A Year of Reading

I'm adding this rather late but here is a list and short description of some of the books I read in 2024 that I published on Substack at the end of last year. 

Classics, speculative fiction, domestic fiction, dystopian, memoirs, re-reads...

A Year of Reading - Carol Hudson’s Substack

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie (1942)

The first Miss Marple book I read was The Murder at the Vicarage and although I enjoyed the book, I wasn’t enamoured by Marple’s character and just thought she was an old gossip. 

I may have stopped there but Ruthiella @Booked for Life made a comment on my post that Miss Marple was particularly catty in that book and suggested I try another one.
Since then I’ve read eight Miss Marple books and she has grown on me. The Body in the Library was Christie’s third Miss Marple book and my most recent one:

Miss Marples good friends, the Bantry’s, wake up one morning to the news that a young woman’s dead, strangled body has been found in Colonel Bantry’s library. No one knows her identity and how she came to be there.
Mrs Bantry immediately rings Miss Marple:

’You want me to come up?’
“’Yes, I’m sending the car down for you.’
“Miss Marple said doubtfully: ‘Of course, dear, if you think I can be of any comfort to you – ‘
“Oh, I don’t want comfort. But you’re so good at bodies.’’
“Oh no, indeed. My little successes have been mostly theoretical.”
“But you’re very good at murders…
What I feel is that if one has got to have a murder actually happening in one’s house, one might as well enjoy it, if you know what I mean. Thats why I want you to come and help me find out who did it and unravel the mystery and all that. It really ‘is’ rather thrilling, isn’t it?”

There was a double murder mystery in this book and its solution was complicated as one of the bodies was burned beyond recognition. Meanwhile poor Colonel Bantry was getting the cold shoulder from people in St Mary Mead. The girl was found in the Colonel’s library, so the gossips said that the girl was his mistress…his illegitimate daughter…that she had been blackmailing him.

Favourite Characters

The Bantrys – Dolly Bantry was adamant the murder must be solved as she understood the devastating effect the implied guilt had on her husband. She had been away with Jane Marple and on her return home her husband seemed to have shrunk. After hearing of dinners that had been put off and a cancellation of the Colonel’s chairing of a council meeting, she pulled off a glove and threw it in the bin. Then she sat down and cut off the fingers of her second glove.

“What are you doing, Dolly?”
“Feeling destructive,” said Mrs Bantry.
She got up. “Where shall we sit after dinner, Arthur? In the library?”
“Well – er – I don’t think so- eh? Very nice in here – or the drawing room.”
“I think,” said Mrs Bantry, “that we’ll sit in the library!”
Her steady eye met his. Colonel Bantry drew himself up to his full height. A sparkle came into his eye.
He said:
“You’re right, my dear. We’ll sit in the library!”

Basil Blake – one of the prime suspects who seems to live up to his bad reputation but there is more to him than is first thought.

Peter Carmody – a nine year old would be detective who loves detective stories, does a bit of sleuthing and gives Miss Marple some clues.

“I’ve got autographs from Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie and Dickson Carr and H.C. Bailey.” 

Not a favourite character but I liked this description of Inspector Slack – a misnamed man if ever there was one:

Activity was always to Inspector Slack’s taste. To rush off in a car, to silence rudely those people who were anxious to tell him things, to cut short conversations on the plea of urgent necessity. All this was the breath of life to Slack.

A chilling aspect to this story was the murder of a random sixteen-year-old girl who was lured to her death in order to cover up the identity of the intended victim. As Miss Marple observed, most people are too trusting for this wicked world.

Five Windows by D.E. Stevenson (1953)

 

Five Windows follows the life of David Kirke beginning with his childhood growing up in a Scottish village. The author looked at David’s life through five different windows which represented the five places where he lived during his life up until he was in his early twenties. Starting off with his early years with his father, a minister in the local church, his mother and old Meg, it is a lovely story of family relationships and David’s journey into adult life. 

The First Window 

David’s early years with his parents were sheltered and lovingly nurtured. He developed a kind and sensitive nature with a deeply imbedded sense of morality that kept him anchored through the many changes and experiences of life. He experienced the loss of Malcolm, a local shepherd and a good friend when he enlisted as a soldier at the outbreak of the Second World War. David poured his grief into writing and discovered that he had a gift. 

