am reading these aloud to my son – if it takes me more than 2 nights to read through out loud, its enough book to include here. We’ve been delayed in reading this as I had to convince [...]

My daughter gave me a copy of this classic for christmas, so of course I had to read it… Its an enjoyable read, and I always like sitting down with Catherine, and seeing how her happiness comes around. A worthwhile read.

I absolutely adore C J Cherryh’s writing and the Foreigner series is her best work, in my opinion, so I was very excited when the new book was published and have been waiting for an opportunity to get a copy. It was worth the wait. Bren is back on the planet after a successful mission, [...]

My daughter gave me a copy for Christmas, as we were missing it from the shelves. Love that girl so much! … Northhanger Abbey is, of course, classic Jane Austen. It is apparently, the first book she completed, but for unknown reasons the publisher who purchased it allowed it to languish – eventually she bought [...]

This is one of the boy’s christmas books – I was very surprised to see how thick it is! This will take days – Fantastic Mr Fox only took a couple of days (and so I didn’t count it here), and that only because I fell asleep reading it. Conclusion: We enjoyed reading this, but [...]

This is an early Agatha Christie novel, written in around 1925. We have a young man called Anthony Cade – a bit of a ne’er do well, but there are strong suspicions of a heart of gold under all that roguish exterior. Eking out a living in Africa, he encounters a friend who asks him [...]

Another Agatha Christie book. I am enjoying reading these – I thought that hercules Poirot would annoy me, but he doesn’t – possibly because he doesn’t appear that much in the books, possibly because… he just doesn’t! Poirot is shocked, simply shocked! His ultra efficient secretary has made 3 mistakes in one letter. This is [...]

This is Terry Pratchett’s latest Discorld effort. I had read relatively poor reviews for this, but I can’t agree – its just as strong as his other works. The story – the common people of Ankh-Morpork follow football, but it is an unregulated and unsafe game. At the same time, the wizards of Unseen University [...]

Miss Marple is minding her own business – and feeling her age – when a letter appears asking her to attend a London solicitor. She realises that an acquaintance from a few years ago has passed on and has left a strange bequest. He needs justice to be done – and it is Miss Marple [...]

For something different, I have picked up a work of non-fiction. I enjoy well written history, but don’t read it very often, fiction junky that I am. “The Courtesans” is a brief description of the lives of 12 “major” courtesans of 19th century France, including Blanche d’Antigny, La barucci, Cora Pearl, Esther Guimond, La Paiva [...]