#1937 Club: Seven Mysteries

I read a number of mysteries for the 1937 Club. Here they are in no particular order: The Elephant Never Forgets by Ethel Lina White The time is the Nineteen Thirties and Anna Stephanovich finds herself in Russia just when the Stalinist purges are beginning and everybody seems to be on the edge. Anna, who …

#1937 Club: The Pendleton Fortune by D.C.F. Harding

I was so looking forward to the 1937 Club, hosted by Karen and Simon and had read a few books for the same but so many things happened this week that I did not get the time to review them. But as the week draws to a close, here is the first book that I …

German Classic: Stud. Chem. Helene Willfuer by Vicki Baum (1928)

But that was the way with Life - now and again things went so well, that out of the deepest darkness sprang up happiness, unforeseen, profound and penetrating. The focus of German Literary Month this year was Austrian Authors. That gave me a chance to start reading Vicki Baum, an Austrian writer, who had been …

Nonfiction November: The Golden Boy of Centre Court: How Bjorn Borg Conquered Wimbledon by Graham Denton (2021)

Before John McEnroe ended his reign, vanquishing him in three of the four grandslam finals they clashed in, Bjorn Borg was the premier tennis player of the world winning six French Open and five Wimbledon titles at a time when the two surfaces played very differently and there was barely a fortnight to switch your …

November Notes

With Diwali fast approaching, I hardly have time for the blog yet I am planning big for November (and hoping it will not be a case of even bigger fall). First up is one of my favourite reading events of the year: The German Literature Month hosted by Lizzy Siddal. Second is Novellas in November …

#1962 Club: No Dust in the Attic by Anthony Gilbert

Arthur Crook, travelling to London, comes across a couple at a Railway restroom and immediately suspects that something is amiss. It certainly is. Janice Grey, had in her young days married Pat Wylie after a chance encounter outside a phone booth (and phones play an important role in the story). However, when she realized that …

Forgotten Classic of 1962: Combat of Shadows by Manohar Malgonkar

Indian author Manohar Malgonkar's third novel, Combat of Shadows is set in the North-Eastern Indian state of Assam over the course of a few months. When the novel opens in September 1938, we meet Henry Winton, the manager of a tea-estate who is happy with his life, lording over the Indians and delighting in his …

#1962 Club: The Cactus and the Crown by Catherine Gavin

Except for a handful of countries like the UK, USA, France, Germany, Russia where I do have some idea about their histories (at least the highlights) the world is blank to me. I know the names of the countries but little else. Mexico is one such country and so when I saw a historical novel …

#1962 Club: Portrait in Brownstone by Louis Auchincloss

Everything in New York reminded one of the prevalent dust to which, almost immediately, it seemed, one was condemned to return. If one didn't seize that day, a contractor would. Linn Tremain, who as a young man, had gone to Florence to get an education in art, made an Italian woman his mistress and finally …

#1962 Club: Whistle for the Crows by Dorothy Eden

It is the start of another Reading Club: a bi-annual even hosted by Simon @ Stuck in a Book and Karen @ Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings. The year this time is 1962 and I am happy to state that I have a few books of that year on my shelves, some of them, in fact, on …