The Second Window 

David moved away from his home in the village to Edinburgh to attend school.  He lived with his Uncle Matthew here and met his Aunt Etta, whom his uncle considered to be quite mad. David enjoys visiting her and his kindness to her has an important consequence later on. 

The Third Window 

David decided to go to London instead of staying in Edinburgh working at his uncle’s business. When his initial plan to get accommodation with a friend falls through, he takes lodging in a dingy boarding house in the city. It was here where he discovered the darker side of human nature. David’s upbringing and his trusting nature made him easy to manipulate until he learned how to stand up against those who just wanted to take advantage of his generosity. Not one of residents of the boarding house, including the woman who ran the place, were agreeable people. They were all quite selfish, miserable, stingy and played on David’s lack of experience in dealing with opportunistic people. 

The Fourth Window 

After a couple of eye-opening situations, David realised that he had to get out of the boarding house. One day he inadvertently finds a place to let with a window looking out over a bookshop and his life takes a new direction. 

The Fifth Window 

I really like how D.E. Stevenson brings everything together in the final part of this book. David has matured and wisened up without becoming cynical in the process. Although disappointed by previous relationships he has made some good friends. He now knows what he wants to do with his life and who he wants to spend it with. 

Five Windows was written in the first person as D.E. Stevenson wanted to put herself, ‘into the skin of a little boy and see the world through his eyes.’ She did this admirably. The story is told in simple language. In the Foreword to her book, the author mentioned that people have criticised David and told her he was a sap – too good to be true:

‘But he is not intended to be a “hero.” And surely, even in this sophisticated world, there must still be Davids. Perhaps they feel a little bewildered when they venture forth and meet with dragons. David did not know much about Life, he did not even know much about himself…I think it would be true to say that Five Windows gave me more pleasure to write than any of my other books.’ 

Highly recommended as an encouraging and gentle ''coming of age'' story.

Simon the Coldheart by Georgette Heyer (1925)

 

Georgette Heyer was in her early twenties when Simon the Coldheart was published. She was a severe critic of her own work and this title was one of about five or six that she said she didn’t want to be republished. After Heyer’s death in 1974, her son decided that his mother had judged her work too harshly and the book was reprinted in 1977.

Simon Beauvallet is the fourteen-year-old illegitimate son of Geoffrey of Malvallet. His mother died when he was about ten and his father had never bothered with him.

As the book begins, Simon presents himself at Fulk of Montlice’s castle, his father’s enemy, with the desire to become his page. Alan of Montlice, Fulk’s son, was a little younger than Simon. He happens to meet Simon as he is intercepted by a guard when trying to enter the castle. Taking an instant liking to him, he leads Simon in to meet his father. Fulk is impressed by Simon’s attitude and makes him page to Alan. Fulk later made Simon his own page and swore that there was more of himself in Simon than in his own son.

Simon grew to manhood. He became firm friends with Alan and Simon’s older half-brother, Geoffrey, but there was always an icy reserve in his manner with everyone. His prowess in battle earns him knighthood and lands. He fights under Prince Henry, the future Henry V. By the time of the Battle of Agincourt, Simon has turned thirty and, 

‘He had power and wealth, a splendid body, fit for any hardship or endurance, a not unpleasing countenance, and a quick, cool brain. Yet something he seemed to lack, for with all his assets and attainments, he was as cold as stone, almost as though some humanizing part of him had been left out in his fashioning. There were those who said that a softer side of live and passion was not in him, but Henry the King, wiser than these, would point to some frolicking page in the Beauvallet green and russet when he heard this criticism.

‘What! Do ye think Beauvallet hath no tenderness within him? Fool, what of the children.?’

The critics were silenced then, for Simon’s love of children was well-known.’

Henry and Alan believed that there was something in Simon that would spring to life one day, but Geoffrey’s response was,

‘What manner of woman will it be before whom Simon will fall? How many fair maids hath he passed by? And now he is past thirty. He is not like to love. It is too late.’

Heyer’s last book written before she died was My Lord John which overlaps slightly with this book. Her first love was for the Middle Ages, although she is best known for her Regency romances. Simon the Coldheart reminded me of the type of historical fiction my sons really enjoyed in their early teens and although they didn’t get to read any of Heyer’s novels, I’m sure they would have taken to her writing. She is very good at portraying family life and in this book, male friendship. 

