Willow House

Now reading

I'm halfway through John Berendt's The City of Fallen Angels, his expose of Venice - "behind the exquisite facade of the world's most beautiful historic city, scandal, corruption and venality are rampant, and Berendt is a master at seeking them out". It has taken me a little longer to get into this than his previous book , Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (brilliant title) but I think it may have grabbed me now. Even so I'm finding it a book for dipping into rather than one that makes you want to keep turning the pages.

(April 2008 30 day 30 photograph macro challenge)

Moving In

Miss Fanciful Twist, Vanessa Valencia, left a comment on my last post saying, " I want to move right into that book!!!!", well I reckon quite a few of us would like to move into this one.

I first saw Anita Kaushal 's  book Home in Waterstone, oh way back in the autumn, but, being incredibly strong willed (for once) I waited to get my copy for Christmas. It came from Amazon because, sorry Waterstone, it was considerably cheaper there.

You may well have seen this book featured on other blogs. I know that Jane adored it and Julie simply had to feature it as her Little Cotton Rabbits are pictured. Take a look, it's lovely. (If you click on the pictures they should enlarge.)

Now if books were houses wouldn't you just love to move into this one?

Bumps in the Night - or Halloween book suggestions.

As a child I was terrified of all things supernatural. Even as a teenager I recall having to have an adult accompany me up the stairs and see me safely to bed after I stayed up to watch some ghostly movie or other. But as is so often the case with things that one fears I seem to  have developed a morbid fascination with the supernatural and a book with a few bumps in the night will keep me enthralled.

With Halloween fast approaching now seems like a good time to share some of those spooky books with you.

Last year I recommended this book as good Halloween reading.

Will Storr vs The Supernatural The recommendation stands, it's fascinating stuff. Our intrepid investigator Will Storr, who has written for both the Observer and The Times Magazines, sets off on a journey to discover the "truth" about ghosts after having all his beliefs turned upside down during a journalistic assignment with a Demonologist. Yes a real life Deomonologist from Philadelphia. Amongst others he meets paranormal investigators, mediums and the Vatican's chief exorcist. He visits haunted houses, goes on the set of Most Haunted, speaks to psychologists and has some very strange experiences. A throughly entertaining book.

If fiction is more your thing  I suppose you can't really go wrong with a James Herbert, after all he isn't one of Britains foremost "horror" writers for nothing. I hadn't read James Herbert since his The Magic Cottage but was tempted by The Secret of Crickley Hall (also recommended by PG), it doesn't disappoint, I was dragged through with a sort of fatal fasincation from the very first page.

But I have to say that horror isn't my preferred genre, thrillers with an element of the supernatural are much more my thing and I don't think you can get much better than a Phil Rickman. I am a huge fan of his Merrily Watkins Mysteries (start with Wine of Angels-" a village mystery with murder, missing girls, incest, cider and a ghost") but for Halloween I would probably choose one of his earlier books such as Candlenight,  The Man in The Moss, or Crybbe. Phil Rickman is a master of rich characterisation and you'll soon get to know (and love) many of the characters who crop up now and again in "cameo roles" in his books.

One last recommendation for readers who like a sprinkling of romance to sweeten their "chillers", this one comes from my 70 year old Aunt, she loves to read Barbara Erskine. Hiding From the Light complete with ghosts and witches  would make the perfect Halloween book.

The end of an era

This time tomorrow it will all be over we'll know who lives and who dies, who finally wins the battle between good and evil. What will happen to Harry and co?

More reading

I mentioned in my last post that I had just sent an order to Amazon, well it has arrived and I have another two books for summer reading.

Regular visitors to Willow House will know that  the whole family enjoys Susanna Gregory's Matthew Bartholomew series, The Tarnished Chalice is the 12th chronicle and apparently we will find Bartholomew, Brother Michael and Cynric in Lincoln. I'll have to wait to find out about this one, Alexander has already run off with it.

