June Books and Ting
Vita Sackville West - Country Notes I discovered a website (via the excellent Furrowed Middlebrow blog) called Faded Page which is a type of Project Gutenberg benefitting from Canada's notoriously lenient copyright laws. Clearly I have embarked on a life of crime by downloading a few titles to my Kindle and I hope that you will all bake me cakes with files in and send comfort reads should nemesis descend in the shape of the local constabulary or the Serious Fraud Squad. I expected to love this collection of pieces originally published in the New Statesman and I enjoyed some of them but found myself irritated by her casual snobbery.
Cyril Hare - An English Murder; When The Wind Blows and Tragedy At Law When The Wind Blows had been in my TBR pile for ages but An English Murder was another Faded Page find and I read that first. It is a classic country house Christmas murder but I was rather taken with his characters (particularly the academic Czech refugee, Dr Bottwink). Sadly the views expressed by the Fascist murder victim remain with us today. Having enjoyed it very much I then read When The Wind Blows which features the splendid Pettigrew as his sleuth. Pettigrew is a rather unsuccessful barrister but good at solving crimes. This one is set against a background of an amateur orchestral production. The last one I read was Tragedy At Law, which was actually the first to feature Pettigrew. The murder doesn't happen until near the end of the book but again I loved his characters and the detailed (and funny) descriptions of the Assizes Circuit and Quarter Sessions, inspired by his own experiences as a barrister. Unfortunately Hare died relatively young so there are only 6 more of his novels for me to read.
Peter Robinson - All The Colours of Darkness I have rather enjoyed the DCI Banks adaptations on TV but for some reason hadn't thought of reading the books until My Friend Hoovan told me she had just read and loved the whole series. Serendipitously this title was a Kindle cheapie a couple of days later so I decided to give it a bash. I was a little underwhelmed by the writing style - very easy reading but I was irked by Robinson's frequent name checking of Banks' musical (and other) tastes which felt like a lazy way of bringing the character to life. I enjoyed it well enough, and I am a sucker for a series so will read more.
Culturally and creatively not much has happened this month but I did go to see the Stamford Shakespeare Company production of Macbeth at Tolethorpe when I very briefly visited Stamford for a family party. Arkwright's parents were longstanding members of the company (they tried to persuade his father to emerge from retirement in 2013 and play Godfrey in Dad's Army but he was too frail) and very involved in the initial restoration of Tolethorpe Hall. We held his father's wake there last summer and over the years have seen lots of their productions. We can usually get comps because Arkwright still does their insurance; this year I was hoping to catch The Tempest or The Wind In The Willows but it was Macbeth which coincided with our visit. It was a pretty traditional production with some good performances, particularly in the main roles although some of the lesser characters were more amateurish. As always the setting was the real star and a well timed rainstorm just added to the atmosphere.
Cyril Hare - An English Murder; When The Wind Blows and Tragedy At Law When The Wind Blows had been in my TBR pile for ages but An English Murder was another Faded Page find and I read that first. It is a classic country house Christmas murder but I was rather taken with his characters (particularly the academic Czech refugee, Dr Bottwink). Sadly the views expressed by the Fascist murder victim remain with us today. Having enjoyed it very much I then read When The Wind Blows which features the splendid Pettigrew as his sleuth. Pettigrew is a rather unsuccessful barrister but good at solving crimes. This one is set against a background of an amateur orchestral production. The last one I read was Tragedy At Law, which was actually the first to feature Pettigrew. The murder doesn't happen until near the end of the book but again I loved his characters and the detailed (and funny) descriptions of the Assizes Circuit and Quarter Sessions, inspired by his own experiences as a barrister. Unfortunately Hare died relatively young so there are only 6 more of his novels for me to read.
Peter Robinson - All The Colours of Darkness I have rather enjoyed the DCI Banks adaptations on TV but for some reason hadn't thought of reading the books until My Friend Hoovan told me she had just read and loved the whole series. Serendipitously this title was a Kindle cheapie a couple of days later so I decided to give it a bash. I was a little underwhelmed by the writing style - very easy reading but I was irked by Robinson's frequent name checking of Banks' musical (and other) tastes which felt like a lazy way of bringing the character to life. I enjoyed it well enough, and I am a sucker for a series so will read more.
Culturally and creatively not much has happened this month but I did go to see the Stamford Shakespeare Company production of Macbeth at Tolethorpe when I very briefly visited Stamford for a family party. Arkwright's parents were longstanding members of the company (they tried to persuade his father to emerge from retirement in 2013 and play Godfrey in Dad's Army but he was too frail) and very involved in the initial restoration of Tolethorpe Hall. We held his father's wake there last summer and over the years have seen lots of their productions. We can usually get comps because Arkwright still does their insurance; this year I was hoping to catch The Tempest or The Wind In The Willows but it was Macbeth which coincided with our visit. It was a pretty traditional production with some good performances, particularly in the main roles although some of the lesser characters were more amateurish. As always the setting was the real star and a well timed rainstorm just added to the atmosphere.