It has taken me a while to get round to reading The Golden Hour Book II
and am kicking myself now. It is perhaps best described as a literary and music anthology - essentially a PB collection of stories and poetry with a 20 track CD stuck in the back.
The stories and poems I have read range from pretty good to very good indeed. I particularly enjoyed the opening story from Erika Duffy about penniless lovers spending their last three quid on the ingredients for chocolate cake and some licorice allsorts.
The CD is pretty much a mixtape of (presumably) unsigned bands and I have been giving it a spin on my iPod and tapping along merily. The whole package is rather impressive and whilst you can get it from Amazon and elsewhere I am sure the small press behind the project would make more money if you order it direct from them. A bargain at £8 and volume three will be out just before Christmas.
Bloomsbury have issues some of their spookiest books as part of a series called The Phantastics. They sent me Tales of Mystery and Imagination
by Edgar Allan Poe and very handsome it is too - black-edged paper, macabre cover design and a new introduction by Neil Gaiman. The book contains all the Poe stories you really need from The Murders in the Rue Morgue to The Fall of the House of Usher and beyond. Definitely one for a dark winter's night by the fire.
I really like the idea of 1066: The Conquest
by Peter Fieldman. It is the Bayeaux Tapestry retold as a novel and it certainly delivers as an enjoyable historical yarn. The book is, I believe, self-published and that doesn't really do the book any favours when it comes to the packaging (this really needs to look as much like a Bernard Cornwell book as possible) but it has allowed for a creatively amusing price - an RRP of, you've guessed it, £10.66.
Yes there are countless books about successful yet unfulfilled Brits chucking it all in for a new life abroad and Tout Sweet: Hanging Up My High Heels for a New Life in Rural France
isn't really all that different but it is perfectly entertaining and more than capable of holding its own against the competition. The author, Karen Wheeler, is a former fashion editor for the Mail on Sunday and, I must confess, I gave a silent cheer when she admitted she had quite her job because she couldn't bear fashion people and was fed up with having to pretend that the stupid outfits they desgined were actually worth wearing.
The early Miss Read books, written during the 1950s, are fascinating examples of social commentary/history. Rare glimpses of a way of life that died out as the war floated into memory and the swinging 60s gatecrashed the second half of the century. I re-read some recently and they really do stand up quite well. Perhaps inevitably as the decades moved on her writing became a bit less edgy and the stories ended up more comfy and nostalgic but there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Christmas at Thrush Green
is the first book from Miss Read for a decade and is a collaboration with (i.e written by) her long time editor Jenny Dereham. For fans of the series it is a pleasant return to a familiar village and its inhabitants. A bit cosy, perhaps, although not without a bit of bite. The ideal comfort read over the festive season.
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