September Round Up 2026

A prolific month, although a very sad one because of the closure of my local bookshop. More of that later. I was in and out of the library several times this month. Every book borrowed has to be returned. And if I know that lots of people are waiting for the book, I make every effort to get it back as soon as I can after finishing it. Because I know what I’m like when I’m waiting for a book. So I don’t necessarily wait to pick another one up before I return one. I’m nice like that. Google have made it as difficult as they can to insert photos now. They told me to sign into my Google account, which obviously I have because I wouldn't be able to write this blog if I hadn’t , or allow cookies to proceed, which I'm not keen on doing because Google are data greedy and they don't care about people's privacy. But I found that if I allow cross site tracking I can insert photos. Obviously, I don't want to be tracked so I'll only allow it to insert one photo.

 Anybody who read the blog last month will know that I ended it with a book by GR Halliday called From the Shadows. I read that because I'd enjoy the TV series The Dark. And I found that it deviated from Halliday's storyline to quite an extent. And I was interested to see whether the next book in the series might encompass some of those changes. The next one was called Dark Waters and it doesn't! It's enjoyable, quite graphic and dark but I found it a compelling read. And I may look out for the third book in this series.

I swore I would never read this. Because, hey, you can't mess with Jane Austin. But my sister had visited a friend and had told her that I was an avid reader. The friend said oh give this to your sister. I’ve never met her, she doesn’t know me, so I thought it was a very kind gesture. My sister returned from her trip with a copy of Emma Tennant's Pemberley.  I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think she captured the essence of Austen admirably. Plus I kind of get it. If you love a writer and you've read everything they've written, there's nothing left and you want somehow to carry it on. You've fallen in love with the characters and you wonder what might happen to them once you close the book. But I don't necessarily approve of it!

A friend gifted me Susie Dent's first book, Guilty by Definition, which I absolutely loved. For somebody that loves words, it's a no brainer. So I borrowed her next book Death Writ Large from the Library and very glad I did too. The same great playing with words and another mystery for the gang to solve with plenty of skulduggery and erudite clue solving.

Another Library book was Meera Sayal's memoir, Vigilauntie. I enjoy Meera's work so I was quite interested to read her memoir. I remember reading her first novel, Anita and Me, years and years ago and finding it very amusing. I enjoyed her non fiction. It was very focused on her career and less about aspects of her private life which I respect.

I read Lizzie Page's first book in The Airline Girl series after I'd attended an event at my local bookshop and met Lizzie. I enjoyed it and was looking forward to the next one. It's very entertaining because it is set in places that I know and I always find that endears me to a book. This story deals with the Berlin airlift after the second world war when Stalin and Russia blockaded Berlin. The first story featured Audrey and this one is about her colleague Lola. 

My sister was listening to this on audio book. When I was little Emma Peel, aka Diana Rigg, was one of my childhood heroines. I aspired to be her. I didn't succeed! This is a memoir written by her look alike daughter Rachael Stirling. It is not the best written book in the world but the extracts from Ms. Rigg's diaries were interesting. It was also a library book.

Another library book and I think I might have been the first person to borrow this. Rebecca F Kuang's Taipei Story. I find Kuang a fascinating writer and  I've read her most recent books. And I have The Poppy Trilogy waiting for me on my TBR shelves. This current book was good but a little underwhelming if I'm honest. This may be due to high expectations after Katabasis. I learnt a great deal about Taipei and the Chinese language but I find Lily quite hard to engage with fully, although I did sympathise with her after one incident that fractured relationships. 

I am heartbroken at the moment because my local independent bookshop has closed down. A sustained fall in takings and the struggle to compete with the likes of Amazon and Waterstones has led to the downfall. For two and a half years it has been a haven for me, my happy place, somewhere I was comfortable to be. I attended some wonderful author events and book launches and I feel bereft that I won't do so again. The remaining books were discounted and I had this silly notion that if I bought some I might save the shop. I knew deep down that I wouldn't but I did buy a few of the remaining books. Not always books I would have considered in different circumstances but sometimes you can come across a gem or two. One of the books I bought is The Housemaid's Secret by Freida McFadden. Easy to read, plenty of twists and light relief to some of the more intense books I select. I think of books like these as the equivalent to junk food. Tastes delicious, consumed speedily and doesn't sustain you for long. That is not meant as a criticism because I do enjoy junk food from time to time but when it's about books this one just ain't literature!

