Columbia Road flower market, Hackney City Farm and Bunhill Fields – an excellent way to spend a sunny Sunday

After a lovely Saturday – including a sunny afternoon chez TBJR – and not too late a night (for me at least), Phil and I managed to rise and shine in time to meet up with the key movers and shakers in the crowd formerly known as the Sunday Brunch Bunch (RIP) for bagels at the Columbia Caf

Bring The Jubilee – Ward Moore

A 20p gift from work colleague Michael who chanced upon it in Harrow library’s “withdrawn from stock and approved for sale” selection after a chat we’d had on sci-fi, and very enjoyable and thought provoking both were too.

Ward Moore was writing in the 1950s, which is the present day setting for part of this novel (albeit “ancient history” for the 21st century reader), and unlike most sci-fi I’ve read the author conjures up an alternate history from the American Civil War to the then-present day, rather than imagining fantastic worlds in galaxies far, far away.

That in itself made for interesting reading, although I did feel that I missed much of significance due to knowing virtually no American Civil War history in any world/universe, but Ward Moore also throws in a whole different course of scientific development in his world, including a time machine…..

Buy it: Amazon link

The Seige of Isfahan – Jean-Christophe Rufin

I would put this novel into the “I’d’ve been happy reading it as a library book; but I’d have felt disappointed if I’d paid anything like the RRP for it”. So it was a good job I’d bought it at the cheap and cheerful charity second hand bookshop in Hereford.

It wasn’t bad, just a little light in places – but that’s the risk of reading historical novels featuring dashing heroes amidst a cast of characters from a range of cultures, enjoying epic adventures and political intruige in lands afar…. I *always* end up comparing them with Dorothy Dunnett‘s, and by and large they come up short.

And there were always going to be some cultural/literary differences arising from the fact that I was reading a translation of a book originally penned in french. Occasionally this was irritatingly obvious, albeit at the gnat rather than shark end of the scale, in the over-elaborate use of synonyms. The example that sticks in the mind is the various words for elephant that appear in the space of a few paragraphs on pages 315 and 316: pachyderm, mastodon, animal – I can just hear the french stylistic flourishes…..

But enough gripes, because The Seige of Isfahan is definitely worth a read if you like historical novels. In it, Jean-Christophe Rufin returns to the characters twenty years after he created in The Abyssinian and finds them scattered across the countries and empires of Persia, Europe and Central Asia. From the central base of Isfahan under the last of the Persian Kings, the plot twists and turns its way across time and place reuniting the orginal cast back once more, but this time in an Isfahan destroyed by seige and ruled by the Afghans of Kandahar.

Buy it: Amazon link

Tears of the Giraffe – Alexander McCall Smith

Luckily Katie had brought in Tears of the Giraffe as well as No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency for me to borrow, so I was able to carry on reading about the sleuthing and romancing of Mma. Ramotswe, Bostwana’s only lady private eye. In this, the second novel in the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, Alexander McCall Smith again creates a cast and a plot that balance the good and the bad of Botswana – ranging from fostering orphans to solving the long-ago murder of an idealistic young american to out-witting lazy and dishonest house-keepers.

Precious Ramotswe is a good woman, and in Alexander McCall Smith’s novels (so far at least) decency, kindness, optimism and common sense win out.

Buy it: Amazon link

No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency – Alexander McCall Smith

Lent to me by Katie Carter, I raced through No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency in one cool, wet Bank Holiday Saturday spent in the caravan at Walton-on-the-Naze.

Like many others (I’m sure), I’d picked up the first of Alexander McCall Smith’s tales featuring (“starring”, surely?) Precious Ramotswe many a time, in the library, at the airport, in bookshops… but I’d never actually bought it – the blurb just didn’t sound enticing enough.

My mistake! Yes, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency reads like a gentle, calm tale, but it’s one that carries many a sting: death and abandonment, murder and witchcraft; but Mma. Ramotswe and her merry men and women steer a safe, thoughtful and overwhelmingly positive path through it all to the happiness and contentment you can’t but help feel they deserve.

A modern day Aesop’s fable – I’m amazed this book hasn’t got more Amazon reviews.

Buy it: Amazon link