Val's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 28 Mar 2025 13:30:08 -0700 60 Val's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Palestinians and Israelis: A short history of conflict]]> 59975449 The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is one of the most bitter struggles of modern times, with consequences that are felt around the globe. In this comprehensive and stimulating overview, Michael Scott-Baumann succinctly describes its causes and charts its history from the late nineteenth century to the present day.
Adopting a unique approach, each chapter starts with a lucid explanation of the politics and ends with a personal testimony from the diaries, interviews and memoirs of Israelis and Palestinians whose lives have been marked by conflict. By presenting competing interpretations from both sides, Scott-Baumann examines thekey flashpoints of the twentieth century including the early role of the British, the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and the dramatic impact of the Six-Day War of 1967. The latter part of the book focuses on the nature of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, and resistance to it; a matter at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent decades.
The result is an indespensible account for anyone seeking to understand the context behind today's headlines, including analysis of why international efforts to restore peace have continually failed.]]> 258 Michael Scott-Baumann 0750998121 Val 0 currently-reading 4.58 Palestinians and Israelis: A short history of conflict
author: Michael Scott-Baumann
name: Val
average rating: 4.58
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/28
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]]> Exodus 42697 Exodus is an international publishing phenomenon--the towering novel of the twentieth century's most dramatic geopolitical event. Leon Uris magnificently portrays the birth of a new nation in the midst of enemies--the beginning of an earthshaking struggle for power. Here is the tale that swept the world with its fury: the story of an American nurse, an Israeli freedom fighter caught up in a glorious, heartbreaking, triumphant era.]]> 599 Leon Uris 0553258478 Val 1 DNF 4.34 1960 Exodus
author: Leon Uris
name: Val
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1960
rating: 1
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
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DNF
]]> Mornings in Jenin 9394254 352 Susan Abulhawa 1408809486 Val 3 4.52 2006 Mornings in Jenin
author: Susan Abulhawa
name: Val
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/26
date added: 2025/03/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Towards Zero (Superintendent Battle, #5)]]> 16351 301 Agatha Christie Val 3 3.94 1944 Towards Zero (Superintendent Battle, #5)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Val
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1944
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
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]]> Conclave 31348230
Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election.

They are holy men. But they have ambition. And they have rivals.

Over the next seventy-two hours one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.]]> 395 Robert Harris 1784751839 Val 4 3.90 2016 Conclave
author: Robert Harris
name: Val
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Diary of a Provincial Lady]]> 683264 Librarian's note: There are Alternate Cover Editions for this edition of this book here and here.

Behind this rather prim title lies the hilarious fictional diary of a disaster-prone lady of the 1930s, and her attempts to keep her somewhat ramshackle household from falling into chaos: there’s her husband Robert, who, when he’s not snoozing behind The Times, does everything with grumbling recluctance; her gleefully troublesome children; and a succession of tricky sevants who invariably seem to gain the upper hand. And if her domestic trials are not enough, she must keep up appearances. Particularly with the maddeningly patronising Lady Boxe, whom our Provincial Lady eternally (and unsuccessfully) tries to compete with.

Also published here are the three enchanting sequels to The Diary of a Provincial Lady: The Provincial Lady Goes Further, The Provincial Lady in America, and The Provincial Lady in Wartime.]]> 562 E.M. Delafield 0860685225 Val 3 4.00 The Diary of a Provincial Lady
author: E.M. Delafield
name: Val
average rating: 4.00
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rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/10
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]]> <![CDATA[The Monogram Murders (New Hercule Poirot Mysteries, #1)]]> 19367226 ‘I’m a dead woman, or I shall be soon
â€�

Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffeehouse is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered.  She is terrified â€� but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done.

Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at a fashionable London Hotel have been murdered, and a cufflink has been placed in each one’s mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman? While Poirot struggles to put together the bizarre pieces of the puzzle, the murderer prepares another hotel bedroom for a fourth victim...]]> 320 Sophie Hannah Val 3 3.44 2014 The Monogram Murders (New Hercule Poirot Mysteries, #1)
author: Sophie Hannah
name: Val
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2014
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/03/08
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]]> The Cornish Coast Murder 18526932
The Reverend Dodd, vicar of the quiet Cornish village of Boscawen, spends his evenings reading detective stories by the fireside - but heaven forbid that the shadow of any real crime should ever fall across his seaside parish.

But the vicar's peace is shattered one stormy night when Julius Tregarthan, a secretive and ill-tempered magistrate, is found at his house in Boscawen with a bullet through his head.
The local police inspector is baffled by the complete absence of clues. Luckily for Inspector Bigswell, the Reverend Dodd is on hand, and ready to put his keen understanding of the criminal mind to the test.

This classic mystery of the golden age of British crime is set against the vividly described backdrop of a fishing village on Cornwall's Atlantic coast. It is now republished for the first time since the 1930s with an introduction by the award-winning crime writer Martin Edwards.]]> 286 John Bude 0712357157 Val 3 3.47 1935 The Cornish Coast Murder
author: John Bude
name: Val
average rating: 3.47
book published: 1935
rating: 3
read at: 2022/09/30
date added: 2025/03/08
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]]> Chess 32599701 83 Stefan Zweig 0241305160 Val 3 4.27 1942 Chess
author: Stefan Zweig
name: Val
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1942
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Our Spoons Came From Woolworths]]> 18330904 196 Barbara Comyns 1844089274 Val 2 3.95 1950 Our Spoons Came From Woolworths
author: Barbara Comyns
name: Val
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1950
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> <![CDATA[On Love and Tyranny: The Life and Politics of Hannah Arendt]]> 61309952 In an utterly unique approach to biography, On Love and Tyranny traces the life and work of the iconic German Jewish intellectual Hannah Arendt, whose political philosophy and understandings of evil, totalitarianism, love, and exile prove essential amid the rise of the refugee crisis and authoritarian regimes around the world.