Earlier in the year, well the beginning of the year as it was a New Year’s resolution, I decided not to buy any more books, given the embarrassing amount that I already have. That embargo was broken when I bought the first Lizzie Page book and with the closing down of the bookshop, I continue to buy. Once I had started buying books I couldn't stop and I found this in a charity shop. The Family Friend by Claire Douglas. I've read a couple of her other books, all twisty, psychological thrillers. Easy and undemanding to read intellectually but gripping and I do enjoy trying to figure out what's going on.

August 2026 Round Up

 Six of the books I have read this month have been library books. I am disproportionately proud of that statistic as I believe passionately in our need for libraries and if we don't use them we will lose them. It also has to do with my resolution to not buy books. I have faltered slightly there though. More on that later. 

First up this month was Erik Axl Sund's The Crow Girl. And yes, I did read it because of the TV adaptation! I am a sucker for that. I watch something on the television, find that it's been adapted from a novel and seek the novel out. This is fascinating because apparently it was originally three novels and it's written by two people. Not unexpectedly the book has far more depth than the TV show and I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you didn't see the TV show, it's a crime thriller investigated by Detective Jeanette Kihlberg. The themes are dark and quite disturbing - child abuse, psychological trauma, serial killing and murder - but it is gripping.

Second up was Rebecca Perry's May We Feed the King. Wow. Winner of the Waterstones debut fiction prize and long listed for the Booker. I can see why. It's literature as opposed to 'just' a story. It looks at our perception. of history, interpretations and disseminations, yet within the story it considers the nature of leadership and power. Perry is a poet and the prose is as expansive and as lyrical as you might expect from a versifier. I was mightily impressed. I loved the characters, the curator and the king too. 

But how do you follow that kind of read!? Well, you do so with a book called Careless People by Sarah Wynn Williams. It's non-fiction and is a memoir about her time working for Facebook, as it was then before it became Meta. And if you have a Facebook account and you read this book I'm pretty sure you'll want to delete it and have no more to do with them. I don't use Facebook. In many ways there was nothing here that surprised me. I've never had any respect for Mark Zuckerberg, he puts profits and engagement before people and his morals are questionable. What is kind of sad here is that the author joined the company full of ideals and positivity. She was let go. She had started to question the basic morals of the company's actions regarding posts that may or may not have got president Trump elected and may or may not have contributed to the Myanmar genocide and the atrocities that took place there.This was a library book which I had to return and because I felt it was important, I actually bought myself a copy.

Emma Donoghue is one of those writers whose books I'll always read. Ever since I read Room she's interested me. And this was sitting in the Library. I hadn't read it. I was returning another book – Careless People as it happens – so I borrowed this one. It's an historical novel based on the 1895 train disaster at Montparnasse Station in Paris. It didn't disappoint. I loved the way the narrative gathered momentum as if it was a train on its journey heading for its destination. With a diverse cast of characters all with their own issues and motivations it was entertaining yet created the tension of the impending disaster.

Another library book I just plucked from the shelf. Often I reserve books. It's absolutely great. But when I go to return one, I can't help but look on the new bookshelf and I generally find something that I want to read. I was actually mortified when I saw this next book because I regard this  lady as one of my favourite writers ( I've even interviewed her in the past!) and I didn't even know she'd written this book. It's Elizabeth Fremantle's Sinners. What I love about her books is that she usually takes some lesser known female character from history with a story to tell and brings them to life through the pages of a novel. In this particular case it's the story of Beatrice Cenci. Raped by her own father she ultimately killed him and was tried for murder and beheaded. She was only 22. And the story poses the question. Was she a saint or a sinner?

I bought the next book. I bought it at my local independent bookshop which we've had in the town now for two and a half years. But, alas,  the dream is over. And it's closing down on the 12th of September. I'm actually quite distraught. It's been a haven for me. But rising rents and having to compete with the likes of Amazon and Waterstones just hasn't made ends meet for the owners. They're selling some books out half price. And this was one of them. And I was intrigued to buy it because the author won the Nobel Price for literature in 2021 and ....he happened to be in my year at college! Theft by Abdulrazek Gurnah. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Set in Tanzania it explores the lives of three friends living in today's East Africa. Their lives are intertwined. They are all from different backgrounds and circumstances. The novel explores ideas of identity and relationships. The narrative allows us to experience the story thought the different perspectives of the three characters. 

