My October books

This is an overview of the books I have finished in a month (not necessarily started in the same month) and those I have read to Gundel (marked with 😸).
I will be adding a short explanation why I chose a book or how I found it and possibly if it's a re-read candidate, but I'm usually not going to add real reviews or ratings (Gundel also refuses to give ratings). Should you want a little more information on a book you're interested in, though, just let me know.

"Village School" by Miss Read (Dora Jessie Saint), first published in 1955
(Fairacre 1) 

Miss Read tells us about the year of a school mistress in the small English village school of Fairacre in the 50s.

I saw the books mentioned on different blogs and they sounded like something I would enjoy. Of course the book is dated in some regards which I had expected, though. I will look for more books in the series.

"Four Days' Wonder" by A. A. Milne, first published in 1933 

When the 18 year old Jenny accidentally walks into her old home and finds the body of her aunt there whom she hadn't seen in years and then the current tenants come home, she has to flee and come up with an ingenious plan not to get arrested.

As accidentally as Jenny finds her dead aunt, I found this book and I'm so glad about it.
It's a mystery comedy and I loved it so much that I ordered my own copy of it when I hadn't even finished.

"The Reluctant Vampire" by Eric Morecambe, first published in 1982
(The Reluctant Vampire 1) 

The King and Queen of Gotcha are vampires and have two sons, Vernon and Valentine.
Valentine, however, finds out he's not a vampire which changes everything.

Recently, the two children's books by British comedian Eric Morecambe have been turned into a six-part TV series. I can't watch the series, so I read the first book instead.

"Undine" by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, first published in 1811 😸

The knight Huldbrand, sent out on a mission to cross a haunted forest by the beautiful Bertalda, comes to the hut of a poor fisherman and his wife where he meets their foster-child Undine and falls in love with her.
After they have been married by a passing priest, Undine tells Huldbrand that she's a water spirit and that his love has given her a soul. The jealousy of Bertalda and the rage of Undine's uncle Kühleborn, another water spirit, however, endangers their bond.

Since school I hadn't read any German classics and decided to try and read at least one a month now.
The novella which I had never read before is based on old legends.

"Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" by M. R. James, first published in 1904 

A collection of eight Victorian ghost stories, "most of them read to patient friends, usually at the season of Christmas" (see my post about that tradition here).

M. R. James was known for his ghost stories, this is just one collection.

"Good Morning, Miss Dove" by Frances Gray Patton, first published in 1954 

Miss Dove has been the geography teacher at the Cedar Grove School for 35 years. An unexpected hospital stay makes her reminisce about her life and her pupils.

Re-read for a future blog post.

"To Sir With Love" by E. R. Braithwaite, first published in 1959 

After leaving the military at the end of the war, Ricky Braithwaite - born in British Guiana (today Guyana) - expects to easily find work as an engineer. He's shocked to find that his skin color even prevents him from getting interviews and after 18 months of unemployment someone gives him the idea to try it as a teacher in East London where teachers are needed most.

Braithwaite left teaching and became a social worker and then a diplomat after publishing this book.
I read it for a future blog post.

"Der Fuhrmann des Todes" = "Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness!" by Selma Lagerlöf, first published in 1912 

A legend goes that the last man dying in the old year has to collect the souls of the dying for one year as the driver of Death.
This time it is David Holm whose family the young slum sister (social worker for the Salvation Army) Edit (Edith in the German and English translation) has been trying to save from his drunkenness, violence, and consumption.

I read the book (included in volume 5 of Lagerlöf's collected works in this case) for a blog post.

"The Sitwells and the Arts of the 1920s and 1930s" : with essays by Sarah Bradford et al., first published in 1996 

Catalog of an exhibition held at the National Portrait Gallery, London, Oct. 14, 1994 - Jan. 22, 1995.
The Sitwell siblings Osbert, Edith, and Sacheverell were poets and novelists who were known for forming "an identifiable literary and artistic clique around themselves in London in the period roughly 1916 to 1930", admired by some and seen as overrated by others. Interesting - definitely. Complicated - oh yes.

This was a bit of a tough read. I really enjoyed the essays and also the images, but the blurbs with the images were a lot. The Sitwells knew so many people! This was one book I had to do in slow bits or the many names would have overwhelmed me completely.