What can we learn from the iconic political thinker Hannah Arendt? Well, the short answer may be: to love the world so much that we think change is possible.

The life of Hannah Arendt spans a crucial chapter in the history of the Western world, a period that witnessed the rise of the Nazi regime and the crises of the Cold War, a time when our ideas about humanity and its value, its guilt and responsibility, were formulated. Arendt’s thinking is intimately entwined with her life and the concrete experiences she drew from her encounters with evil, but also from love, exile, statelessness, and longing. This strikingly original work moves from political themes that wholly consume us today, such as the ways in which democracies can so easily become totalitarian states; to the deeply personal, in intimate recollections of Arendt’s famous lovers and friends, including Heidegger, Benjamin, de Beauvoir, and Sartre; and to wider moral deconstructions of what it means to be human and what it means to be humane.

On Love and Tyranny brings to life a Hannah Arendt for our days, a timeless intellectual whose investigations into the nature of evil and of love are eerily and urgently relevant half a century later.]]> 0 Ann Heberlein 1782276114 Val 2 2.00 On Love and Tyranny: The Life and Politics of Hannah Arendt
author: Ann Heberlein
name: Val
average rating: 2.00
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Helle & Death (Helle & Death, #1)]]> 162693947 A snowstorm. A country house. Old friends reunited. It's going to be murder...

Torben Helle - art historian, Danish expat and owner of several excellent Scandinavian jumpers - has been dragged to a remote snowbound Northumbrian mansion for a ten-year reunion with old university friends. Things start to go sideways when their host, a reclusive and irritating tech entrepreneur, makes some shocking revelations at the dinner table. And when these are followed by an apparent suicide, the group faces a test of their wits... and their trust.

Snowed in and cut off, surrounded by enigmatic housekeepers and off-duty police inspectors, not to mention a peculiar last will and testament, suspicion and sarcasm quickly turn to panic. As the temperature drops and the tension mounts, Torben decides to draw upon all the tricks of Golden Age detectives past in order to solve the how much money would it take to turn one of his old friends into a murderer? But he'd better be quick, or someone else might end up dead...

This witty murder mystery puts a modern spin on the classic country house whodunnit. A must-read for fans of Agatha Christie, Richard Osman and Janice Hallett.]]> 334 Oskar Jensen 1800811756 Val 4 3.45 2024 Helle & Death (Helle & Death, #1)
author: Oskar Jensen
name: Val
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/11
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]]> The Tree of Heaven 52639846 312 May Sinclair 0712353070 Val 3 3.76 1917 The Tree of Heaven
author: May Sinclair
name: Val
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1917
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Killings at Kingfisher Hill (New Hercule Poirot Mysteries, #4)]]> 56197380
The coach is forced to stop when a distressed woman demands to get off, insisting that if she stays in her seat, she will be murdered. Although the rest of the journey passes without anyone being harmed, Poirot’s curiosity is aroused, and his fears are later confirmed when a body is discovered with a macabre note attached . . .

Could this new murder and the peculiar incident on the coach be clues to solving the mystery of who killed Frank Devonport? And if Helen is innocent, can Poirot find the true culprit in time to save her from the gallows?]]> 288 Sophie Hannah 0062792385 Val 3 3.57 2020 The Killings at Kingfisher Hill (New Hercule Poirot Mysteries, #4)
author: Sophie Hannah
name: Val
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/31
date added: 2025/01/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Hercule Poirot's Silent Night (New Hercule Poirot Mysteries, #5)]]> 70240437 The world’s greatest detective, Hercule Poirot â€� legendary star of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and A Haunting in Venice â€� puts his little grey cells to work solving a baffling Christmas mystery.

CAN HERCULE POIROT SOLVE A BAFFLING MURDER MYSTERY IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS?

It’s 19 December 1931. Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool are called to investigate the murder of a man in the apparent safe haven of a Norfolk hospital ward. Catchpool’s mother, the irrepressible Cynthia, insists that Poirot stays in a crumbling mansion by the coast, so that they can all be together for the festive period while Poirot solves the case. Cynthia’s friend Arnold is soon to be admitted to that same hospital and his wife is convinced he will be the killer’s next victim, though she refuses to explain why.

Poirot has less than a week to solve the crime and prevent more murders, if he is to escape from this nightmare scenario and get home in time for Christmas. Meanwhile, someone else � someone utterly ruthless � also has ideas about what ought to happen to Hercule Poirot . . .]]> 384 Sophie Hannah 0062991639 Val 3 3.65 2023 Hercule Poirot's Silent Night (New Hercule Poirot Mysteries, #5)
author: Sophie Hannah
name: Val
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/26
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]]> Saplings 588752 384 Noel Streatfeild 1903155053 Val 3 3.90 1945 Saplings
author: Noel Streatfeild
name: Val
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1945
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Murder at Holly House (Frank Grasby Mystery, #1)]]> 124028498 It's December 1952, and a dead stranger has been found lodged up the chimney of Holly House in the remote town of Elderby. Is he a simple thief, or a would-be killer? Either way, he wasn't on anyone's Christmas wish list.

A mystery that can't be solved
Inspector Frank Grasby is ordered to investigate. The victim of some unfortunate misunderstandings, he hopes this case will help clear his name. But as is often the way for Grasby, things most certainly don't go according to plan.