Another library book which I've had to wait weeks, possibly months for. And I completely understand why. Everyone wants to read it because it is by the absolutely wonderful Elizabeth Strout - The Things We Never Say. She's one of my favourite writers and this didn't disappoint. Telling the story of history teacher Artie Dam, the novel explores relationships, familial and professional, feelings of loneliness and isolation and the secrets that are never told that can be carried with us for a lifetime. I love the almost conversational style of her writing that is deceptively simple but it delves so deeply into the human condition. It's so easy to engage with her characters and although I'm always a little bit disappointed when Lucy Barton doesn't put in an appearance I very quickly warmed to Artie.

Finally, another book that I bought and I read because I watched the series on TV. The TV series is called The Dark but the book by G R Halliday is called From the Shadow and is the first of the D.I.Monica Kennedy stories. I'm actually sent for a secondhand copy of the next in the series to see if the TV adaptation fused them all together. If it doesn't then I think it's a bit cheeky. Because it's almost as if the creators of the TV script save themselves a bit of creative trouble by using the bulk of somebody else's idea and then put bits of their own in. I'm not happy about that. But I'll reserve judgement until I read the next in the series in case that's what they're combining the two, which is fair enough. 

I thought I wasn't going to be able to post any photos for this month because Google is playing silly buggers with me. But I've managed to sort it on my laptop at least. I wonder if it's to do with them and their silly AI. I wonder if they're stealing all my photos to train their AI? It wouldn't surprise me, they seem to see no barrier to taking other people's creativity and regurgitating it artificially. And I don't think it's just Google. They're all at it. 

The Courage to be Ordinary – Ichiro Kishmi

 

 Clearly, I’m ahead of the game here. I’ve never considered myself to be anything but ordinary!  And I find it kind of sad that a book like this even needs to be read or written. I think that truly special people are in the minority. I think we can all be special from time to time but on the whole humankind are a pretty ordinary bunch.

 

However, I suspect that the rise of social media and influencers have contributed to peoples’ need to be noticed, to stand out and to believe that they are special. And this is probably an age thing. I’m old so I’ve always been ordinary, and I’m content to continue to be ordinary. I have had a few special moments and that’s great. But I am not suffering or struggling because I’m not special.

 

This book though does have some very interesting insights and some good advice for people who are struggling with the concept of being ordinary. There’s a great deal of wise counsel here and I found many of the chapter headings good maxims for the way to live our lives – “don’t be afraid to be different from everyone else” and that’s something I would agree with. The herd and flock mentality dominate so much behaviour nowadays. “Stop thinking only of yourself” is another excellent piece of advice. And the world will be a better place if folk could stop doing that and I like the fact that the author himself says that ‘it’s no exaggeration to say that many of today’s problems are caused by people who think only about themselves.’ I have found that to be so true.

 

The author of the book Is clearly influenced by the work of Alfred Adler, the Austrian psychotherapist who is noted for coining the concept “inferiority complex”.

So, I can see where the author’s ideas are coming from within that context.

 

I think this book would be of interest and of use to some of the younger generations who are struggling with their confidence and their identities because of the current world we live in. The world of influencing has given some people an exaggerated sense of their own worth, but the reverse is true of others who feel themselves to be inadequate. This book hopefully should address some of those issues and inspire its readers to understand that we must be who we are and if that’s ordinary so be it.

 

My thanks to Jen Furmage of Tandem Collective for the opportunity to read this book.

 

July 2026 Round Up

 July saw heatwaves and the grass court tennis season. One encouraged my reading, the other placed obstacles! But I've enjoyed a month of books that I had no expectations of bar one, perhaps.

Let's start with the bar one - Richard Osman's We Solve Murders. This was a departure from the Thursday Murder Club format but the style was very similar. Cosy crime and entertaining. A new set of Osman characters and the stage is set for another series. 

Next was a book that was lent to me by a dear friend dealing with bereavement. The Ones We Wait For by Michael V Ivanov which is a fictional exploration of how it might be to pass over and enter heaven. I can see what a comfort it might be to those struggling with the loss of a loved one.