And I better be quick with Simon Brett's The Stabbing in The Stables or he will have run off with that before I get a chance to read it first. Love these Fethering Mysteries as do the reviewers just look at some of the reviews -

"Simon Brett writes the kind of good whodunnits that could have been written fifty years ago ... and he has a sly sense of humour" The Times

"This is lovely stuff, as comforting - and as unputdownable - as a Sussex cream tea. More please" Brighton Evening Argus

"For readers who like their crime told elegantly and light-heartedly, with a wit which bubbles throughout plot and narrative ... pure pleasure from beginning to end" Birmingham Post

"Crime writing just like in the good old days, and perfect entertainment" Guardian

"Simon Brett writes stunning detective stories ... I would recommend them to anyone" Jilly Cooper

I'm with Jilly Cooper on this I'd recommend The Fethering Mysteries to anyone starting with The Body on The Beach.

A little light reading

I haven't seen any books I wanted to read in charity shops for ages and ages and then just as I cave and submit an order to Amazon what do I see not one book but six in a British Heart Foundation shop.

Elizabeth George writes the Inspector Lynley mysteries. Although I enjoyed the TV series I had no desire to seek out the books but couldn't really resist a 10p charity shop bargain a few months ago. Well now I'm hooked, Elizabeth George writes beautifully and the depth of her characterization far surpasses the TV adaptations. Can't wait to get tucked into these three.

I've been reading Anne Granger's Mitchell and Marksby mysteries ever since one of her books was given away free with a magazine. I've never paid full price for any of her books they are enjoyable but with so many favourite authors on the list she is one who I economise with.

I'm addicted to historical who dunnits! I discovered Bernard Knight and his Crowner mysteries while suffering withdrawal symtoms from Susanna Gregory (why can't authors write fast enough?).Our "dectective" is Sir John de Wolfe, Devon's first county coroner and it's all set in the time of Richard the Lionheart.

I've never read any Alys Clare but it's a medieval mystery so it should keep me quiet for a while!

More reading material in the shape of magazines, well browsing material actually as I have to confess that I rarely read a magazine from cover to cover, I tend to look at the pictures.

I'm loving the cover of this months Country Living and our very own Victoria May  Plum and Louise Loves are featured in the Emporium but if I'm honest I'm getting a little bored with the magazine. (Sorry CL lovers). So I've taken to buying the American Country Living

always a month behind in our WH Smiths. Alicia and Lisa have mentions in the June edition. I do like foriegn magazines they seem quite fresh compared to ours but I'm sure they wouldn't if I took them every month.

Well I've got a bit of reading to do now, so, see you later ........

Du Maurier

I was 16 the first time I went to Cornwall, it was a strange and not entirely pleasant holiday. My first with friends instead of family. In hindsight I realise that my choice of companions had been a mistake, we had very little in common, but I was detirmined to break away from family, to be independant, grown up.

The journey was horrendous, we travelled in the middle of the night to avoid traffic. The car, an old Mini, was noisy, cramped and uncomfortable. Our destination a caravan, an even bigger mistake. Used to home comforts, hotels and motels the treck to the shower block was almost too much for me to bear.

It rained constantly and my beloved blue suede shoes, purchased earlier in the summer from a shopping mall in the Nevada desert, just weren't up to the job. I spent the entire week with my feet stained blue!

Am I sounding like a spoilt brat? Well I suppose I was a bit but I did not enjoy that holiday. No I did not, not one little bit.

But did it put me off Cornwall? Oh no it did not. My only escape from my tedious companions was the landscape, such drama, such beauty, it was love at first sight.

Returning to the Lower 6th in September of that year I at last had legitimate access to the 6th Form Library. No larger than a walk in wardrobe really but packed floor to ceiling with books previously denied to me, there I discovered Du Maurier.

Like most I started with Rebecca. Oh how I had loved that old black and white film with Olivier. The book was even better, I was transported to a different time and place. Next came Jamica Inn which I didn't really enjoy, I've never been comfortable with cruelty and the wreckers were just too cruel. I had to read The Birds, one of Du Maurier's short stories which was swiftly followed by Don't Look Now which was to become yet another famous film.

