There is nothing more satisfying than reading a book while sipping a hot cup of tea.
"I pictured life so different.""We all have." Robert Lohkamp is one of those whom Gertrude Stein called the 'lost generation'. Embittered by his years in the trenches, Bob has lost faith in everything: God, the political leadership, high-sounding concepts like patriotism and nationalism. All he is sure of is the friendship of those comrades who … Continue reading #1936 Club: Three Comrades by Erich Maria Remarque
Shroud of Darkness, my favourite of Lorac read so far, begins with a train journey on a foggy night. Five strangers in a compartment reach London when one of them is coshed on the head and left for dead. As he has no identification-papers on him and his luggage etc has been stolen, Macdonald has … Continue reading Two Post-War Novels by E.C.R. Lorac: Shroud of Darkness (1954) and The Last Escape (1959)
Conversations, conversations, and still more conversations. I don't think I have ever read a mystery in which there were so many conversations between the various characters. At times, it seemed Lorac was writing a Novel of Ideas rather than a mystery. And the situation is definitely serious. It is 1939 and the Jewish Question is … Continue reading Short Notes: Black Beadle by E.C.R. Lorac (1939)
The shadows stretched their arms to her. They cried in broken voices, just beyond, always beyond. There was no end. The ultimate cruelty, the ultimate uncertainty remained. The Indo-Pak war of 1971 resulted in the creation of Bangladesh (till then the East wing of Pakistan) and was won by India. However, like any other victory … Continue reading Friday’s Forgotten Book: … And Presumed Dead by Lucille Fletcher (1963)
Shelf Control is a weekly meme hosted by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies. Here's what she writes: Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when … Continue reading Shelf Control: The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman
The Ministry of Labour "directed" workpeople; her own daughters "registered" and performed strange tasks in strange uniforms. They "fire-watched", drove ambulances, ran rest centres - they were not their mistresses any longer. A new range of expressions like "points", "basic", "under the counter", "off the ration" developed. Elspeth Carndale is in a dillema. Her husband … Continue reading Women and War: E.C.R. Lorac’s Relative to Poison (1947)
The year is 1920. Kaiser Wilhelm II has abdicated. The Treaty of Versailles has been imposed signed. Contours and colours of possession have changed across the globe. The sun still doesn't set over the British Empire. Time perhaps to put the past behind... The Prince of Storytellers, however, has different ideas. In 1920 comes his … Continue reading # The 1920 Club: E.P. Oppenheim’s The Great Impersonation
Already he was somewhere else, muttering explanations in a German I couldn't follow. Suddenly he smiled, as if they were all friends again wherever he was and had begun playing Mozart, and a minute later he was dead.I stared from one to the other of these dead Germans, so far from anything they really understood, … Continue reading Forgotten Book: Black-Out in Gretley by J.B. Priestley (1942)
a hot cup of pleasure 