Lots of ye, thou, hast and battle exploits, chivalry and derring-do. 

Although Simon had a cold manner, he was loyal. His relationship with Fulk of Montlice and that man’s acceptance of him became almost that of father and son and Alan and Geoffrey were true and devoted friends. As you’d expect, something in Simon did spring to life in time but I won’t go into that. 

Recommended for those who enjoy the historical time period of the Middle Ages. There are romantic elements but not enough to turn off younger readers who prefer action. It has a slightly G. A. Henty feel about it with the added benefit of humour.

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China Court (1961) by Rumer Godden

 

China Court – how can I describe this novel which has overtaken In This House of Brede as my favourite book by this author? This gem has languished on my shelves until the other day when I decided I need to be more serious about reading the books I already have. I joined in with Rose City Reader’s TBR 23 in ’23 Challenge at the beginning of the year in order to make some headway on my TBR but I’ve been derailed by the tug of more book finds. After I’d finished reading China Court I had a look through some of the other books I’ve had for a while and was inspired to be more focused on the challenge – I bought these books for good reasons, after all.  

In This House of Brede, surprised me as it wasn’t really quite what I was expecting. China Court had the same effect. Set in Cornwall, it is a novel about five generations of a family. The story weaves back and forth between generations in the telling, which could be confusing, but Rumer Godden shows her skill by ignoring some of the niceties of grammar while keeping continuity and suspense. I loved this book so much that when it finished I wanted to start it over again – not something I ever do, but I found it so hard to put the characters, and the house, aside. I re-read parts and lingered over her beautiful descriptions of people, place, and their histories, and wondered how I could do the book justice. I can’t, so I apologise that my ‘review’ isn’t what I would like it to be.

The story focuses on a number of different characters that have been involved with the Quin family of China Court from around 1840 to 1960. Framing the novel, and later playing an integral part in the outcome of the story, is a medieval Book of the Hours. The central character linking the house and the characters is Mrs Quin, originally an outsider, and her granddaughter, Tracy.

Old Mrs Quin died in her sleep in the early hours of an August morning.

The sound of the bell came into the house, but did not disturb it; it was quite used to death, and birth, and life.
‘Cause of death, stopped living,’ wrote Dr Taft on the certificate…’

I counted over thirty characters who play significant roles in this novel and it’s a measure of Godden’s skill that I find I can readily picture them all. From Eustace and Adza and their brood of nine – the bitter and tragic Eliza who questioned why she knew so little and was told it was her girls’ school education and followed the advice given her,

’In this country, at this time, there is only one way to educate a girl…Turn her loose with books, guide her, but let her read.’

The tragic, arrogant Lady Patrick and her faithless husband, Jared; beautiful Damaris who pined her short married life away in the city when her heart was in the Cornish moors; Minna, the young girl so homesick for her snow-covered Swiss homeland and Groundsel who loved her,

To Minna, washing up is a thing of beauty…Groundsel, who has seen the other maids throw everything higgledy-piggledy into the sink, is charmed.

Peter, the young man Mrs Quin came to love almost as a son, believed in and helped him by letting him use her land of Penbarrow for his farming…‘How could you die?…I was going to surprise you.’ He had harvested his real crop, built his first hayricks, and at long last started his herd. Tonight or tomorrow now – ‘’Please God not tonight,’’ said weary Peter – his first calf would be born: it would be the firstborn, first fruit, and, little heifer or bull, he had planned to give it to Mrs Quin…The knell that had rung for Mrs Quinn had run for them all: China Court, Penbarrow, Peter, ‘finished.’

Mrs Quin, or Ripsie, as she was in her youth, was a thin, neglected, shabby little girl who loved China Court and hovered around on the edges, was loved and brought into the family by one of its members, ’For him she always has the waif look that tears his heart, and he knows he is undone.’

Five children were born and then the granddaughter, Tracy, whom Mrs Quin loved. Circumstances forced her and Tracy apart when Tracy was twelve years of age and went to America with her mother. Mrs Quin gave Tracy a key to the house and told her she would come back. Tracy always longed for the home at China Court. The rest of the family thought the place should be sold. It needed too many repairs; there was no gas or electricity; looking after the house was domestic tyranny!