"Love's Shadow" by Ada Leverson, first published in 1908
(Little Ottleys 1)

This comedy of manners takes us to the Edwardian London, we meet Edith Ottley and her husband Bruce and their friends and acquaintances.

Ada Leverson was friends with the Sitwells, that's how I found her (it seems only the third book of the trilogy got a German translation). She was also a devoted friend to Oscar Wilde who called her the wittiest woman in the world.
This was the perfect book to balance out the heaviness of the Sitwell catalog. It was light and fluffy, but from our modern view also quite sad in regard to women's situations. Bruce, for example, was so annoying that I kept hoping I would be told eventually just one reason why Edith ever thought he was the right man to marry. That didn't happen, so I could only imagine she didn't have much choice and that made me sad for her.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book because of the very amusing dialog and I plan to read the other two books as well (once I have overcome my urge to slap Bruce).

"Die Kinder, die Hexen zaubern konnten" = "The Witch Family" by Eleanor Estes, first published in 1960
(Amy and Clarissa 1)

Amy and Clarissa, almost seven years of age, are best friends - and they know witches!

This was a re-re-re-re-re-re-...-read for a blog post.

"The Last Leaf" by O. Henry, first published in 1905

Pneumonia has hit the Greenwich Village artist colony, among them the young Johnsy. Her friend Sue is very worried because she has lost the will to live and thinks she's going to die when the last ivy leaf in front of the window falls off, but it keeps hanging on and so does Johnsy.
Only afterwards she learns that their old neighbor who always wanted to paint a masterpiece has painted a "last" realistic looking leaf on the window. From being out there in the cold, he contracts pneumonia and dies.

This is just a short story, but I added it because I read it for a future blog post.

"As I Knew Him: My Day, Rod Serling" by Anne Serling, first published in 2013

Anne Serling writes about her father, TV writer Rod Serling who died in 1975 at the age of 50.

When I looked at reviews for Estes's book "The Witch Family", someone mentioned the "Twilight Zone" episode "It's a Good Life" (also about a kid banishing somebody, a very creepy story, no matter if you watch or read it), and I spontaneously looked for books about "Twilight Zone" (which most people probably know Serling for) and found this among them.
If Serling hadn't used so many letters written by her father or quotes from interviews, I'm not sure if I would have read it because it's more of a personal declaration of love to her father and an expression of her grief. Nothing wrong about that, and it does show how Serling was as a family man, but I think I'd also like to read a "real" biography about him eventually for the whole picture.

"The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 1" by Beth Brower, first published in 2019

After working as a companion for Cousin Matilde for three years, the young Emma M. Lion returns to Lapis Lazuli, the house in London that she inherited and that's run by her Cousin Archibald until she's of age. Things don't go as planned, though.

I saw the series mentioned everywhere, so when the first volume turned up on OverDrive, I gave it a try as well. No idea when the other volumes will be following.


DNF:

"At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Nymphs, and Other Troublesome Things" by Diane Purkiss, first published in 2003

Fairies in history weren't as nice as they are often described today. According to Purkiss they were born from fear, of the dark, of death, birth, loss, etc.
The history as such would have been interesting, but the style just didn't work for me, so I gave up eventually.



If you write book reviews or blog posts about other book-related matters - even movies based on books - please check out "A Good Book and a Cup of Tea", a monthly bookish blog link party that I co-host with  Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. You can find out more about it here or directly click through to the current party via the image in the right hand column.

My August books

This is an overview of the books I have finished in a month (not necessarily started in the same month) and those I have read to Gundel (marked with 😸).
I will be adding a short explanation why I chose a book or how I found it and possibly if it's a re-read candidate, but I'm usually not going to add real reviews or ratings (Gundel also refuses to give ratings). Should you want a little more information on a book you're interested in, though, just let me know.

"Hildur - Die Toten am Meer" = "The Secrets from the Deep" by Satu Rämö, first published in 2024
(Hildur 4)

Hildur Rúnarsdóttir is a police officer on the west coast of Iceland.
Four skeletons are found on the farm of Hildur's late parents. A badly hurt kitchen worker escapes off a cruise ship. And a close friend of Hildur's mother dies unexpectedly in her nursing home.
Are these cases connected?

I skipped the third book in the series because it was about animal abuse, but wasn't too enthusiastic about this one, either.

