Book Log 25/2011 - Dorthy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night

Dorthy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night
A Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery

I'd never read any Sayers and various friends kept telling me that this was the best, though possibly untypical. To be honest, since I'm not really a mystery reader I'm not quite sure what to say about this. It's a product of its time (first published 1935) and its prose is of a bygone era while the descriptive passages and departures into reflective musing serve as speedbumps to the story, though not always unwelcome ones.

We're in the head of Harriet Vane for much of this book as she works out whether she wants to marry Peter Wimsey (as he's been asking her to do for the last five years) or walk away from him completely. The actual mystery - who's been sending poison pen letters to faculty and students of Harriet's old Oxford college - is subordinate to this, but it gives us an authentic background of dreaming spires and common-room petty-jealousies.

The tension is expertly drawn out until the final resolution and it remains a fascinating in-depth study of Harriet while distancing us from Wimsey for much of the novel.

Book Log 25/2011 - Dorthy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night

Dorthy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night
A Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery

I'd never read any Sayers and various friends kept telling me that this was the best, though possibly untypical. To be honest, since I'm not really a mystery reader I'm not quite sure what to say about this. It's a product of its time (first published 1935) and its prose is of a bygone era while the descriptive passages and departures into reflective musing serve as speedbumps to the story, though not always unwelcome ones.

We're in the head of Harriet Vane for much of this book as she works out whether she wants to marry Peter Wimsey (as he's been asking her to do for the last five years) or walk away from him completely. The actual mystery - who's been sending poison pen letters to faculty and students of Harriet's old Oxford college - is subordinate to this, but it gives us an authentic background of dreaming spires and common-room petty-jealousies.

The tension is expertly drawn out until the final resolution and it remains a fascinating in-depth study of Harriet while distancing us from Wimsey for much of the novel.

Book Log 26/2011 - Monica Edwards: The White Riders

Monica Edwards: The White Riders
A Romney Marsh Story

This is a book form my childhood re-read after a gap of maybe forty years. Monica Edwards was writing from the late forties to the late sixties and her two most popular series for children, the Romney Marsh and the Punchbowl Farm stories ran parallel and occasionally overlapped. This is one of the earlier Romney Marsh stories featuring Tamzin Grey, daughter if the Vicar of Westling (a thinly disguised Rye Harbour in Sussex), her best friend Rissa, Rissa's cousin Roger and his friend, the dashing and roguish Meryon Fairbrass, descendent of pirates. Originally published In 1950, this is a gentle tale of derring-do.

When a property developer buys Cloudsley Castle with intent to turn it into a holiday camp and evict the Merrow family from Castle Farm in the process, Tamzin hatches a plan to resurrect the White Riders, ghostly horsemen who traditionally galloped over the Marsh, screeching like banshees, to scare off the Excise Men in times gone by. The plan is to haunt the castle so that the night shift workers will be scared off and the building work abandoned.

There's enough adventure and jeopardy in this to keep any child enthralled, yet it's a product of it's time.  There is danger, but no one gets seriously hurt. There's risk taking, but it's not stupidly reckless. And despite the fact that the premise is a bit far-fetched – somehow it all works out in the end.

The joy of Monica Edwards' Romney Marsh books lies in the characters and the community as much as the escapades and adventures.  Westling and the Marsh are as much recurring characters as the population of the village itself. No Romney Marsh book would be complete without Jim Decks, for instance, the disreputable but delightful old ferryman whose schemes are often central to the plot, and indeed it's Jim who remembers tales of the White Riders and kicks of Tamzin's idea to haunt the castle.

I have no idea whether anyone, child or adult, coming to these for the first time over sixty years since they were first written would find them relevant. They are certainly far removed from the children's books published today, but I've always loved them, and always will.

Book Log 26/2011 - Monica Edwards: The White Riders

Monica Edwards: The White Riders
A Romney Marsh Story

This is a book form my childhood re-read after a gap of maybe forty years. Monica Edwards was writing from the late forties to the late sixties and her two most popular series for children, the Romney Marsh and the Punchbowl Farm stories ran parallel and occasionally overlapped. This is one of the earlier Romney Marsh stories featuring Tamzin Grey, daughter if the Vicar of Westling (a thinly disguised Rye Harbour in Sussex), her best friend Rissa, Rissa's cousin Roger and his friend, the dashing and roguish Meryon Fairbrass, descendent of pirates. Originally published In 1950, this is a gentle tale of derring-do.

When a property developer buys Cloudsley Castle with intent to turn it into a holiday camp and evict the Merrow family from Castle Farm in the process, Tamzin hatches a plan to resurrect the White Riders, ghostly horsemen who traditionally galloped over the Marsh, screeching like banshees, to scare off the Excise Men in times gone by. The plan is to haunt the castle so that the night shift workers will be scared off and the building work abandoned.

There's enough adventure and jeopardy in this to keep any child enthralled, yet it's a product of it's time.  There is danger, but no one gets seriously hurt. There's risk taking, but it's not stupidly reckless. And despite the fact that the premise is a bit far-fetched – somehow it all works out in the end.

The joy of Monica Edwards' Romney Marsh books lies in the characters and the community as much as the escapades and adventures.  Westling and the Marsh are as much recurring characters as the population of the village itself. No Romney Marsh book would be complete without Jim Decks, for instance, the disreputable but delightful old ferryman whose schemes are often central to the plot, and indeed it's Jim who remembers tales of the White Riders and kicks of Tamzin's idea to haunt the castle.

I have no idea whether anyone, child or adult, coming to these for the first time over sixty years since they were first written would find them relevant. They are certainly far removed from the children's books published today, but I've always loved them, and always will.

Book Log Backlog

While I've been working on the rewrite of 'Between Wind and Water' - now safely delivered to my agent - I've let my reading lapse, but have still managed to accumulate a little pile of books read and waiting for me to booklog. I've done two tonight (tick!) and hope to get the remaining done over the course of the rest of the week. And now I have a whole host of books waiting for me to read... though I also have another book to revise.

So I fear that this year's reading total will be woefully down on the last couple of years. I've now booklogged 26 since the beginning of January, but with a four month gap from June to September I very much doubt I'll read my target of fifty in 2011.

I just daren't let myself get immersed in someone else's books when my head is in my own.

Book Log Backlog

While I've been working on the rewrite of 'Between Wind and Water' - now safely delivered to my agent - I've let my reading lapse, but have still managed to accumulate a little pile of books read and waiting for me to booklog. I've done two tonight (tick!) and hope to get the remaining done over the course of the rest of the week. And now I have a whole host of books waiting for me to read... though I also have another book to revise.

So I fear that this year's reading total will be woefully down on the last couple of years. I've now booklogged 26 since the beginning of January, but with a four month gap from June to September I very much doubt I'll read my target of fifty in 2011.

I just daren't let myself get immersed in someone else's books when my head is in my own.