I continue to ensure that my month includes one library book at the very least. I passionately believe in libraries and I know that if we don't use them we will lose them. I heard this author, Aisling Rawle, talking on JazzFM's Summer Book Club programme about her book The Compound. It piqued my interest and I sought the book out. It's a dystopian story that first reminded me of the Big Brother reality show. I saw on the cover endorsement that someone had described it as 'Love Island meets Lord of the Flies". I've never watched Love Island I'm proud to say!! But I have read Lord of the Flies, I'm proud to say! 😉 I found it to be a compelling book, full of satire and with much to say about reality TV and consumerism.

Next some non fiction by an author I had previously seen as a fiction writer of some substance. Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry. So I wasn't sure what to expect, but...wow. This book is so powerful and moving, with such elegance and dignity.It explores grief and the observation of death in a loved individual and how it affects our understanding of our lives and mortality. I cried.

Wreck by Catherine Newman was wonderful. So funny, there were occasions when I laughed out loud. But for all its wit, it is a serious book. An exploration of family dynamics and what anxiety can do. It looks at an ordinary family who navigate the often extraordinary ups and downs of everyday life. Things that can happen to all of us, illness, ageing etc. 

Next was a proof I received from a Penguin book community when their normal reward system failed, and they didn’t want people to miss out. Emma Nanami Strenner’s My Other Heart. A debut novel and what a debut! Two Asian American women searching for their identities and a perceptive exploration of family, friendship, culture, social class. I couldn’t put it down.

I’m always intrigued by why one book is deemed to be better than others. Reading is such a subjective process. I often wonder how the judges of these award committees arrive at their decisions. And so it interests me to read those books that have been awarded these prestigious prizes. And it was curiosity  that led me to The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. Epistolary novels have always fascinated me ever since I read Jean Webster’s Daddy Long Legs. The Correspondent won the Women’s Prize for fiction this year, and I can see why. It’s masterfully and cleverly constructed. Probably my favorite epistolary novel since We Need to Talk about Kevin.

And finally The Burning Grounds by Abir Mukherjee. This is another proof from Penguin that I’ve just got around to reading. I’ve not read any of this writer’s work before but I know he’s won awards in the past. This was a fast paced crime/ history story I guess. From what I understand it features a crime, solving duo, Wyndham and Bannerjee who featured in some previous stories. There’s obviously some history between them, but it doesn’t impact on the enjoyment of this tale. I enjoyed the dynamic between them. Two very different people with different personalities in from different cultures. It captured the spirit of an age beautifully. Definitely not cosy crime, though! 

Woman, Mapped - Edited by Jennifer Wong

 This impactful collection traces the journey of becoming a woman—highlighting its highs and lows. From childhood to old age, a dozen writers share frank reflections on what it means to express ourselves as women. 'Woman, Mapped' showcases a wide range of relevant experiences across different identities, cultures, and generations.

 

Poetry comprises the majority of the collection with some quite extraordinary pieces that keep you reflecting and thinking. I particularly enjoyed the work of Aoife Lyall. As ever for me, I have to read poetry aloud to really feel and try to get to the heart of what the poet is trying to express. I loved Equal Temperament, I’d like to quote it all, but I will confine myself to these lines. –

 

‘I want the out-of-tune piano

 

to hear the notes     stretch

 

in the rhythms of their shadows

 

     I want to feel        the felt

 

and know the strings are       trying’

 

I was also much absorbed by Janette Ayache’s A Poem in Which Female Writers Who Committed Suicide Visited Me. She seems to capture the essence of those writers  -

 

‘Sylvia Plath comes to me in the shower.

& she’s always too sad to speak.

her gaze, her oven gas, her bruised love,….’

 

And Sylvia Plath makes another appearance Ilse Pedler’s It was mountains i thought of where her poem Crossing the Water is referenced – 

 

‘it was mountains I thought of

In the silence that followed’

 

It seems to embody the spirit of Plath.

 

There are three essays in the collection, two. All of them fascinating. I’m not in general an essay reader. I’m more attracted by the poetry, but I have to say I found these essays very thought provoking. I loved Jesse Williams opening essay, Sisterhood. I loved the joyous affirmation of females together even though they have been to hell and back, the solidarity and the joy they managed to encompass was uplifting.