"Zwei Sommer mit Christiane" (contains the books "Recht nette Mädchen" and "100 Tage mit Christiane") by Barbara Hug, first published in 1954 and 1957

The first book tells the story of the four Andresen daughters Andrea, Martina, Petra, and Christiane who live in a small town in Southwest Germany with their mother.
The second book, set a few years later, tells the story of Christiane taking care of Martina's son while she and her husband are in Italy for work.

In this heat, I needed a nice and quick read (one of many re-reads over the years in this case) and I have loved these two books since childhood. They are not as fluffy as they may sound as they also touch on the topics of displaced persons after the war, poverty, community, and thinking about the future.

"The Third Man" by Graham Greene, first published in 1950

Rollo Martins is invited to post-war Vienna - still divided among the Allied powers - by his old friend Harry Lime. When he arrives, however, he learns that Harry has died in a traffic accident. Rollo meets Major Calloway who tells him that Harry was involved in a racket with diluted penicillin, but Rollo doesn't believe him and starts investigating on his own.

I re-watched the movie for a random Saturday blog post and then read the novella which was just a treatment for the movie originally and differs a little from it in some details.

"Miss Buncle Married" by D. E. Stevenson, first published in 1936

Miss Buncle, now married to her publisher Mr Abbott, has found a new house at Wandlebury and has just as much interest in her new neighbors as she had in those in Silverstream, but will she write a book about them?

I really enjoyed the first "Miss Buncle" book, but think I liked this one even better because it's calmer. I didn't laugh as much, but I grew fonder of the people, especially Barbara and Arthur as a couple.
"The garden — as a garden — did not interest Arthur very much, but the garden and Barbara combined interested him enormously. Barbara was enchanting in the garden, so eager and pleased and happy, so surprised to find the things that she had planted — or caused to be planted — in the Autumn were really coming up. Barbara was more Barbara-ish than ever when she was in her garden, and Arthur could never have enough of the blend."

"Lulu in Hollywood" by Louise Brooks, first published in 1982

The book contains seven autobiographical essays by dancer and silent movie star Louise Brooks, for example her view on Bogart, on Gish and Garbo or on her experience on filming in Berlin. There's also a later edition with an eighth essay.

I had heard about Louise Brooks before, but haven't seen a movie with her yet. The most interesting essay for me was the last one on her filming "Pandora's Box" in Berlin (pet peeve alert - in the filmography it says "Die Buchse der Pandora" which gave me another eye roll because it's "Büchse", a "Buchse" is a socket!).

"The Three Investigators in The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints" by M. V. Carey (the books were published attributed to Alfred Hitchcock), first published in 1971 😸
(The Three Investigators 15)

Why has the eccentric man called The Potter disappeared just when he's expecting his daughter and grandson? Who are the men watching Mrs. Dobson and Tom and why do they do it?
Once again, the Three Investigators get confronted with the secrets of a small European country.

I read this series a long time ago and am going through it again bit by bit after writing a blog post about it.

"The Red House Mystery" by Alan Alexander Milne, first published in 1922

Antony Gillingham just wanted to visit his friend Bill Beverley who's staying at the Red House, but instead he and Matthew Cayley - the cousin of the house owner Mark Ablett - find a body in the office!
Gillingham becomes a veritable "Holmes" and makes Bill his "Watson".

I hadn't known that Milne wrote a mystery - just this one - before seeing it in a book post by Jeanie from "The Marmelade Gypsy". Thank you, Jeanie, I enjoyed this one a lot! What a pity that Gillingham stayed a one hit wonder.

"Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters" by Laura Thompson, first published in 2015 (also as "The Six")

You would think this is just a biography of the six Mitford sisters Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah (there was also a brother Tom) who are known for their very different positions on life and politics in their time (communism, anti-semitism, fascism to name just a few keywords).

It's not that easy, though.
It was interesting if you already know something about the family - I had seen documentaries - but you are better prepared for a lot of names (and nicknames!) and time jumps, and you really should have read Nancy's novels first because they get referenced a lot as well as names that were never explained.
In short, this is not really what I expect from a biography.
I was never in danger of DNFing, but I felt there was some fangirling/whitewashing - I can't excuse fascism even for a bit just because someone has a strong personality, intelligence, a gorgeous face and elegance, and that's just one example.
Maybe it's too difficult to explain the Mitford "phenomenon" in just one single book.

"Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull" = "Confessions of Felix Krull" by Thomas Mann, first published in 1922 (the first fragment)

The unfinished novel (written from 1910 to 1913 and late 1950 to 1954) tells the story of Felix Krull who, after the suicide of his father, a bankrupt maker of sparkling wine, goes to Paris to work in a hotel and then substitutes for the Marquis de Venosta on a trip around the world paid for by the Marquis's parents who try to tear their son away from a French singer (and if you think that was a long sentence, you should see the book).
The narrative ends with Krull being in Lisbon, the first destination of the trip.

According to Wikipedia, - I honestly didn't feel like checking more sources - the novel is supposed to be a parody on Goethe's autobiography "Aus meinem Leben. Dichtung und Wahrheit" (Poetry and Truth). Remind me not to read that one because I seriously struggled through this one (and I don't care how autographical parts of it are).
It's practically a miracle and a sign of my dedication to this project (reading at least one German classic a month) that I didn't DNF it. There were big parts which bored me almost to tears.
I say narrative, but nothing really happens in hundreds of pages! The protagonist is a smug little punk, and the pompous rambling - which I guess is the parody part - made me happy for not having to put up with this kind of speech in daily life.

"Tennis Shoes" by Noel Streatfeild, first published in 1937
(Shoes 2)

Dr. Heath and his father had been good tennis players, but the father is too old now and Dr. Heath suffered a leg injury in World War I.
What about the children, though - the twins Jim and Susan, the younger Nicky, and David? Have they got what they need to become successful tennis players?

This is the second book in the "shoe series" although the only connection are the shoes in the title.
I never played tennis, I don't watch tennis, but I needed some light after Felix Krull and the book worked perfectly - although I have to admit that I wasn't a fan of Dr. Heath's methods of motivating and educating his children.

"Go Gentle" by Maria Semple, first published in 2026

Adora Hazzard, former comedy writer turned philosopher who tutors the twins of a rich couple, lives in New York and has started a "coven" in her building of single women who have each others' back - then she happens to meet a man and her life is not what it was before.

I'm not sure what this book wants to be. I liked the idea of the coven, I enjoyed the philosophical quotes, but then we get flashbacks (trigger warning sexual assault), art crimes, and a romance all of which seemed very muddled to me. Spoiler:

Spoiler: Adora is the heroine of the day in the end. With huge happy ending and a super rich man.

At about 60 % I was very close to DNFing. Maybe I should have.

"Death on the Cherwell" by Mavis Doriel Hay, first published in 1935

Four undergraduates of the Persephone College in Oxford meet on the roof of the boathouse to form a secret society when a canoe comes floating in which they find the body of their bursar Myra Denning.
The young ladies wonder how a drowned woman can get back into her canoe ...

I have a soft spot for vintage crimes at Cambridge and Oxford (time to read "Gaudy Night" for the umpteenth time, I think), probably because I work at a university made up of a lot of concrete.
I really liked this one.

"Goodbye, Mr. Chips" by James Hilton, first published in 1933 (in the Christmas edition of "British Weekly") and in 1934 (as a book)

Mr. Chipping was the Latin master of Brookfield School - a public boarding school - for decades and has helped out even after his retirement.
Now he remembers his life in and for the school.

A re-read (in English this time, I own the German translation) for a future blog post about the novella and adaptations.

A fun little P.S. This is listed as a translation of the book into Urdu. Obviously I can't read Urdu and can't tell you if that's true ... and I have absolutely no idea how that cover is supposed to make any sense if it is!

"To You Mr. Chips!" by James Hilton, first published in 1938

In this book, Hilton talks a little about his own school experiences and tells some more Mr. Chips stories.

When I re-read "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", I happened to find out about this book which I didn't know before.

"Bright Young Things: Lives in the Roaring 20s" by Alison Maloney, first published in 2012

The book gives you short glimpses into the life of the "smart set" mostly in the London of the 1920s.
It includes chapters about jazz, cocktails, scandals, debutantes, and more.
A quick read with quotes and short biographies, a nice appetizer to start you off if you are interested in that time.