A Christmas to remember
Soon blizzards hit the North York Moors, cutting off the village from help, and the local doctor's husband is found murdered. Grasby begins to realise that everyone in Elderby is hiding something - and if he can't uncover the truth soon, the whole country will pay a dreadful price...]]> 363 Denzil Meyrick 1787637182 Val 3 3.48 2023 Murder at Holly House (Frank Grasby Mystery, #1)
author: Denzil Meyrick
name: Val
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Lake District Murder (Superintendent Meredith, #1)]]> 18526933
This classic mystery is set amongst the stunning scenery of a small village in the Lake District. It is now republished for the first time since the 1930s with an introduction by the award-winning crime writer Martin Edwards.]]> 286 John Bude 0712357165 Val 3 3.25 1935 The Lake District Murder (Superintendent Meredith, #1)
author: John Bude
name: Val
average rating: 3.25
book published: 1935
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
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]]> Crime at Christmas 27794656
It's Christmas at Hampstead's Beresford Lodge. A group of relatives and intimate friends gather to celebrate the festive season, but their party is rudely interrupted by a violent death. It isn't long before a second body is discovered. Can the murderer be one of those in the great house? The stockbroker sleuth Malcolm Warren investigates, in this brilliantly witty mystery from 1934.

"Kitchin's knowledge of the crevices of human nature lifts his crime fiction out of the category of puzzledom and into the realm of the detective novel. He was, in short, ahead of his day." - H R F Keating]]> 250 C.H.B. Kitchin 0571325939 Val 3 3.19 1934 Crime at Christmas
author: C.H.B. Kitchin
name: Val
average rating: 3.19
book published: 1934
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Murder Underground (Watson Sisters, #1)]]> 18526938 286 Mavis Doriel Hay 0712357254 Val 3 3.29 1934 Murder Underground (Watson Sisters, #1)
author: Mavis Doriel Hay
name: Val
average rating: 3.29
book published: 1934
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
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]]> Madam, Will You Talk? 27698
Very soon her dreams turn into a nightmare, when by befriending a terrified boy and catching the attention of his enigmatic, possibly murderous father, Charity has inadvertently placed herself center stage. She becomes enmeshed in the schemes of a gang of murderers. And now the killer, with blood enough on his hands, is waiting in the wings.]]> 360 Mary Stewart 0060093560 Val 2 4.01 1955 Madam, Will You Talk?
author: Mary Stewart
name: Val
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1955
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/21
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]]> The Swallows' Flight 57138311
Four ordinary lives connected by extraordinary circumstances, Hilary McKay's stunning companion novel to the Costa Award-winning The Skylarks' War features the next generation of characters as they move from childhood to the threshold of adulthood amid the chaos and conflict of the Second World War.

Erik and Hans admire swallows over the rooftops of Berlin, little thinking that one day they will be flying above England, risking their lives in a war they both detest.

Ruby and Kate, great friends despite their differences, find themselves racing towards a danger that neither of them could possibly have imagined.

Meanwhile Rupert and Clarry work secretly for peace � and a brighter future for them all . . .]]> 290 Hilary McKay 1529033330 Val 4 4.20 2021 The Swallows' Flight
author: Hilary McKay
name: Val
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/21
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]]> The Skylarks� War 39903894
Can their family survive this fearful war? The Skylarksâ€� War is a beautiful story following the loves and losses of a family growing up against the harsh backdrop of World War One, from the award-winning Hilary McKay.]]> 320 Hilary McKay 1509894942 Val 4 4.21 2018 The Skylarks’ War
author: Hilary McKay
name: Val
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2019/01/20
date added: 2024/12/13
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]]> O, the Brave Music 52640531
A female narrator looks back on her childhood in a coming-of-age novel set before the First World War. Ruan is an intelligent and imaginative child, who gradually comes to understand the nuances of the adult world around her, as she moves from the Manse, under the strict rule of her father, a non-conformist minister, to Cobbetts, her mother's ancestral home, under the tutelage of her Uncle Alaric, and back to the guardianship of Rosie Day at Bolton House high up on the moor above the town where she was born. Her young life is shaped by a series of tragedies, but also the warmth of enduring friendships, particularly with David, her dearest friend who shares her love of the wild expanse and colours of the moor.]]> 296 Dorothy Evelyn Smith 0712353380 Val 5
Smith wrote the novel decades after it is set and there is a poignant air of nostalgia running through it. There is always so much potential for a happy ending but that real risk that it might not be so, and the childhood might turn out to be the last of the happiness.]]> 4.51 1943 O, the Brave Music
author: Dorothy Evelyn Smith
name: Val
average rating: 4.51
book published: 1943
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/10
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A coming of age novel set in the first decade of the twentieth century, this is the story of Ruan’s childhood, near and on the Yorkshire moors. Ruan is the younger daughter of two loving but detached parents, and it is her relationships with a number of adults acting as surrogate parents that makes the book so compelling. Young Ruan is unconventional, a bookworm with an urgent, driving love of the outdoors, but the adults who care for her love her for it and don’t try to change her, always facilitating her personal growth on her own terms. Despite the tragedies of her early life, it is a happy childhood as she is always surrounded by unconditional love.

Smith wrote the novel decades after it is set and there is a poignant air of nostalgia running through it. There is always so much potential for a happy ending but that real risk that it might not be so, and the childhood might turn out to be the last of the happiness.
]]> <![CDATA[The Mystery of the Blue Train (Hercule Poirot, #6)]]> 16335
When the Blue Train stops, the jewel is missing, and the woman is found dead in her compartment. It's the perfect mystery, filled with passion, greed, deceit, and confusion.

