slemslempike | July Books

Noel Streatfield - The Noel Streatfeild Summer Holiday Book
Beverly Cleary - The Luckiest Girl
PL Travers - I Go By Sea, I Go By Land
Josephine Tey - Brat Farrar
Lee Child - Killing Floor
PG Wodehouse - Carry On, Jeeves
Jo Brand - It's Different for Girls
Fiona Farrell - 6 Clever Girls Who Became Famous Women
Ronald Welch - The Gauntlet
Lyndall Gordon - Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life
Poppy Adams - The Behaviour of Moths
Jeffrey Archer - A Matter of Honour
Malorie Blackman - Noughts and Crosses
Michela Wrong - I Didn't Do It For You
Stella Gibbons - Nightingale Wood
Stephenie Meyer - Twilight
Stephenie Meyer - New Moon
Peter Ho Davies - The Welsh Girl
Ian Fleming - Casino Royale
Vikram Seth - An Unsuitable Boy
Noel Streatfeild - The Whicharts
May Sarton - Mrs Stevens Hears The mermaids Singing
Lee Child - Without Fail
Lee Child - The Persuader

I Go By Sea, I Go By Land is about British children being evacuated to the US during world war two. It reminded me a lot of The Painted Garden.

I read Brat Farrar mostly because it is an easy reread for Ginty in an AF book, and it was rather good. A man is convinced to pretend to be a dead/missing child from years ago in order to get money, and it turns out that his brother killed him so it isn't him. Better than I have made it sound.

Carry On Jeeves is all about occasions where Jeeves has managed to fix something. Each bit takes up one chapter, and it was not nearly as satisfying as events unfolding over a whole book.

It's Different for Girls was rather great, two girls become friends in a southern English resort town, grow up, grow apart, and things happen to them. Some boys are good, some boys are rubbish, punk happens and saves some lives. 6 Clever Girls was sort of similar, in that it's girls who are friends as children, and how they grow up, though it takes them longer to do so. Interesting things about class in both books.

My mum remembers The Gauntlet really fondly from her childhood, so I thought I would give it a try. There is a magic connection to a castle in Wales, and someone gets sent back and is all immersed in the medieval (possibly, I am not good at history) castle life.

Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life is about how criticism of Charlotte Bronte assumes that she must be all asexual and repressed, instead of looking at the passion of her writing and how turning down a man you don't feel attracted to is more passionate than just getting married.

I got The Behaviour of Moths free in a giveaway (I think), and have been meaning to read it for ages. It is about two elderly sisters who haven't seen each other for a while, and how the relationships unravel and are not what they seem.

A Matter of Honour surprisingly good! I mean, that's rather an awful snobbish thing to say, Jeffrey Archer's books are really popular and so people must like them for something, but I enjoyed it rather a lot. Cracking adventure the whole way through.

I got Noughts and Crosses in a bookswap where the giver said they'd been unable to finish it because it was really rubbish, and that they would be cross if it suddenly got good. It doesn't. I mean, it's clearly trying something important (and I noticed how much I had to correct my assumptions when reading about how the oppressed group of people must be black), but it's so DULL and so OBVIOUS.

I Didn't Do It For You is about the history and current state of Eritrea, through the civil war, the occupation by the UK, the presence of US troops, Sylvia Pankhurst, and how everything's gone a bit terrible. The Eritrean resistance fighters were incredibly well organised, and also people were required to write and perform plays and music in order to keep a cultural life going while they were in exile. Jess and I now want to go there on holiday.

I don't remember Nightingale Wood! I should write things up much sooner, this is ridiculous. I have just refreshed my memory online, and it was very good. Viola has to go and live with controlling people, one of them runs off with the chauffeur, and she gets her fairytale ending.

Dear god, Twilight is everything I was promised and less. It's just appalling. I shall write more next month, because I have since read the third book and plan to get hold of the fourth, but OMG. Sparkly vampires! Stalking as normal behaviour! Appallingly bad writing! TERRIBLE.

The Welsh Girl reminded me rather of The Angel Makers, though mostly because it was about prisoners of war. These were in Wales though, and weren't supposed to have contact with anyone, though one escapes.

The most memorable part of Casino Royale is the part where Bond muses that he doesn't really like it when women just give themselves to him, he prefers there to be some underlying reluctance, so that he can savour "the sweet tang of rape". It sort of took some of the sympathy away from me when he was being brutally tortured.

yiskah had been raving about An Unsuitable Boy, so when I went to see her I borrowed it because I'd run out of books for the flight home. It was absolutely brilliant - I pretty much didn't mind the airport waits at all because I was so engrossed. It is a hugely long epic, all about these entertwined Indian families, sort of strung around an attempt to find Layla a husband. There were several candidates throughout, all with things to recommend them, but also all with flaws, so there was never going to be a wonderful romantic everything-tied-together ending, and that was perfect. And it was awfully sad in lots of places, and awfully good in everyplace, and OMG Firoz/Maan OTP 4EVA. (While googling to make sure I got their names right, I found the following question from a reading guide by HarperCollins: "How would you describe the friendship between Maan Kapoor and Firoz Khan? Are there signs that they may be more than friends?" UM LET ME THINK.)

The Whicharts is the novel that Noel Streatfeild wrote that is kind of like an earlier draft of Ballet Shoes, but for adults. The first part of the book is very very similar indeed, but with changes such as the three children not being found by GUM, but instead being fathered by the GUM-equivalent with various of his mistresses. And Garnie becomes Howdy, another mistress whom not-GUM has installed in the Cromwell Road and makes her look after his pregnant mistresses after he's thrown her over. The second part of the book is more different. Tania/Petrova goes on a tour with a Shakespearean company, wins a car in a lottery and eventually finds her mother. I did really enjoy getting to see her life later on, even if it was also pretty sad. Madame not-Fidolia was really annoying in the book, her only character trait was saying everything three times. And the academy was much tackier, with the jobs on offer kind of vulgar, and the lovely romper suits just sounding kind of dingy.

Mrs Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing is about an elderly woman being interviewed about her writing - she was "in" in the early part of her career, and has recently publish more work that has been really well-received. I liked seeing how she controlled or didn't control the questions, and how the young woman who has been brought along to the interview by the confident young male interviewer relates what she is hearing to her own writing, particularly about how to be a woman, and what gender does to creation.

REACHER OH REACHER. He could totally assassinate the vice president. He could assassinate the president too, he could kill anyone. He doesn't though, that's because of his moral code, so that he only disposes of people that are clearly baddies. You know when they're baddies because Reacher tells you. It is a good way to stay on the straight and narrow, to only do things that Reacher would approve of and then you will know you are not in danger of being beaten up and having a label superglued to your forehead as a message to others.

and and Dec are indeed a lovely pair. Lovely, lovely, lovely. They didn't know they had a dishwasher until they moved out of their flat.