"Victorian Fairy Painting" by Jeremy Maas et al., first published in 1997

The book was published on the occasion of the exhibition "Victorian Fairy Painting" which travelled from London to Iowa City, Toronto, and New York.
It includes a catalog with short biographies and comments and essays on fairy painting, writing, music, and illustration, but also the connection to the stage, especially Shakespeare.

I stumbled upon this one after finding the sketchbook by Charles Altamont Doyle which I listed in my July roundup.

"Japanese Gothic" by Kylie Lee Baker, first published in 2026

After murdering his roommate in college, Lee flees to the house in Japan that his father has moved to. However, something is strange about this house that used to belong to samurais. Who is the girl looking in from another world and time?

Every, now and then I think I should read a book outside my comfort zone. This shouldn't have been one of them.


DNF

"The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House" by Kate Summerscale, first published in 2008

The non-fiction book tells the story of a child murdered in Victorian England and of Jack Whicher who was one of the original eight members of London's new "Detective Branch" at Scotland Yard.

I watched the TV show whose first episode is about this case and wanted to read the book more because of Whicher than the case, but I gave up quite early as it was so boring to read. 



By the way, if you write book reviews or blog posts about other book-related matters - even movies based on books - please check out "A Good Book and a Cup of Tea", a monthly bookish blog link party that I co-host with  Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. You can find out more about it here or directly click through to the current party via the image in the right hand column.

My July books

This is an overview of the books I have finished in a month (not necessarily started in the same month) and those I have read to Gundel (marked with 😸).
I will be adding a short explanation why I chose a book or how I found it and possibly if it's a re-read candidate, but I'm usually not going to add real reviews or ratings (Gundel also refuses to give ratings). Should you want a little more information on a book you're interested in, though, just let me know.

As you can tell, this was a much better reading month for me than the last one. There was such a variety that I even got to the limit of my tags, I hadn't even known there was one!

"Silent Murders" by Mary Miley, first published in 2014
(Roaring Twenties Mystery 2)

Leah, the young vaudeville actress, has become Jessie Beckett and is starting a new life in Hollywood's silent film industry as a script girl for the Pickford-Fairbanks Studios.
When a famous director is shot, Jessie starts investigating.

I read about one of Miley's books on Fritzi Kramer's silent movie blog and started with the first one in the series in February.
I tend to struggle with amateur detectives who are smarter than the police and everyone else, but I enjoyed this book more than the first one thanks to the setting, familiar names, and recognizing which parts were based on historical facts without reading the "historical note" at the end. The first murder, for example, was based on the murder of William Desmond Taylor about which I also read before.

"Carl Sandburg at the Movies: A Poet in the Silent Era 1920 - 1927" by Carl Sandburg, first published in 1985

Carl Sandburg was a poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He was also the cinema expert for the "Daily News". For this book, Dale and Doug Featherling selected some of Sandburg's best movie columns and added a short introduction for each year and footnotes on people mentioned.

You will undoubtedly encounter a quote from this here every, now and then. What I didn't like about the book was that it whetted my appetite for one or the other film which I then sadly found to be a lost one.

"Schloss Gripsholm : eine Sommergeschichte" = "Gripsholm Palace: a summer story" by Kurt Tucholsky, first published in 1931

This is the story of two lovers spending a summer vacation in Sweden, at Gripsholms slott. Not everything is fun and love, though, when they encounter a little girl from the nearby children's home run by a sadistic German matron.

Since school I hadn't read any German classics and decided to try and read one a month now. No idea how this project is going to go.
I love the cover with an illustration by George Barbier from 1925. It reminds me of the wall paintings by Oskar Schlemmer in the "bath house" of the Märklin villa in our town.

"Ballet Shoes" by Noel Streatfeild, first published in 1936 😸
(Shoes 1)

The book tells the story of three girls adopted by paleontologist Grand-Uncle-Matthew, called Gum, on his travels. When Gum goes traveling again, Pauline, Petrova, and Posy stay with his niece Sylvia and her childhood nanny, called Nana.
When they run out of money and Gum isn't home yet after years, they have to take in boarders and the girls join the Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training which eventually allows them to work on stage and thus support the household.

I hadn't known about Noel Streatfeild - some of her books have been translated into German only rather recently - before Erin from "Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs" mentioned reading one of her books.
Her "Shoes" series for children is popular and I already got the next one on my list.