Is Hercule Poirot the perfect detective to solve it?]]> 317 Agatha Christie 1579126952 Val 3 3.84 1928 The Mystery of the Blue Train (Hercule Poirot, #6)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Val
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1928
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Body in the Library (Miss Marple, #2)]]> 16319
But who is she? How did she get there? And what is the connection with another dead girl, whose charred remains are later discovered in an abandoned quarry?

The respectable Bantrys invite Miss Marple to solve the mystery� before tongues start to wag.

Librarian's note: this entry is for the novel "The Body in the Library." Collections and other Miss Marple stories are located elsewhere on Ć·±ŠÓéÀÖ. The series includes 12 novels and 20 short stories. Entries for the short stories can be found by searching Ć·±ŠÓéÀÖ for: "a Miss Marple Short Story."]]> 191 Agatha Christie 157912626X Val 3 3.86 1942 The Body in the Library (Miss Marple, #2)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Val
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1942
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/05
date added: 2024/12/05
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]]> <![CDATA[The Perfect Couple (Nantucket, #3)]]> 34840184
But it's going to be memorable for all the wrong reasons after tragedy strikes: a body is discovered in Nantucket Harbor just hours before the ceremony-and everyone in the wedding party is suddenly a suspect. As Chief of Police Ed Kapenash interviews the bride, the groom, the groom's famous mystery-novelist mother, and even a member of his own family, he discovers that every wedding is a minefield-and no couple is perfect. Featuring beloved characters from The Castaways, Beautiful Day, and A Summer Affair, The Perfect Couple proves once again that Elin Hilderbrand is the queen of the summer beach read.]]> 480 Elin Hilderbrand 0316375241 Val 4 3.93 2018 The Perfect Couple (Nantucket, #3)
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Val
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Going Home: A Walk Through Fifty Years of Occupation]]> 51179830
"Few Palestinians have opened their minds and their hearts with such frankness."
—The New York Times

In Going Home, Raja Shehadeh, the Orwell Prize–winning author of Palestinian Walks, takes us on a series of journeys around his hometown of Ramallah. Set in a single day—the day that happens to be the fiftieth anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank—the book is a powerful and moving record and chronicle of the changing face of his city.

Here is a city whose green spaces—gardens and hills crowned with olive treesâ€� have been replaced by tower blocks and concrete lots; where the Israeli occupation has further entrenched itself in every aspect of movement, from the roads that can and cannot be used to the bureaucratic barriers that prevent people leaving the West Bank. Here also is a city that is culturally shifting, where Islam is taking a more prominent role in people’s everyday and political lives and in the geography of the city.

A penetrating evocation of memory, pain, and place that is lightened by everyday joys such as delightful accounts of shared meals and gardening, Going Home is perhaps Raja Shehadeh’s most moving and painfully visceral addition to his series of personal histories of the occupation, confirming Rachel Kushner’s judgment that “Shehadeh is a buoy in a sea of bleakness.”]]> 256 Raja Shehadeh 1620975777 Val 4 4.18 2020 Going Home: A Walk Through Fifty Years of Occupation
author: Raja Shehadeh
name: Val
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/23
date added: 2024/11/23
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]]> <![CDATA[When The Bulbul Stopped Singing: A Diary of Ramallah under Siege]]> 214917828 'Palestine's greatest prose writer' Observer

'Shehadeh is a great inquiring spirit with a tone that is vivid, ironic, melancholy and wise' Colm TĂłibĂ­n

Battered by repeated suicide bombs, the Israeli army invaded Palestine in April 2002 and held many of the principal towns, including Ramallah, under siege. A tank stood at the end of Raja Shehadeh's road; there were Israeli soldiers on the rooftops; his mother was sick, and he couldn't cross town to help her.

Shehadeh - winner of the 2008 Orwell Prize and a finalist for the 2023 National Book Awards - kept a diary. This is an account of what it is like to be under the terror, the frustrations, as well as the moments of poignant relief and reflection on the profound crisis gripping both Palestine and Israel.]]> 154 Raja Shehadeh 1805224832 Val 3 4.00 When The Bulbul Stopped Singing: A Diary of Ramallah under Siege
author: Raja Shehadeh
name: Val
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/17
date added: 2024/11/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Adventures in Time: The Six Wives of Henry VIII]]> 55446372
'Winter has come; and in a far distant land, a warrior queen is expecting a child...'

Step through these pages into the Tudor a dangerous place, where one miss-step could cost your life. Through the eyes of Henry VIII's six very different queens, from a brave Spanish princess to a wise English widow, historian Dominic Sandbrook takes us on a thrilling journey through the twists and turns of a dramatic age. For no one is safe from the wheel of it can take you from a golden throne to the Tower of London...

The Adventures in Time series brings the past alive for twenty-first century children. These stories are every bit as exciting as those of Harry Potter or Matilda Wormwood. The only difference is they actually happened...

