Wednesday gives dr rdrz smoochies or other appropriate demonstrations of esteem
What I read
Finished Fair's Point.
Adrian Wright, Foreign Country: The Life of L.P. Hartley (1996), which I put on my mental list ages ago and then never came across (possibly the days when I looked for biographies in the local libraries) and then saw a mention of this somewhere and found a paperback copy v cheap. Realised that I had not read anything like as many of Hartley's works as I had thought, though from the accounts of some of them in the book, don't think I have missed much. He does not sound a very sympathetic character - as far as foreign countries go, not so much the past as the present? or just life itself that he could not get on terms with? While I would not go so far as to say 'makes Thirkell look like a raging Red', I did consider that the inhabitants of her Barsetshire have some sense of social duty and service to the community, somewhat feudally framed. Possibly there was some charm in person that does not really come over in the telling.
JD Robb, Secrets in Death (2017) - not bad, but I thought went for an easy out in the motivation of the very nasty corpse.
Robin Stevens, A Spoonful of Murder (2018) - this was very good, particularly in putting Daisy into a situation in which she's at a distinct disadvantage compared to Hazel. I had a slight niggle about the name of one of the characters, which seemed to me out of period, but apparently it was that thing where somebody bids to get their name used for a character?
On the go
Diana Block, Clandestine Occupations: An Imaginary History (2015) - this was one of the things I bought in the PM Press ebook sale, and so far it's really good.
Melissa Scott and Lisa A Barnett, Point of Hopes (1995), because really I could not remember much about this from reading it then.
Up next
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