Freddie de la Hay, the dog of Corduroy Mansions
Anderby Wold, Winifred Holtby
Blotto, Twinks and the Ex-King’s Daughter, Simon Brett
The Music at Long Verney , Twenty Stories, Sylvia Townsend Warner
I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, Alan Bradley (Flavia de Luce)
Katherine at Feather Ghyll, Anne Bradley
State of Wonder, Ann Patchett
Humbug, E M Delafield.
Leave the Grave Green, Deborah Crombie
A Conspiracy of Friends, Alexander McCall Smith
Not much reading, very little knitting, lots of fiddling about with stamps. I should have put Stanley Gibbons’ Specialised Commonwealth Catalogue to 1970 on the list. Not read cover to cover, obv., but I’ve spent a lot of time with it.
I seem to have given the impression that I disliked Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder. Not at all; it’s a haunting book, one I’ll always remember. It’s just that the jungle gave me the heebie-jeebies. I really did dislike Humbug by E M Delafield. It’s a moral tale about the effects of bad parenting by people who ‘mistake ignorance for innocence’. I felt it was unsuccessful because the heroine is far too dim and set in her ways to have a sudden conversion in the last chapter and see what has been wrong with her life.
I agree with
Alexander McCall Smith also writes light fiction, but with a moral dimension. Scotland Street is still my favourite series but I enjoy keeping up with the inhabitants of Corduroy Mansions, too. The things that happen to them get increasingly improbable but there’s enough potential in just one of the threads for a full length novel, so who’s complaining? Katherine at Feather Ghyll was my comfort read of the month.