I wondered in the summer if writers and publishers went on holiday but it seems not if the amount of books dropping on my doormat are anything to go by. I say dropping on my doormat, but my postie has now got used to the packages and parcels and if I am not in leaves them in the cupboard in the porch. Getting home from London late in the evening and checking and finding parcels there is a delight I will never get used to.
Anyway, here is a quick run through of recent arrivals and I hope you see something here that might make you want to go out and read.
At the top of the pile another in a detective series set in Florence by Marco Vichi. I know this will sound daft but after reading the first one in this series which I loved and which I reviewed here, I have been saving these up as a treat and will then have a mad binge one weekend. Completely barking I know. Lovely covers and beautifully produced.
Night Flower - Sarah Stovell. I reviewed a book by this author in the earlier days of Random, here, and I received an email asking if I would look at a new one and delighted to do so.
Travels with Epicurus - Daniel Klein. Is a rambling little tome on the pleasures of getting old, written while the author was in Greece. Lovely though it is I cannot help but feel if you live on a beautiful Greek island with the warmth and the sun, getting old might be a bit easier but we shall see. I am half way through.
Bad Mother by Isabelle Grey - know nothing about this but seems a newly divorced mother is told something shocking about her family which "unsettles her fragile world". Sounds good.
Jean Erskine's Secret - DE Stevenson. I purchased this book (yes I do sometimes!) in one of my favourite bookshops, The Haunted Bookshop in Cambridge, which is packed to overflowing with lovely stuff. This is a DE Stevenson which was never published in her lifetime but discovered, along with others, in the proverbial trunk in the attic. Looking forward to this one.
The Wimbledon Poisonor Trilogy by Nigel Williams. I recently discovered and reviewed Nigel Williams, here, and my thanks to those kind and generous people at Corsair who have reissued these and sent me a set.
Bad Little Falls - Paul Doiron. The third in the Mike Bowditch series about a Ranger in the wilds of Maine. Have just finished this and enjoyed and will review in due course.
And finally The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier. Headless body hangs suspended from the edge of a frozen cliff. This is a French best seller about which I know rien so will let you know how I get on.
I have also received Family LIkeness by Caitlin Davies. This sounds intriguing and I guess by the name that the author is the daughter of Margaret Forster and Hunter Davies so she has an excellent pedigree. It seems from checking that she has already published several books so, once again, an author has passed me by. Will rectify that.
And, now finally, I have been sent a book which has made the Booker Long List. I am not going to identify it because you know how direly I do when I try any of the titles on the list, Long or Short but I am going to give it a bash and see how I get on.
Can't say fairer than that can I?
