Not quite sure where October went but it has passed in a flash. I seem to have spent most of it belting up and down the A12 to London and back, but not complaining as Florence is there at the other end waiting for me. Of course helped with the move as well, then have been away for a few days and organising more of my Australia trip and suddenly here we are in November.
I have been dipping in and out of books with no particular plan or focus, just tend to grab what is there. Had a blip a few weeks ago when I simply could not make up my mind what I wanted to read next, a fate which seems to befall all us bloggers at one time or another, so did my usual re-reads of some old favourites until I got into the swing again.
As I have mentioned before this year seems to be my year for reading spy thrillers and detective novels and, though not planned, I have enjoyed this foray into this fun kind of reading. I have been reading Janet Evanovitch and Tess Gerritsen, have now finished all the Wallander books of Mankell and the other week when I was in the library I picked up a couple by Lisa Scottoline. Straightforward murder/thriller/ conspiracy type books and I read three of them in one day and enjoyed them in a slob out on sofa kind of way. Cannot remember anything about them now and abandoned one of them as it got a bit silly. But they passed an hour or three.
To my surprise and delight I found a PD James I had not read. One of her Cordelia Grey novels, The Skull Beneath the Skin. Hunting out others featuring this character and I can only find two. Are there any more? Anyway, Cordelia is hired to accompany an aging actress to a private performance of a Webster playt on a private island. The said actress has been receiving death threats increasing in their intensity and though at first it was thought they were sent merely to cause her to lose her nerve on stage (and she did), they end up in her murder. We have a classic setting, all the suspects on an island which can only be reached by the ferry, a grand Victorian type castle, a collection of friends and relatives, all of whom have a motive for murder. Absolutely terrific and after reading the aforesaid Lisa Scottoline novels, the prose of which, while not purple, definitely had a lilac hue, it was sheer pleasure to read the elegant, clean prose of PD James. I know this lovely lady is in her nineties now but I do hope, selfishly, that she is with us for a while yet so that she can give us more of her wonderful writing.
I have also read Deadheads by Reginald HIll, which was another good find as I discovered I had not read this as well and pretty damn good it was too. A quiet man whose path to promotion and to the ownership of a house with a beautiful garden which he was always wanted, is eased by mysterious deaths of those in his way - accident or coincidence and does he get away with it? We are left wondering. Another brilliant read from Reginald HIll,
Then in complete contrast, I have been reading a biography of Nigel Dempster by Tim Willis who used to write for the Daily Mail for years. He was their so called 'gossip columnist' though he was light years away from the reportage we now see about 'slebs' in Hello magazine, OK and others. He seemed to know everyone who was everyone, his writing was sparkling and I cannot recall a time when his stories were wrong. Unlike today, when magazines write what they like and sometimes make up a so called scoop, Nigel Dempster checked every word and made sure his story was accurate. He broke the story of the collapse of Princess Margaret's marriage and the resignation of the Prime Minister Harold Wilson, huge stories and he would have been in trouble if they had been wrong. Though he knew everyone he seemed to be a very self contained somewhat lonely person with broken relationships and took to drink. I used to read his column regularly and though he could be acerbic and to the point I can never remember him being unkind. Not bad for an epitaph for this consummate journalist who died in 2007.
And then sheer delight - And furthermore by Judi Dench. This is not an autobiography, more a series of reminiscences of her acting life which were told to oneJohn Miller who has done a great job of turning them into this book. She doesn't give much away about her family life and the death of her beloved husband is passed over pretty quickly, but what she does give us is anecdote after anecdote, story after story about actors, actresses and producers with whom she has worked. Difficult to pull out one or two so I am not going to try - just buy the book and read for yourself. I know Dame Judi doesn't like being called a National Treasure, but she is one and will have to put up with being designated as such. She comes across as a warm, lovable woman BUT it is clear that she takes no nonsense from anybody and has a determination to guard her privacy and private life from prying eyes. I read this book in a sitting and ended up loving her more than ever. I raved about her performance over on Random Arts, when she appeared at the Sondheim 80th birthday concert at the Proms, and she mentions this and said she was petrified when she walked onto the stage. No sign of this at all. Wonderful woman.
Am also re-reading some old books picked up at sale by Evelyn Anthony another one of those authors who I used to read in my teens and twenties. Still excellent and pacy and will be writinhg about her in a post soon.
So a good mixture and have enjoyed all of them in varying degrees and as I came back from the annual NSPCC book sale on Sunday with another twelve books, don't think I am going to be running out of reading matter for a bit...
