December 2006 Archives
A change of genre after so much historical fiction, biography and travel writing .... I picked up this 2004 novel by Ruth Rendell not long after the Ipswitch serial murders. Set in modern day London, this is a strikingly similar tale of one man's murdering spree, set against a backdrop of a West London antiques shop, peopled by its owner/occupier , the tenants living in the flats above and the people they know and love. Patricia Cornwell is more gruesome, but The Rottweiler takes place closer to home.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Rottweiler - Ruth Rendell
I managed a trip to the Barbican library after work on Friday lunchtime, returning home with a pile of books - a fitting start to the Christmas holidays. I demolished this mediaeval Mills&Boon within 24 hours, mainly due to the fact that I started reading on Saturday evening in the absence of anything decent on the telly, carried on into the wee small hours of Christmas Eve..... eventually finishing the book on the way home from Michael's evening of food, (mulled) wine and bonhomie in Ladbroke Grove.
Very much along the same lines as The Love Knot, my first Elizabeth Chadwick, and just as enjoyable. The Champion tells the tale of two young lovers, one a runaway monk, the other the unacknowledged grand daughter of the Duke of Stafford, who grow up in the community of the tournament camp in late 12th century France, in the shadow of the Angevin courts of Richard the Lion Heart and Prince/King John and the French and Norman world of King Philippe. Nothing too demanding.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Champion - Elizabeth Chadwick
I picked this out of Phil's bookshelf as a filler in between finishing The 8.55 to Baghdad and finding time to get some fresh reading out of the library, or in the form of Christmas presents, whichever came sooner.
All too nihilistic for me, Generation X is the tale of three disillusioned American twenty/thirysomethings whose lives and desires have diverged from the routine career /life paths followed by their contemporaries and envisaged by their families. Instead, Andy, Claire and Dag choose to live in the faded glory of Palm Springs, a dying town on the edge of the desert, to work in low paid jobs free from both career path and (for the most part) stress, and to share time telling stories and drinking hard.
Amazon.co.uk link: Generation X - Douglas Coupland
Back to history-based travel writing after my recent detours into mediaeval and (almost) modern history, with Andrew Eames' account of the mid-life Middle Eastern travels of Agatha Christie managing to mirror Colm Toibin's biography of a famous author theme.
I thoroughly enjoyed this account of Andrew Eames' journey from Berkshire to Baghdad. Tracing Agatha Christie's own travels on the Orient Express in its heyday (and minus murders), Eames takes us on an increasingly adventurous itinery from British suburbia through continental Europe into the Balkans through Turkey to Syria and finally across the desert and into pre-war Iraq. I realised that his trip to Iraq was with Hinterland Travel - run by a knowledgable and reassuring chap called Geoff, with whom I had an interesting chat at a Destinations travel exhibition years ago.
At the same time he tells the fascinating story of Agatha Christie's life, from her failed first marriage to her happier second marriage and archaeological digs in the then British Mandate of Mesopotamia. I swiftly revised my Miss Marple image ....
Amazon.co.uk link: The 8.55 to Baghdad - Andrew Eames
A perfect antidote to the sadness I felt on finishing The Master, Elizabeth Chadwick's merging of mediaeval historical fiction and modern chick lit is a notch above a bodice ripper, on a par with Jean Plaidy for plot and accuracy but with rather more racy sex scenes!
Set during the 12th century civil war between King Stephen and Empress Matilda - a time when Christ and his Saints slept leaving the people of England to freeze and starve - this tale tells the lives and love of a normanised Saxon knight, Oliver Pascal, and young widow turned midwife Catrin.
An easy page turner, but a credible one. My first encounter with Elizabeth Chadwick, but I'll be on the look out for more of her novels.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Love Knot - Elizabeth Chadwick