When Mrs Quin died, the family gathered together at China House to hear the reading of the will and to know the old lady’s wishes. It was said that both Tracy & Mrs Quin were enslaved by China Court and Tracy was determined to fight to keep the house if she could.

‘To keep’ had become for Tracy the most important verb in the English language…It means to watch over, take care of, maintain.

A stunning book! I took the photo of my copy of the book with my flowering azalea in full throttle in the background. I thought it was very in-keeping with Mrs Quin’s garden. 

 

Blood Feud (1976) by Rosemary Sutcliff

 

Rosemary Sutcliff is considered to be one of the finest writers of historical novels for children, but her writing is appealing for adult readers as well. As she herself said, “I write for children aged 8 to 88.” This ability to appeal to a wide age range is obvious in Blood Feud. I was listening to a podcast on Ukraine (The Rest is History) which traced the country’s history and they mentioned this book. 

Blood Feud follows the fictitious character of Jestyn Englishman, part Saxon, part Briton (?) who was left an orphan at the age of twelve after his stepfather rejected him when his mother died.
A cattleherd gave him work and lodging and for five years he was quite happy. One evening a sudden storm broke and Jestyn was sent to get the yearlings to safety but they never made it home. A clash with a group of raiders ended up with him being taken to the Dublin Slave Market.
In Dublin Jestyn was bought by a young Viking named Thormod and became his thrall. When he helped save Thormod’s life he was set free and went with him when he returned to his homeland in Denmark.

The underlying thread of the story is that of a blood feud to avenge the murder of Thormod’s father. Jestyn joins his friend and blood brother in the Death Feud which takes the two of them as far as Miklagard, the Viking’s name for Constantinople, the Great City, where they fight under Khan Vladimir and later become a part of the Varangian Guard.
Historical characters in this novel include Basil II, Vladimir the Great, Anna, his future wife, and Bardas Phocas.

'But it was in that moment…there came to me for the first time an awareness of the Rus as a People, not just a southward swarming of the Viking hoards, with the Tribes as a kind of lesser folk ingathered along the way.'

Like all Rosemary Sutcliff’s superb novels, Blood Feud transports you to a lost world and immerses you in its history. The Byzantine world of the 10th Century and the clash of religion and cultures are fascinating.

Their journey east sees Jestyn and Thormond enlist on a ship bound for Kiev, down the Dvina and Dnieper rivers. See t here.he trade route

The-Varangian-Route.jpg (560×420) (shorthistory.org)

'The Dvina that flows north to the Baltic, and the Dnieper that goes looping southward past Kiev to the Inland Sea, rise many days apart in the dark forest heart of things; and ships making the river-faring must be man-handled across country from one to the other.'

The Byzantine era is a neglected period of history in books for young people. There are many books based on the Vikings but they focus on their activities in Britain and Europe so this book is unusual in that it looks to the east. It would suit anyone who enjoys an adventure and history. It also is a story of friendship and loyalty.

'We did not know that we were beginning the Emperor’s life ‘s work for him: the driving back of the Bulgarian frontier to what it was in Justinian’s day, bringing all the lands between Macedonia and the Danube, the Inland Sea and the Adriatic again into the Byzantine Empire. It is done now. Thirty years in the doing, and treaties made and treaties broken, and a whole captured Bulgarian Army blinded along the way. (The Emperor Basil is nothing if not thorough!)'

British Library Crime Classics: E.C.R. Lorac

I’ve been slowly collecting books published by the British Library Crime Classics. I judged these books by their covers when I came across my first one and haven’t been disappointed in those that I’ve read so far. John Bude and E.C.R. Lorac are the authors I’ve mostly read.

Murder in the Mill-Race by E.C.R. Lorac (1952) – like other books I’ve read by this author, it has an intriguing plot and is written in a literary style. When a murder occurs in a village in Devon, the residents are determined not to allow strangers to know their secrets and Chief Inspector Macdonald is hampered in his investigations. Macdonald is a very likeable cop with a great sense of humour and an ability to show compassion at the right time. Lorac was an important and influential Golden Age author and was particularly skilled in her descriptions of place and atmosphere. Some of her books, including this one, have a rural setting while others like the one below are set in London.

