There is nothing more satisfying than reading a book while sipping a hot cup of tea.
God's a good playwright... just when you think the curtain's coming down the plot takes a freash twist, and you find that, in spite of death and disappointment, life still goes on. Anthony Gilbert is one of my favourite authors of all time. However, Anthony Gilbert was not the solo pseudonym of Lucy Beatrice Malleson. … Continue reading Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Family Man by Anne Meredith (1942)
It is 1896. Christopher 'Kit' Farrell arrives in London after years in the US where working as a newspaper-reporter, he had covered the civil war. His destination is Hotel Langham where he is supposed to meet old chum, Nigel Seagrave. Seagrave, an explorer, had been given up for dead in Africa soon after his marriage … Continue reading Halloween Horror: The Hungry Goblin by John Dickson Carr (1972)
Pigeons on the grass, that is how certain modern minds regarded people, while they strove to expose that which was senseless and apparently coincidental in human existence, to portray man as free of God, then to leave him fluttering about free in the void, senseless, valueless, free, and menaced by snares, prey to the butcher, … Continue reading #GermanLitMonth: Pigeons on the Grass by Wolfgang Koeppen (1951)
An officer who is prepared to die first can demand total loyalty, only he can take his men into the jaws of death. They are Goering's golden boys, the pride of the Luftwaffe, Germany's crack paratroopers known as the Green Devils. When the novel opens, we find a unit rearing to go to their next … Continue reading #GermanLitMonth: Eagles of the Reich by Will Berthold (1957)
He understood that there were different versions of the truth. Every police officer knew that, with each trial it was experienced afresh. The war is fresh in people's memory and mourning; the monarchy has been reduced to porn pin-ups; Hitler is "that strange bird with a Charlie Chaplin moustache"; Himmler and his dreaded SS are … Continue reading #Germanlitmonth: Babylon Berlin by Volker Kutscher (2007)
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
As they walked down the lonely naked streets, the sounds of horses trotting in the distance trickled through the empty roads, reverberating around the buildings surrounding them. Apartment blocks, small shops selling boutique clothing, groceries, and a newsstand here and there, were all closed and quiet for the night. The city of Praha (Prague) is … Continue reading Hot Off the Press: The Affliction of Praha by Simon Gillard (2020)
A couple of years back, I read Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes which was not so much about a murder in a boarding school as a deconstruction of the process of detection where it was the limitations of the detective - subjectivity, prejudices, likes, dislikes, - that was interrogated. It was a novel that broadened … Continue reading Forgotten Book: The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
More than any other kind of novel, I expect the Historical novel to have memorable characters. The past already provides events of great interest which the writer weaves into the plot but it is really the characters that make us care about their life and times.And this is where David Davidar's debut novel The House … Continue reading Literature of India: The House of Blue Mangoes by David Davidar
Narratives of the past interest me tremendously and so I am signing up for the Reading Through Time: Historical Fiction Challenge, hosted by A Bookish Girl. Signing up for the Anthony Doerr level which means I'll be reading 5 books for the challenge. Details and Sign-up here.
a hot cup of pleasure 