I worked my way through her books, along with the A level Chaucer, Dickens, Shakespear and Forster. By the time I reached France after the exams I was reading Frenchman's Creek. Possibly my all time favourite Du Maurier but it is a little hard to choose. Rebecca will always be up there amongst the favourites and I also loved The House on the Strand fascinated by the time travel element not really comprehending that it was drug induced until I re-read the book a year or two again.

So which is your favourite Du Maurier?

Frenchified

Earlier this week Stuart saw his consultant and his leg is non weight bearing until June! So he is still off work and I'm still attempting to run the business which shoudn't really be that difficult if it wasn't for the incompetence of suppliers but that's another story for now I think we need a bit of escapism.

In the lower 6th a small group of us would congregate in the library to drool over Paris Match.This was before the days of Hello. Oh the glamour of minor European royalty and French film stars, they were all so much more, well, beautiful than their English equivalents. I mean we all wanted the equestrian skills of Princess Anne but we didn't want to look or dress like her, now Caroline of Monaco she was a different kettle of fish!

We read Collette and Sagan, Bonjour Tristesse was in everyone's bag and we longed for foriegn lands and foriegn boys. One of my friends dropped out of school to chase off to France after an Italian waiter she had fallen in love with. Oh the madness, the badness of it all, she was back within the week, rejected and dejected, poor thing.

And then A levels were over and we had the whole summer to ourselves, a summer in France. I can still remember the warmth, the excitement, as I stepped off the plane in Nice. Actually the warmth was a bit too much for my English Rose skin and I ended up as red as a tomato as our French hosts delighted in telling me.

We stayed in Grasse in an old farmhouse with stone floors, the smell of lavender pervaded everywhere. My friend and I had a suite of rooms, it was the first time I had seen a bidet, the furniture was made from bamboo and there were shutters instead of curtains. And outside the shutters, sun and terraces and an Arab labourer. A beautiful, brown skinned young Arab, Anne and I would hang out of the window watching him hoe the terraces but we never spoke to him.

We vistited the perfumeries, sunbathed in Nice and Canne. Watched the International Firework Festival, sipped wine and fell among theives. Literally, on the beach, the people next to us offered to watch our bags while we swam, they invited us to dinner and then we saw them helping themselves from someone else's bag. We made our excuses and ran.

Memories of a summer long ago rekindled by the book Two listicks and a lover ISBN9780099504252.

3 for 2

This week I have been reduced to reading some of the boy's Christmas presents. Well reduced isn't quite fair as I do love reading children's stories.

I've always thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of the little watch mending, doughnut eating mouse, Hermux Tantamoq and his third adventure " No Time Like Show Time" was no exception. The witch Roberta Morgenstern and her assistant  Clement Martineau lead me through the London of Jack the Ripper, 17th century Paris, Venice and Mexico in search of historic serial killers in "Dance of the Assassins so I'm not actually complaining. But I wanted a new book of my own to read, so what else could I do but take a trip to Waterstones for instant gratification.

Susanna Gregory's first Thomas Chaloner mystery was at last out in paperback and as we  have all loved her Matthew Bartholomew series that was a must. This time the marketing men got me as it was on a 2 for 3 offer and I spent ages trying to find 2 other books I wanted to read, in the end I plumped for this lot.

So now you know what I'm doing this weekend. How are you spending your weekend?

"Making Christmas, Making Christmas"

Despite spending much of the weekend making Christmas decorations I couldn't resist buying these little guys from BHS. I have a habit of buying Christmas decorations in 3's, probably because I have 3 sons.

Did you ever do French Knitting as a kid? I remember having a wooden cotton reel with nails in it with which to french knit. So when I saw this much cuter version I couldn't resist him either

and what am I going to do with all that lovely knitted cord? Make Christmas decorations of course.