* (Perfect for all readers who enjoy tales of heroes, villains, jousting, beheadings and fat tyrants)]]> 320 Dominic Sandbrook 0241469732 Val 4 4.37 2023 Adventures in Time: The Six Wives of Henry VIII
author: Dominic Sandbrook
name: Val
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/11
date added: 2024/11/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine]]> 365461
The first memoir of its kind by a Palestinian living in the occupied territories, Strangers in the House offers a moving description of daily life for those who have chosen to remain on their land. It is also the family drama of a difficult relationship between an idealistic son and his politically active father, complicated by the arbitrary humiliation of the "occupier's law."]]> 238 Raja Shehadeh 0142002933 Val 4 3.88 2001 Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine
author: Raja Shehadeh
name: Val
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/04
date added: 2024/11/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape]]> 3204677
“It was over on that side,â€� the soldier pointed out, smiling. “I was there.â€�

When Raja Shehadeh first started hill walking in Palestine, in the late 1970s, he was not aware that he was traveling through a vanishing landscape. In recent years, his hikes have become less than bucolic and sometimes downright dangerous. That is because his home is Ramallah, on the Palestinian West Bank, and the landscape he traverses is now the site of a tense standoff between his fellow Palestinians and settlers newly arrived from Israel.

In this original and evocative book, we accompany Raja on six walks taken between 1978 and 2006. The earlier forays are peaceful affairs, allowing our guide to meditate at length on the character of his native land, a terrain of olive trees on terraced hillsides, luxuriant valleys carved by sacred springs, carpets of wild iris and hyacinth and ancient monasteries built more than a thousand years ago. Shehadeh's love for this magical place saturates his renderings of its history and topography. But latterly, as seemingly endless concrete is poured to build settlements and their surrounding walls, he finds the old trails are now impassable and the countryside he once traversed freely has become contested ground. He is harassed by Israeli border patrols, watches in terror as a young hiking companion picks up an unexploded missile and even, on one occasion when accompanied by his wife, comes under prolonged gunfire.

Amid the many and varied tragedies of the Middle East, the loss of a simple pleasure such as the ability to roam the countryside at will may seem a minor matter. But in Palestinian Walks, Raja Shehadeh's elegy for his lost footpaths becomes a heartbreaking metaphor for the deprivations of an entire people estranged from their land.]]> 224 Raja Shehadeh 1416569669 Val 4 4.27 2008 Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape
author: Raja Shehadeh
name: Val
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2024/11/01
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]]> <![CDATA[A Speedy Death (Mrs. Bradley, #1)]]> 82870 192 Gladys Mitchell 0754085473 Val 2 3.49 1929 A Speedy Death (Mrs. Bradley, #1)
author: Gladys Mitchell
name: Val
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1929
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/29
date added: 2024/10/29
shelves:
review:
This was very disappointing. The plot had huge holes, none of the characters or motives were plausible, it was unrealistic from beginning to end. The classism may well have been of its time but it makes for very uncomfortable reading now. It’s probably for the best that Mitchell is one of the lesser known Golden Age writers and mostly forgotten now.
]]> An Unsuitable Attachment 178568 An Unsuitable Attachment is indeed full of the high comedy for which Barbara Pym is famed. There is Mark Ainger, the vicar, who introduces his sermons with remarks like ‘Those of you who are familiar with the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.â€� His wife Sophia with her cat, ‘I feel sometimes that I can’t reach Faustina as I’ve reached other cats.â€� Rupert Stonebird, anthropologist and eligible bachelor. The well-bred Ianthe Broome who works at the library and forms an unsuitable attachment with a young man there. The sharp-tongue Mervyn Cantrell, chief librarian, who complains that ‘when books have things spilt on them it is always bottled sauce or gravy of the thickest and most repellent kind rather than something utterly exquisite and delicious.â€� There is also Daisy Pettigrew, the vet’s sister, another obsessional cat person, and Sister Dew who bears a strong resemblance to Sister Blatt in Excellent Women.]]> 256 Barbara Pym 155921354X Val 3 3.96 1982 An Unsuitable Attachment
author: Barbara Pym
name: Val
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1982
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/27
date added: 2024/10/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Sisters by a River 2702242 An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here.

On the banks of the River Avon, six sisters are born. The seasons come and go, the girls take their lessons under the ash tree, and always there is the sound of water swirling through the weir. Then, unexpectedly, an air of decay descends upon the house: ivy grows unchecked over the windows, angry shouts split the summer air, the milk sours in the larder and their father takes out his gun. Tragedy strikes the family, and before long the furniture is being auctioned off and the sisters dispersed among relatives. In her daring, witty first novel, originally published in 1947, Barbara Comyns' unique young heroine relates the vivid and bittersweet story of her childhood.]]> 161 Barbara Comyns 086068475X Val 2 3.87 1947 Sisters by a River
author: Barbara Comyns
name: Val
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1947
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/24
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves:
review:
This isn’t a novel but rather a collection of vignettes on the author’s childhood, written for her family’s consumption and not for publication. The childish spelling, grammar and punctuation has all been kept unchanged, so this reads like the unedited juvenalia it is. Although the childhood of neglect within relative, though declining, wealth is eccentric, there is never any insight or depth to make this account interesting.
]]> <![CDATA[Midnight at Malabar House (Malabar House #1)]]> 49544193 Bombay, New Year's Eve, 1949

As India celebrates the arrival of a momentous new decade, Inspector Persis Wadia stands vigil in the basement of Malabar House, home to the city's most unwanted unit of police officers. Six months after joining the force she remains India's first female police detective, mistrusted, sidelined and now consigned to the midnight shift.

And so, when the phone rings to report the murder of prominent English diplomat Sir James Herriot, the country's most sensational case falls into her lap.

As 1950 dawns and India prepares to become the world's largest republic, Persis, accompanied by Scotland Yard criminalist Archie Blackfinch, finds herself investigating a case that is becoming more political by the second. Navigating a country and society in turmoil, Persis, smart, stubborn and untested in the crucible of male hostility that surrounds her, must find a way to solve the murder - whatever the cost.