These Names Make Clues by E.C.R. Lorac – this story was first published in 1937 but languished in obscurity for more than eighty years until it was published by the British Library Crime Classics in 2021. It has the feel of the more traditional Golden Age crime novel with a locked room scenario.

Macdonald was invited to a Treasure Hunt party hosted by Graham Coombe and his sister, Susan. The attendees included detectives – in literary, psychological and practical fields of work who had never met each other. They were each given a pseudonym (Jane Austen, Laurence Sterne, Fanny Burney, Samuel Pepys…) and clues of a literary, historical and practical nature and instructions on where to find their next clue. And so the guests began their hunt, wandering through the house. About an hour into the party, the electricity suddenly went out. When it was eventually restored it was noticed that one of the guests was missing. The missing person was found dead of a suspected heart attack.

''The evening began as a farce and has ended in a tragedy.

It was an essential of detection to regard every contact in a case as dispassionately as the symbol of an equation; the likes and dislikes of a detective had to be kept apart from the reasoning mental processes whereby he assessed probabilities. With one side of his mind, Macdonald liked Graham Coombe and his sister. They were a friendly and amusing pair, whose qualities, imaginative and whimsical in the former, practical and sensible in the latter, made a good foil to one another.
With the other side of his mind, Macdonald had to consider how either – or both – would fit as culprits in this evening’s work.''

I’ve been reading Anne Perry’s William Monk series over the past few months. In a few of the books I’ve read the murderers actions seemed to be almost justified because of the dreadful situation they were in. In These Names Make Clues a similar situation occurs but Macdonald’s response was,

''From some acts there is no escape…If you take another person’s life, for no matter what reason of private anger or vengeance, your own is surely forfeit. You may escape punishment by the law, but your own awareness you never escape…murder never can be judged as a good method of righting other wrongs. I believe that,'' he added very simply and earnestly, ''otherwise my job would be an intolerable one.''

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

 

The Enchanted April, published in 1922, was written by the Australian-born British novelist, Elizabeth von Arnim (1866-1941). She left Sydney as a young child, moved to London and then to Europe, and never returned to Australia.

The delicate and delicious fragrance of the freesias came in through the door and floated round Mrs. Wilkins's enraptured nostrils. Freesias in London were quite beyond her. Occasionally she went into a shop and asked what they cost, so as just to have an excuse for lifting up a bunch and smelling them, well knowing that it was something awful like a shilling for about three flowers. Here they were everywhere— bursting out of every corner and carpeting the rose beds. Imagine it— having freesias to pick in armfuls if you wanted to, and with glorious sunshine flooding the room, and in your summer frock, and its being only the first of April!

The Enchanted April begins in London where Lottie Wilkins, a young married woman neglected and belittled by her husband, begins a conversation with Rose Arbuthnot, a woman she only knew by sight in their women's club. Rose was also in an unhappy marriage, not that she ever complained. Both women see a small Italian castle advertised in The Times and Lottie screws up her courage to approach Rose to suggest they take it for a month.

Neither of them being big spenders, they decide to find two other ladies to come as well, but when all four of them arrive at their destination, personalities clash and the holiday has all the makings of a great disappointment.

However, the magic of the place works itself into the lives and hearts of all four and by the end of the four weeks of April major changes have taken place. 'Beauty made you love, and love made you beautiful...'

I'd describe this story as a sort of modern fairytale. At first I thought the story was going to involve marriage break-ups and everyone would go off and give up on their marriage partners, but von Arnim crafted a lovely turn around in each woman's life. The author's descriptive writing is beautiful, especially when describing flowers and she made Italy very enticing, especially for an April holiday! This is the first book I've read by this author but it doesn't surprise me that her first book was titled, Elizabeth and Her German Garden and that in real life she created a wonderful garden at her home in France.

How passionately she longed to be important to somebody again...not important as an asset in an organization, but privately important - just to one other person, quite privately, nobody else to know or notice. It didn't seem much to ask in a world so crowded with people, just to have one of them, only one out of all the millions, to oneself. Somebody who needed one, who thought of one, who was eager to come to one - oh, oh how dreadfully one wanted to be precious!