"J. M. Barrie & the Lost Boys: The Love Story that Gave Birth to Peter Pan" by Andrew Birkin, first published in 1931

While starting with his childhood, the book really concentrates on the relationship of Barrie with the five Llewelyn Davies sons George, John, Peter, Michael, and Nicholas.

I have seen "Finding Neverland" which was inspired by this book (but is very "Hollywood"), but I actually got more interested in Barrie after watching and reading "Peter Pan".
The book is not a biography you can just breeze through.  There are a lot of names, a lot of photos, a lot of quotes from plays, novels, and letters, and a lot of (sometimes confusing) excerpts from Barrie's notebooks. I still found it very interesting and enjoyed reading it although I - like others - am not sure what it says about Barrie and the boys in the end (there are two camps of "pedophile/asexual"), but will we ever even know for sure?

"Das gelbe Haus" = "Sisters in Yellow" by Mieko Kawakami, first published in 2023

Three young women try to survive in 90s Japan.
The story is told from the point of view of Hana who has left her mother and moves in with a new mother figure, Kimiko, later Ran and Momoko join them. In order to make a living, they feel forced to join criminal circles.
When Hana learns during Covid that Kimiko has been arrested, she remembers the time living with her.

The book was a duplicate gift to a family member who asked me if I wanted a copy (which I'm not going to keep as I doubt I will want to read it again simply because of the genre).

"The Lady Vanishes" by Ethel Lina White, first published as "The Wheel Spins" in 1936

Two Englishwomen meet on a continental train, Iris and Miss Froy. Then Miss Froy suddenly disappears and no one wants to believe Iris she even exists. Was it just a dream or is Miss Froy in danger?

I recently watched Hitchcock's movie for the first time (don't ask why it took me so long), and after a friend mentioned that it was based on a book I had to read it of course.
I actually prefer the movie this time, though.

"Dracula" by Bram Stoker, first published in 1897

I doubt I have to tell anyone what the book is about - the vampire Dracula traveling from his home in Transylvania to London to spread the evil of the undead.

The book had been on my list forever. The narrative is mostly conveyed through letters and diary entries (from several of the protagonists) some of which are quite long-winded and probably not everyone's cup of tea (even I struggled a bit every, now and then). I'm not surprised, however, that the novel sparked people's imagination.

"Dunkles Glas und Fisch in der Lampe" by Ingeborg Engelhardt, first published in 1963

A young glassmaker has to flee from the Greek Aquileia to the Roman colony of Germania inferior.

A re-read for a blog post.

"Death - das Kabinett des Dr. Leng" = "The Cabinet of Dr. Leng" by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, first published in 2023
(Pendergast 21)

Agent Pendergast's protegee Constance Greene goes back to 1880 to save her sister from being killed by the serial killer Dr. Enoch Leng.

If you didn't think the Pendergast books could get any crazier - they can.

"Billard um halb zehn" = "Billiards at Half-Past Nine" by Heinrich Böll, first published in 1959

The book takes place on September 6, 1958 and tells the history of the architect family Fähmel between 1907 and that day - in stories, flashbacks, memories.

Since school I hadn't read any German classics and decided to try and read one a month now (maybe even more like this month, but without pressure). No idea how this project is going to go.
I wasn't a fan of the style. Whole pages of dumped thoughts or images in half sentences separated by semicolons were quite exhausting to read.

"Death of a Busybody" by George Bellairs, first published in 1942
(Inspector Littlejohn 3)

After an older lady who's a little too keen on making the sinners of her village repent is found dead in the vicarage's cesspool, Inspector Littlejohn of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate.

I had never heard of George Bellairs before, but saw him mentioned as an underrated writer.
The book was a nice little palate cleanser and a quick read. I'll keep the name in mind.

"Stone Blind" by Natalie Haynes, first published in 2023

This is a retelling of the Greek Medusa myth aspiring to give Medusa her voice back.

If you don't mind a lot of different point of views and enjoy ancient myths, this might be a book for you. I did expect more Medusa and less of all the other gods/goddesses (half or full) and mortals who crossed their path and I didn't like it as much as "Pandora's Jar", but enjoyed it nonetheless.