]]> 344 Vaseem Khan Val 3 3.93 2020 Midnight at Malabar House (Malabar House #1)
author: Vaseem Khan
name: Val
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/22
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves:
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]]> The Magic Summer 1127086 270 Noel Streatfeild 0394816315 Val 4 4.02 1966 The Magic Summer
author: Noel Streatfeild
name: Val
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1966
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/06
date added: 2024/10/06
shelves:
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]]> Curtain Call 23347053
Jimmy Erskine is the raffish doyen of theatre critics who fears that his star is fading: age and drink are catching up with him, and in his late-night escapades with young men he walks a tightrope that may snap at any moment. He has depended for years on his loyal and longsuffering secretary Tom, who has a secret of his own to protect. Tom’s chance encounter with Madeleine Farewell, a lost young woman haunted by premonitions of catastrophe, closes the circle: it was Madeleine who narrowly escaped the killer’s stranglehold that afternoon, and now walks the streets in terror of his finding her again.

Curtain Call is a comedy of manners, and a tragedy of mistaken intentions. From the glittering murk of Soho’s demi-monde to the grease paint and ghost-lights of theatreland, the story plunges on through smoky clubrooms, tawdry hotels and drag balls towards a denouement in which two women are stalked by the same killer. As bracing as a cold Martini and as bright as a new tie-pin, it is a poignant and gripping story about love and death and a society dancing towards the abyss.]]> 326 Anthony Quinn 0224099582 Val 5
The story involves an ensemble of characters, not all totally likeable but all believable. While the plot is absorbing, it’s the very real question of what happens next to each character that drives the narrative. It’s a beautifully written book, with the depth of the realisation of the characters one of its strongest features.

]]> 3.65 2015 Curtain Call
author: Anthony Quinn
name: Val
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/02
date added: 2024/10/02
shelves:
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Set in London in the eventful year of 1936, this novel covers the world of West End theatres, newspapers, art and their points of intersection, all set against a society facing up to the spectre of fascism and the prospect of a return to war, as well as the more local danger of a serial killer in the heart of London’s West End.

The story involves an ensemble of characters, not all totally likeable but all believable. While the plot is absorbing, it’s the very real question of what happens next to each character that drives the narrative. It’s a beautifully written book, with the depth of the realisation of the characters one of its strongest features.


]]> <![CDATA[The Other Half (DI Caius Beauchamp, #1)]]> 123025972
Rupert's 30th birthday party is a black-tie dinner at the Kentish Town McDonald's—catered with cocaine and expensive champagne. The morning after, his girlfriend Clemmie is found murdered on Hampstead Heath, a single stiletto heel jutting from under a bush.

Who killed Clemmie? Was it the blithe, sociopathic boyfriend? His impossibly wealthy godmother? The gallery owner with whom Clemmie was having an affair? Or was it the result of something else entirely?

All the party-goers have alibis. Naturally. This investigation is going to be about aristocrats and Classics degrees, Instagram influencers and whose father knows who.

Or is it 'whom'? Detective Caius Beauchamp isn't sure. He's sharply dressed, smart, and thoroughly modern—he discovers Clemmie's body on his early morning jog. As he searches for the dark truth beneath the luxurious life of these London socialites, a wall of staggering wealth and privilege threatens to shut down his investigation before it's even begun. Can Caius peer through the tangled mess of connections in which the other half live—and die—before the case is wrenched from his hands? Bitingly funny, full of shocking twists, and all too familiar.]]> 368 Charlotte Vassell 0593685946 Val 3 3.26 2023 The Other Half (DI Caius Beauchamp, #1)
author: Charlotte Vassell
name: Val
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/28
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves:
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]]> Mrs. Miniver 15907 ]]> 162 Jan Struther Val 3 3.94 1939 Mrs. Miniver
author: Jan Struther
name: Val
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1939
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/25
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Exiles in Love (The Exiles, #3)]]> 324379 176 Hilary McKay 0689820135 Val 4 4.02 1998 The Exiles in Love (The Exiles, #3)
author: Hilary McKay
name: Val
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/19
date added: 2024/09/19
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Exiles at Home (The Exiles, #2)]]> 436078 199 Hilary McKay 034072692X Val 4 4.11 1994 The Exiles at Home (The Exiles, #2)
author: Hilary McKay
name: Val
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/18
date added: 2024/09/18
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]]> The Exiles (The Exiles, #1) 436077 191 Hilary McKay 0340726911 Val 4
I loved spending time with the Conroys and their grown-ups. While each of them could be very annoying, especially to their close family, all were immensely lovable. I’m looking forward to finding out what they do next.]]> 3.92 1992 The Exiles (The Exiles, #1)
author: Hilary McKay
name: Val
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/17
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves:
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The four Conroy sisters are sent by their parents to stay with their grandmother for the summer - a horrific prospect because they don’t like Big Grandma, she appears not to like them and, even worse, she lives in a house without books in a village without a library. It all works out sort of, the girls find other activities to do that don’t involve reading, they make friends and somehow muddle along without anyone getting too badly hurt.

