Random Jottings

The British Library - Books and More

I am starting off this post by assuring you that I do NOT work for the British Library though you could very well think I do the number of times I post about it.  I freely admit that I find the building rather uninviting from the outside, all that brick and angles but I love it when I am actually inside with that huge rotating bookstack in the middle which I love looking at when I am having a coffee in the cafe. And of course it is slap bang next to St Pancras Station which is simply glorious.

I was unable to visit the book shop on this particular occasion back in August as it was being moved and updated and generally being given some more room and taking a gander at it in 2019 is on my To Do List. Probably just as well as I usually spend most of the time in there drooling over the contents.

I have no need to drool as the lovely peeps at the BL send me books. LOADS of them and all without me asking! Yes true. Several years ago I was contacted and told all about the Classic Crime series they were starting and would I be interested in receiving and reviewing same?  Well, they did not know me back then else the marketing department would not have asked such a silly question. They know now...

I have recently received a copy of the Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay. Who she? I hear you cry and no, I had never heard of her either but it seems she was a novelist of the Golden Age of British Crime Fiction and her three detective novels were published in the 1930s and are now very rare indeed.   So delighted to receive this in the post and it has all the ingredients dear to my heart in a detective novel.

We have a gathering at a country house for Christmas. It is the home of Sir Osmond Malbury, the family patriarch and the place is seething with relatives and acquaintances who would be happy to see the back of him. Nearly everyone will gain from his death and when he is discovered with a bullet in his head on Christmas day, well the game's afoot.

The story is told from the viewpoint of various of the characters which is a device that I am very fond of - think of Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie where Poirot solves a murder years later by interviewing all those present and we are then given the events from five different angles.  

It gets a bit confusing at times with protagonists zapping and out of doors and up and down stairs and it seems that instead of one Santa Klaus the discovery of a second costume reveals that there was a second Santa around which nobody knew about and makes the identity of who was who even more difficult.  

This title was originally reprinted by the British Library in 2013. It did not have one of those marvellous covers that now grace all these titles so I was really pleased to see that they have produced a new edition with a gorgeous cover. It is a hard back unlike the others which are all paperbacks.  The British Library told me that this edition is in conjunction with the Folio Society and when my copy arrived they had popped in a simply gorgeous Folio diary for 2019 which made the arrival even more special.

I cannot think of a more perfect present for crime lovers than this book.

The title of this post is the British Library - books and more and I am more than happy to mention below all the extra joys awaiting you there.  Another great Christmas present for all your bookish friends would be the gift on an annual membership which (for £80 only) allows you to unlimited library access, free entry to exciting exhibitions as well as:

•  Priority booking for events
• Free listings guides
• 20% off public restaurants, cafes and shops
• Entry to the daytime Members’ Room
• Entry to the Knowledge Centre Bar

The British Library is a non-profit organisation and by supporting them you help advance and develop as the world’s largest document delivery service, providing millions of items a year to customers all over the world.

Treasures from their collections include: Magna Carta, Beatles manuscripts, Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebook and the recording of Nelson Mandela’s Rivonia trial speech. The last time I was there I was lucky enough to be taken round the stacks which I wrote about here, which made me come over all emotional as I beheld the Shakespeare First Folio and the Gutenburg Bible.  A great privilege.

I feel an affinity with the Library. My mother, sister and I all worked for Camden libraries for years and all of us spent time in the building next to the library in the Eustion Road, I think it is now a hotel, which used to be the main library. My sister worked for the British Library for years in the old building in Store Street and was hoping to end up in this building but, as we know, it went wildly over budget and took years longer to build than was first anticipated so she never got there.   My historian daughter Helen, a Fellow of St John's in Cambridge, is a member and has spent hours doing research for her books here so it feels very much a family place for us.

I felt this even more last year when I took my two grandchildren to the History of Magic exhibition there which we all loved.  A wonderful place and, as this week I have learned that my county is planning on closing some of our local libraries, an event which fills me with fury, I think this post on how important libraries are is very timely.

And after re-reading what I have written I really feel that I must join myself....

 

Reading Round Up

As per, I am behind with heaps of books hanging around waiting to be read and reviewed. Here are a few I have enjoyed recently.

A Colder War - Charles Cumming.  I have read all of the books written by this author as I do enjoy a good spy novel and his are very good indeed. Less Bond, more Smiley which I prefer and more emphasis on tradecraft, surveillance and meticulous scouring of files, emails and faxes to find a link or a hint to solve the problem. In this latest title the problem is a mole in Western Intelligence and when the Head of the Turkey branch of MI6 is killed in a mysterious plane crash, Thomas Kell is sent out to investigate.  It seems the MI6 spy in Istanbul was involved with a mysterious woman and was also seen having lunch with a Russian agents so suspicion falls upon him, but all is not as it seems. It it ever?   Tightly plotted and well written this kept me totally engrossed right through to the build up of the final capture and after.   HIghly recommended.

Writer's Block - Judith Flanders.  I only know this author through her book The Victorian House and was slightly surprised to find she was writing fiction.   I have read books where a historian or a non fiction author has tried their hand at telling a story and have found them somewhat dull. Not this one. It fairly rattles along, in huge style, with a witty line in chat and description.

Samantha Clair has agreed to publish a tell all book on the death of fashion designed Rodrigo Aleman. All she is worried about initially is a libel suit and is unprepared for being bonked on the head, having her flat ransacked, the disappearance of the book's author and a murder.

"You know when you have one of those days in the office? You spill coffee on your keyboard, the finance director does on an expenses rampage and then, before you know it, our favourite author is murdered. Don't you just hate it when that happens?"

Great verve and very funny and I hope that this is the first in a series.

Death on the Cherwell - Mavis Doriel Hay.   One of the series of crime novels being reprinted by the British Library, this one is set in Oxford. A group of students are gathered to form a society in which they curse their Bursar who seems universally disliked. Unfortunately, as they meet a canoe drifts past containing the body of the said Bursar who has clearly been murdered. Cue consternation all round.   Of course it is impossible to read this book without thinking of Gaudy Night which is, in my opinion far superior.  I am biased as it is my favourite Sayer.

The undergraduates view the police inspector as being rather dim (nothing changes it seems. Poor old Lewis has the same problem in Oxford today...) and decide to solve the mystery themselves.    I enjoyed this book and found it rather beguiling in its old fashioned manner and style and the cover is just delightful.

Bricks and Mortaility - Ann Granger. Murder in the Cotswolds. A neglected old house burns down in the night and the fireman discover a body inside. At first it is assumed that it is a tramp or one of the drug addicts who have frequented the property, but not so.   It is clear that the victim was struck a blow on the head and then left to die in the fire. The owner, local bad boy Gervase Crown, lives abroad but somebody saw him prior to the fire. Was he responsible for it or was he the intended target?   The third in a series featuring Superindent Ian Carter and Inspector Jess Campbell, these are well written and great fun and I like them very much. I would think these books would be categorised as a 'cosy' mystery though I always think that is a very odd way to describe a murder.....

That is it for today.   Couple more to go but one really needs a post all on its own and need to sit down and think about it.