 

I loved Teddy Webb’s description of herself as an ‘angry feminist’ because that is the feeling I got from reading her erudite and impassioned words regarding her sexuality. 

 

The final essay in the collection, by Claire Harnett-Mann is a fitting conclusion to the anthology as it fuses the art of the essayist with the whimsy of the poet in a dissemination of class and identity - Women Poet Demolition Land.

 

It's a collection to ponder, to dip in and out of and to return to from time to time. 

My thanks to Isabelle Kenyon and Fly on the Wall Press for my proof copy. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Deep water - Elle Blair

 

DI Rachel Harlow is off duty on a cruise with her twin teens and parents. Trying to escape problems at Northumbria Police HQ, she flirts with a stranger who turns up dead the next day. With no official investigation and an uncooperative crew, Rachel pursues the case alone, defying orders. In international waters, she uncovers a dangerous crime ring but has no team for support.

 

If a crime aboard a ship away from land constitutes a locked room mystery, then Deep Water might be that. But however you want to categorise the tale, it is immersive and engaging. 

 

There is a dual narrative cleverly delineated by ‘Land’ and ‘Sea” so you know exactly where you are with each chapter. The Land sections describe Rachel’s situation before embarking upon the cruise and inform the reader of how she is in her current position. The link between the two ‘worlds’ seems to be her colleague, Lennon. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the ‘on duty’ Rachel and the ‘off duty’ Rachel.

 

The story moves along at a cracking pace with plenty of suspense and some good twists. I was surprised to learn that this is a debut novel. The writing is efficient, absorbing and intelligent. 

 

Rachel is a formidable character, very determined and, as often the case with members of the crime prevention profession, treading a tenuous line between the personal and the professional. She faces up to conflicts on both these levels and show herself to be unafraid of challenge. 

 

Alongside the crime and its solving, family dynamics play a big part. They’re another minefield that Rachel must navigate, as a mother, as a daughter and as a colleague. But none of these themes get in the way of the main thrust of the story. They are used to complement it and cause Rachel to reconsider her priorities.

 

And as much as we are invested in Rachel as a character this author cleverly entices us into engaging with several others. There were times when I wanted to give Rachel’s mum a good shake but as the story unfolded, I became more sympathetic. The twins are great. I loved Jess’s teenage indignation at the injustices facing the environment and Jake’s adolescent shenanigans, (trying not to give anything away here). 

 

The long and the short of it is I can’t wait for Elle Blair’s next novel! But I don’t envy her the task of matching this one! It really is that good.

 

My thanks to Caitlin McCoy at HQ stories for my copy. 

 

 

The Kingpin - A.A.Dhand

 

If you've read The Chemist you'll want to read this. It follows on very naturally from that book where we met pharmacist Idris Khan. However it doesn't matter if you haven't read it because of all of the salient details are referenced within the narrative of The Kingpin.

I read The Chemist last year and I wrote about it on this blog. Much of I wrote would apply to this story too. 

https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-chemist-aadhand.html

Many crime/thriller series can become formulaic, they are no less enjoyable for that because sometimes you simply enjoy the familiar. The main protagonist often remains stable, not a great deal of  discernible progression in their lives and modus operandi. Not the case here though. We see how circumstances have altered Idris. The release of his brother from prison is a further tangle in this knotted life. You have a sense of the moral struggle within him. It's as if his world has disintegrated and his survival is in the balance unless he follows a path that could lead to his own demise. He's not alone! There are other characters who are considering their futures regardless of the ethics of their behaviours.

Dhand's prose doesn't dawdle, he's writing a sprint not a marathon and it is exciting. There's just enough detail to satisfy the readers' imagination but action dominates.  The characters are raw, real and often brutal. There are many here I would not like to meet on a dark night, or even in broad daylight!

There is violence aplenty, and Idris attempts to solve many of his problems with his pharmaceutical knowledge. I love this aspect of the stories, it gives the character an original edge. Drugs and turf wars, revenge and retribution, some challenging issues  populate almost every page in the book. There is the occasional bit of light relief but it's an intense read that will you have turning the pages desperate to know what happens next but, paradoxically, fearful of what atrocities you might encounter! 

And if you are hungry for more I suspect that a further book is intended as the conclusion of The Kingpin suggests that we have not heard the last of Idris Khan. 

My thanks to Caitlin McCoy of HQ stories for my copy.