I loved spending time with the Conroys and their grown-ups. While each of them could be very annoying, especially to their close family, all were immensely lovable. I’m looking forward to finding out what they do next.
]]> <![CDATA[The Purloined Letter (C. Auguste Dupin, #3)]]> 278854 48 Edgar Allan Poe 0886820618 Val 2 3.65 1844 The Purloined Letter (C. Auguste Dupin, #3)
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Val
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1844
rating: 2
read at: 2024/09/12
date added: 2024/09/12
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]]> The Bookshop 41015154 In 1959 Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance, risks everything to open a bookshop - the only bookshop - in the seaside town of Hardborough. By making a success of a business so impractical, she invites the hostility of the town's less prosperous shopkeepers. By daring to enlarge her neighbors' lives, she crosses Mrs. Gamart, the local arts doyenne. Florence's warehouse leaks, her cellar seeps, and the shop is apparently haunted. Only too late does she begin to suspect the truth: a town that lacks a bookshop isn't always a town that wants one.]]> 163 Penelope Fitzgerald 0547524773 Val 3 3.21 1978 The Bookshop
author: Penelope Fitzgerald
name: Val
average rating: 3.21
book published: 1978
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/08
date added: 2024/09/08
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]]> The Luck of the Vails 757669 Fear not fire nor rain nor frost;
When the Luck is found again,
Fear both fire and frost and rain.
The Luck of the Vails is an exquisite gold cup, encrusted with precious jewels. On the eve of his twenty-first birthday, Harry Vail, twelfth baronet, discovers the chalice hidden in soft leather folds up in the attic. Little can he imagine, as he unwraps this unexpected gift, the
birthday curse he is about to bring down upon his head.
Set amid the rolling Wiltshire dales and the clattering, gaslit streets of London, The Luck of the Vails gradually reveals a long, bitter history of corruption and violence amongst the old aristocracy. It is a vintage crime story.]]> 312 E.F. Benson 0701207221 Val 3 3.42 1901 The Luck of the Vails
author: E.F. Benson
name: Val
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1901
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/05
date added: 2024/09/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Around the World in Eighty Days]]> 54479 252 Jules Verne 014044906X Val 3 3.95 1872 Around the World in Eighty Days
author: Jules Verne
name: Val
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1872
rating: 3
read at: 2022/04/26
date added: 2024/08/29
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]]> The Tenth Gift 2873264
Captivated by this dramatic discovery, Julia sets off to North Africa to determine the authenticity of the book and to uncover more of Cat’s story. There, in the company of a charismatic Moroccan guide, amid the sultry heat, the spice markets, and exotic ruins, Julia discovers buried secrets. And in Morocco â€� just as Cat did before her â€� she loses her heart.

Almost 400 years apart, the stories of the two women converge in an extraordinary and haunting manner that will make readers wonder � is history fated to repeat itself?]]> 385 Jane Johnson 0385665008 Val 4 3.74 2008 The Tenth Gift
author: Jane Johnson
name: Val
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/28
date added: 2024/08/28
shelves:
review:
A story told seamlessly in two timelines - the young Catherine, snatched and sold into slavery in 1625, and Julia, stumbling on her history almost four centuries later. It’s a wonderful tale of historic Cornwall and historic Morocco, bound by trade, licit and illicit, and commonalities in religion and craft. All the historical detail felt authentic, and the people as real as any living today. An absorbing read from beginning to end.
]]> <![CDATA[A Rising Man (Sam Wyndham, #1)]]> 25686321 B019CGXRZM

The winner of the Harvill Secker/Daily Telegraph crime writing competition

Captain Sam Wyndham, former Scotland Yard detective, is a new arrival to Calcutta. Desperately seeking a fresh start after his experiences during the Great War, Wyndham has been recruited to head up a new post in the police force. But with barely a moment to acclimatise to his new life or to deal with the ghosts which still haunt him, Wyndham is caught up in a murder investigation that will take him into the dark underbelly of the British Raj.

A senior British official has been murdered, and a note left in his mouth warns the British to quit India: or else. With rising political dissent and the stability of the Raj under threat, Wyndham and his two new colleagues–arrogant Inspector Digby, who can barely conceal his contempt for the natives and British-educated, but Indian-born Sargeant Banerjee, one of the few Indians to be recruited into the new CID–embark on an investigation that will take them from the luxurious parlours of wealthy British traders to the seedy opium dens of the city.

The start of an atmospheric and enticing new historical crime series.]]> 400 Abir Mukherjee Val 3 3.87 2016 A Rising Man (Sam Wyndham, #1)
author: Abir Mukherjee
name: Val
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/08
date added: 2024/08/18
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]]> Strong Female Character 59903149
1. I'm diagnosed with autism 20 years after telling a doctor I had it.

2. My terrible Catholic childhood.

3. My friendship with an elderly man who runs the corner shop and is definitely not trying to groom me. I get groomed.

4. Homelessness.

5. Stripping.

6. More stripping but with more nervous breakdowns.

7. I hate everyone at uni and live with a psycho etc.

8. REDACTED as too spicy.

9. After everyone tells me I don't look autistic, I try to cure my autism and get addicted to Xanax.

10. REDACTED as too embarrassing.]]> 288 Fern Brady 1914240448 Val 4 4.43 2023 Strong Female Character
author: Fern Brady
name: Val
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/06
date added: 2024/08/09
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]]> Black Beauty 3685
Whether pulling an elegant carriage or a ramshackle cab, Black Beauty tries to live as best he can. This is his amazing story, told as only he could tell it.]]> 245 Anna Sewell 0439228905 Val 3 3.99 1877 Black Beauty
author: Anna Sewell
name: Val
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1877
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/09
date added: 2024/08/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Tea By The Nursery Fire A Children's Nanny at the Turn of the Century [Paperback] by Streatfeild, Noel ( Author )]]> 15956111 224 Noel Streatfeild 1844088987 Val 3
Despite not being about Streatfeild’s immediate family, it does read as authentic. A lot of the dialogue is reported speech or memory so I think it must be a true account of some nanny, told to the author either by the nanny herself or one of the children who had been under her care. It reads as a true account rather than as fictionalised biography and, as such, was fascinating reading. It isn’t usual to read a history of large houses in the late Victorian and early Edwardian era from the point of view of the staff.