"The Doyle Diary : the last great Conan Doyle mystery; with a Holmesian investigation into the strange and curious case of Charles Altamont Doyle by Michael Baker" by Charles Altamont Doyle, first published in 1978

Charles Altamont Doyle, the father of Arthur Conan Doyle, was an artist - like three of his older brothers, but not as successful - and civil servant.
Doyle suffered from depression and alcoholism. This sketchbook was created between March and July 1889 during his stay at Sunnyside, Montrose Royal Lunatic Asylum.

I happened to catch the short-lived show "Houdini and Doyle" on TV and learned about Doyle's father which made me curious.
The book has an introduction to Doyle's life and a transcription of the texts and notes, luckily because I wasn't able to read all of them easily. I really like the illustrations and can only recommend having a look yourself.

"Kitten Caboodle : a collection of feline fiction" edited by Barbara Silverberg, first published in 1969 😸

Silverberg has collected cat stories and poems from all kinds of genres here - humor, ghost stories, legends and fairy tales, even science fiction.

I stumbled upon the book because it is illustrated with cat drawings by Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen whose "Le Chat Noir" poster I included among my favorite cats a few weeks ago.

"The Cornish Coast Murder" by John Bude, first published in 1935

If a man gets killed who isn't liked by anyone, you have a lot of suspects. In connection with having only confusing clues this makes for a difficult investigation. How lucky that the local reverend loves mystery books.

I always like discovering a vintage crime author who's new to me. This whodunit was off to a good start, but then it sloooowed down before an ending that didn't so much surprise as annoy me.
This was the author's first book, though, so I think I'm going to give him another chance eventually.

"The Inimitable Jeeves" by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, first published in 1923
(Wooster and Jeeves 1)

Bertie Wooster is an English gentleman, one of the idle rich, and Jeeves is his valet whose intelligence saves Bertie and his friends from one or the other pickle, in this case mostly Bertie's friend Bingo Little who keeps falling in love.

I read some Wodehouse books ages ago, but don't remember if this one was among them.

"Hildur - Das Grab im Eis" = "The Grave in the Ice" by Satu Rämö, first published in 2023
(Hildur 2)

Hildur Rúnarsdóttir is a police officer on the west coast of Iceland. Still haunted by her two sisters disappearing 25 years before, she specializes in missed children cases.
This time a local politician is shot during skiing. Hildur finds out that the murder is connected with the crash of a private plane some time ago.

I read the first book in the series last month and liked this one better.

"Love Insurance" by Earl Derr Biggers, first published in 1914

Lord Harrowby turns to Lloyd's of London with a request. He will get married to an American heiress, Cynthia Meyrick, soon and wants to take out insurance against her changing her mind.
Lloyd's sends assistant Dick Minot to Florida with him to make sure the wedding goes through. On the train ride there, however, Dick happens to meet Cynthia and falls in love with her. Now he's torn between his employers' trust and his love to her ... and that's not the only twist.

I wanted to watch another silent movie with Reginald Denny and when I saw that the book it was based on was written by Earl Derr Biggers of Charlie Chan fame, I was curious.

"Mephisto" by Klaus Mann, first published in 1936

The novel tells the rise of Hendrik Höfgen from a provincial stage actor to the manager of the State Theater in Berlin as he opportunistically arranges himself with the new Nazi regime.
Höfgen is based on Gustaf Gründgens, former friend and brother-in-law of Mann.

Since school I hadn't read any German classics and decided to try and read one a month now (maybe even more like this month, but without pressure). No idea how this project is going to go.
The book started slow, but once the Nazis come into power, it got quite powerful. Needless to say that they are not many likeable or admirable characters in the book. It's amazing that this was written even before the war.

"The Case of the Jumbo Sandwich" by Christopher Bush, first published in 1965
(Ludovic Travers 60)

A friend asks private detective Ludovic Travers for advice after getting swindled out of a substantial sum.
At that point Travers has no idea yet how complicated this fraud case is going to become ...

I started reading Bush after Liz from Adventures in Reading, Running, and Working from Home had reviewed one of his books for a 1952 challenge.



By the way, if you write book reviews or blog posts about other book-related matters - even movies based on books - please check out "A Good Book and a Cup of Tea", a monthly bookish blog link party that I co-host with  Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. You can find out more about it here or directly click through to the current party via the image in the right hand column.