There is nothing more satisfying than reading a book while sipping a hot cup of tea.
The premise of this anthology is very interesting. Apparently before the news on BBC, there used to be S.O.S. read out for people missing from their homes. Eleven authors conjure up eleven scenarios for such people. "Before I read the news here are eleven S O S's" (With acknowledgement to the B.B.C.) The anthology opens … Continue reading SSW: Missing from their Homes (ed.) H.E. Bates (1936)
By sheer chance, both the novels that I read this week featured a 21 year old heroine and so I thought, I will write about them together. Zella Blunt, the female protagonist of Marie Belloc Lowndes' Who Rides on a Tiger stands to inherit one half of the prestigious country-house Jerricks after the demise of … Continue reading Summer of 21
It is always great when a book that you pick up randomly from the library shelves without any idea of the title or even the author turns out to be a great read. Here are two such books: Renowned criminologist Kennedy Critchley is planning to spend a few weeks with his cousin in Scotland when … Continue reading Great Finds: Murder with Impatience by Robert Verron (1944) and The Cloze Papers by Kenneth Livingston (1936)
Miles Burton has been more miss than hit with me yet when I see his books I usually borrow them. Recently, I was lucky to find three of his lesser-known titles. Where is Barbara Prentice? When a police officer finds part of a fur coat wrapped around the buffer of an engine, he is bewildered … Continue reading Three Mysteries by Miles Burton
Of all the sounds in this gathering darkness that was the one which she had dreaded most. Judy is a dancer at a bar called the Green Man which is frequented by sailors. When the novel opens, Judy is at her room in Bunter's Buildings when she hears another tenant making his way to the … Continue reading Friday’s Forgotten Book: Judy of Bunter’s Buildings by E. Phillips Oppenheim (1936)
"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
1936 was a great year for books. Here are three mysteries I read for the Club: Death of Anton by Alan Melville Joseph Carey's Circus thrills the town. There is Anton cloistered in a cage with seven tigers; the clown Dodo who makes the audience scream with laughter; the daredevil trapeze act by couple, Loretta … Continue reading The #1936 Club: Three Mysteries
The time is the mid-1930s. The moment when Robert Oppenheimer would declare grandiosely: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" is still a decade away. A young man writing his first novel, however, envisages the atomic bomb becoming the most coveted weapon of destruction and unscrupulous men fighting to get hold of it. … Continue reading #1936 Club: The Dark Frontier by Eric Ambler
publicdomainpictures.net The year is 1678 . The Sun King Louis XIV graces the throne of France. Perhaps the greatest European king of his generation, Louis' rule epitomizes the Reign of Absolutism. But while his own people and other European nations are in awe of his court, his millitary success, his generous patronage of the Arts...scandal … Continue reading The #1936 Club: The Poisoners by George R. Preedy
"Do not worry, Mr. Duluth. And remember that, if you see or hear anything out of the ordinary, that thing is real and has its basis in fact. Do not let anyone or anything persuade you that you are suffering under a delusion." Traumatised by the death of his wife, who burnt to death in … Continue reading #1936 Club: A Puzzle for Fools by Patrick Quentin
a hot cup of pleasure 