Alternating chapters of newspaper articles by or about Maud West and Susannah Stapleton’s slow and steady sleuthing to uncover the life and times of ‘London’s Leading Lady Detective’.
Makes me wish I could ask my nanas about their lives, growing up at the start of the 20th century, a couple of decades behind Edith Maria Barber aka Maud West.
Publisher page: The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective: Secrets and Lies in the Golden Age of Crime: A Remarkable True Story – Susannah Stapleton
Kate Teltscher follows eighteenth century East India Company man George Bogle on his diplomatic trade missions to Bhutan and Tibet in the hope of opening up opportunities in Qing China, as British imperial ambitions emerge under Governer-General Warren Hastings.
Author page: The High Road To China – Kate Teltscher
Reading Maggie O’Farrell’s “seventeen brushes with death”, and, in the closing chapter, one of her daughter’s, I am all the more amazed at the novels – the wonderful novels – she’s written.
Astounding. Inspiring.
Author’s page: I Am I Am I Am – Maggie O’Farrell
Another beautiful collection of essays; some long some short, all thought-provoking.
Publisher page: Surfacing – Kathleen Jamie
A birthday present from Emma, as one of her favourite mountain books – and I can see why. A first timer’s account of a small team expedition to climb Mustagh Tower in beautiful Baltistan, Andrew Greig is a poet and not at all the macho mountaineer – and a lot of what he talks about is very familiar from my first treks.
It turns out I’d read (and LOVED) the book his then girlfriend wrote about the same trip, after she’d left The Chaps (urgh – always so male these mountaineers!!!) in their base camp: Among Muslims: Meetings at the frontiers of Pakistan – Kathleen Jamie.
Both books, highly recommended.
And, yes, I want to go back….
Author page: Summit Fever – Andrew Greig