Mini Catch-Up

Oh, the joy of blogger’s guilt. Been blogging for over 14 years (flipping heck, feeling old in book blogosphere! Hey Siri, play something young as I AM YOUNG, DAMNIT!) and, after a period of time, if you’re not blogging, you feel guilty for not blogging and chat about reads past, present and future. 

Plus, been going through a bit of a blogging/real life slowdown. Nothing wrong with that, but let me touch base with you as you guys know I haven’t vanished off the face of the earth with me blogging and reading (though if you follow me on my socials, you know I am very active). 

The main audiobook I listened to since we last chatted was Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie (affiliate link to bookshop.org is here). It seems that I might be considering doing an Agatha Christie a month or an Golden Age Mystery a month as I seem to have a load of these on my To Be Read lists (either on my physical shelves, my e-reader shelves or on my radar to investigate at a later date). Now, this seems to be one of the faves of the Poirot fans as it ticks all the boxes: a closed circle mystery of suspect on an holiday island off the coast, a messy love triangle (of sorts) and Poirot at his finest. I can see why fans of Agatha Christie rate this so highly. There is elements that are stuck in its time (the sexism at the end of the book where a successful businesswoman is told to quit her business so she can marry and be a good little wife left a sour taste in the mouth) and the case hinging on a lot of chance/luck…

Am I going to do another Christie this month? Yes, I think I am. I am leaning over between 3 titles (maybe a poll is needed on my socials?) and i am eyeing my British Library Crime Classics (I have one I am desperate to read but saving that for nearer the General Election as the murder is set at the Houses of Parliament). Would you guys like to know the British Library Crime Classics on my TBR? I am very tempted to blog them as they are a weird little mix…

Because I was having a bit of a DNFing blitz, I wanted to read something comforting but I wasn’t in the mood to reread (something I do want to do this year as I did NO REREADING last year. At ALL! I have three books I want to try and reread this year so hopefully, will attack them before the year is out). So, I dived into Mary Norton’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks (affiliate link to bookshop.org is here). This is a bind up of two stories (The Magic Bedknob and Bonfires and Broomsticks), which acts as the inspiration to the Disney movie, starring Angela Lansbury (I adore this movie. Yes, it’s trying too hard to be catch the success of Mary Poppins). And it was a delightfully cosy read but oh my, SO DIFFERENT from the movie. Yes, I knew going into this that the books were inspiration for the movie so there will be huge changes, but I was shocked on how different the two medias were and how dark the book got compared to the movie (yes, the movie is set during the Second World War, but we saw no one die. In the book, we saw someone get nearly burnt at the stake for being a witch).

But it was a nice read. Something I desperately needed as I go into reading some non-fiction (Rough Justice by Her Honour Wendy Joseph KC) and some literary/historical fiction (The Glutton by A…). Don’t worry, normal reading (and I use the term “normal” loosely) will return as I suspect that once these are done, I will be attacking my NetGalley backlog of audiobooks and eProofs (sorry in advance).