Christmas Books

I always re-read some of my favourite books at Christmas and this year is no exception.

I packed last night for two weeks at home and while I packed numerous books I have not read, I also loaded up my gorgeous STRAND bag ( right from Greenwich Village and the largest used bookstore in the world ) with:

Vienna Prelude (Thoene) --- I have read this every year since I was 12. Always at Christmas. The first book I ever re-read

The Man with a Load of Mischief (Grimes)


Something by LM Montgomery ( usually Jane of Lantern Hill --- which it is this year )

Great Expectations (Dickens)

the Blooding of Jack Absolute (Humphreys)


Horatio Lyle ( a new tradition )

Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom (Alcott)


I will let you know if I think of any more.


Remember to get your hands on a copy of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Schaeffer because I LOVED it!


Starting Ariadne Franklin's City of Shadows because I am hankering for something to do with the Romanovs and this looks thrilling and fun.

the post that was supposed to be about The Landing

I was supposed to write about the Landing. But, I left the review on my work computer and my work computer....erm...at work.


So, instead I have decided to write about Charles Finch. I love Charles Finch. He has a nice face. And, most importantly and ever less superficially, the books ARE fantastic, chock full of plaintive verisimilitude and boasting beautiful titles.

Also, to the point of Literary Alter Egos, we can muse on Charles Finch naming his hero Charles Lenox. That should be fun ...'specially because the second installment finds our hero in Oxford: Charles Finch's old stomping ground ( I say "old" with a grain of salt because we are 'bout the same age ). Now, a real review ( because I do like to do things properly and not lackadaisically: hence this blog's sporadic tendencies to wane to and fro ) requires me dipping back into A Beautiful Blue Death and The September Society. Followed by extravagant praise and then a melange of anecdotes on the British detective front---obviously including the darling little mystery store in New York City ( Greenwich Village to be precise ) that editor Otahyoni and I pillaged on our vacation there this past summer ----and obviously a foray into Will Thomas
( because I really do like him and The Black Hand was more than decent!) and maybe a dash of that Rhys Bowen, Her Royal Spyness which was the best of froth and Deanna Raybourn's Silent as the Grave which was also the best of froth ......

and then, being in the frame of murderous mind, I would probably talk about the gorgeous new covers bestowed upon those Nero Wolfe omnibuses.

Then I would talk about Archie Goodwin.

Then I would muse on my favourite fictional characters. Leading to Alatriste, perchance, and then to The Painter of Battles ( on the Perez-Reverte front)

oh cursed stream-of-consciousness--- I would come full circle back to YA fiction and to Horatio Lyle and....


what's the point?


I have none of this planned out.


Oh blog-in-embryo, you doth fail me.

Oh well! Do you all have some titles to write down in your notebooks?