I’d just love to know who all the characters actually were!]]> 3.84 1976 Tea By The Nursery Fire A Children's Nanny at the Turn of the Century [Paperback] by Streatfeild, Noel ( Author )
author: Noel Streatfeild
name: Val
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1976
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/05
date added: 2024/08/05
shelves:
review:
This is billed as a reported memoir of Noel Streatfeild’s father’s nanny but clearly it isn’t, neither the chronology nor the biographical details match. I haven’t been able to establish who the main families were or what their relationship was with the Streatfeilds.

Despite not being about Streatfeild’s immediate family, it does read as authentic. A lot of the dialogue is reported speech or memory so I think it must be a true account of some nanny, told to the author either by the nanny herself or one of the children who had been under her care. It reads as a true account rather than as fictionalised biography and, as such, was fascinating reading. It isn’t usual to read a history of large houses in the late Victorian and early Edwardian era from the point of view of the staff.

I’d just love to know who all the characters actually were!
]]> <![CDATA[The Boy with the Topknot: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies in Wolverhampton]]> 6303843 336 Sathnam Sanghera 0141028599 Val 4 4.00 2008 The Boy with the Topknot: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies in Wolverhampton
author: Sathnam Sanghera
name: Val
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/29
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves:
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]]> The Twilight Garden 200190296
In a small pocket of the city, between the houses of No. 77 and No. 79 on Eastbourne Road, there’s a neglected community garden.

Once vibrant and welcoming, and a sanctuary for the people when they needed it most, the garden’s gate is firmly closed.

But it only takes a small seed of an idea for big changes to happen. And as the neighbours� need for connection grows, the twilight garden comes out of hibernation...

From a bright new voice, Sara Nisha Adams, comes a life-affirming story of small spaces, small pleasures & friendships coming into bloom...]]> 400 Sara Nisha Adams 0063025329 Val 3 3.68 2023 The Twilight Garden
author: Sara Nisha Adams
name: Val
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/21
date added: 2024/07/21
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]]> Wolf Road 124937990
Tuuli is a prehistoric girl, travelling with her tribe through the seasons â€� making camp, hunting for food and protecting themselves against the many hazards that the climate throws at them. Tuuli knows there’s a bigger world out there, and when she spots a strange boy lurking outside their camp, she realises that he might hold the adventure she is looking for. 

He is a Neanderthal, sent by his tribe to find safer ground and as he and Tuuli strike up an unlikely friendship, they set out on a journey that will impact the rest of human history. 

A vast adventure with a very human heart, full of wild animals, huge scenery and heart-stopping danger and inspired by real anthropological discoveries. For fans of His Dark Materials,  Wolf Brother  and  The Last Bear , join Tuuli on the adventure of a lifetime and uncover the start of all our histories.]]> 333 Alice Roberts 1398521345 Val 4 3.97 Wolf Road
author: Alice Roberts
name: Val
average rating: 3.97
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves:
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]]> Murder on Lake Garda 147779035 Two divided families.
A wedding party to die for.

On the private island of Castello Fiore - surrounded by the glittering waters of Lake Garda - the illustrious Heywood family gathers for their son Laurence's wedding to Italian influencer Eva Bianchi.

But as the ceremony begins, a blood-curdling scream brings the proceedings to a devastating halt.

With the wedding guests trapped as they await the police, old secrets come to light and family rivalries threaten to bubble over.

Everyone is desperate to know . . .

Who is the killer?

And can they be found before they strike again?]]> 464 Tom Hindle 1529902193 Val 4 3.45 2024 Murder on Lake Garda
author: Tom Hindle
name: Val
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/07/08
shelves:
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]]> A Stitch in Time 278046 139 Penelope Lively 0749707895 Val 3 3.78 1976 A Stitch in Time
author: Penelope Lively
name: Val
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1976
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/02
date added: 2024/07/02
shelves:
review:

]]> The Island of Missing Trees 56587382 A rich, magical new book on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.

Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited -- her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.

A moving, beautifully written and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.]]> 354 Elif Shafak 0241434998 Val 3 4.13 2021 The Island of Missing Trees
author: Elif Shafak
name: Val
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/27
date added: 2024/06/27
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]]> The Village 1238734
"There's a lot of us will miss it," Edith said. "We've all of us felt at times, you know, how nice it was, like you and me being able to be together and friendly, just as if we were the same sort, if you know what I mean." "I'll miss it a lot too," Wendy said. There was no point in her saying that it could go on now, the friendliness and the companionship and the simple human liking of one woman for another. Both knew that this breaking down of social barriers was just one of the things you got out of the war, but it couldn't go on.'

The main theme of The Village is that Wendy's attempt to cling on to her old way of life was already under pressure by 1939 and had become even more out-of-date by 1945. It is Edith who is the New Britain, with her prosperous son and her commonsense and indeed kindness. Wendy, with her snobbery and her refusal to change and her uncompromising attitude to her daugher, is the Old.

When Labour swept to a landslide victory in 1945 'Attlee's government promised a fairer future for all and no going back to the inequalities of the pre-war world,' writes Juliet Gardiner in her Afterword to this Persephone edition of The Village. When Wendy goes back up the road to Wood View on Priory Hill 'where the gentry lived' and Edith goes downhill on the other side, 'down Station Road among the working classes', they both assume that the values and habits of pre-war Britain will continue. But Britain has already changed a great deal, a change symbolised by Edith's son Roy, a printer with excellent prospects, falling in love with the penniless Margaret, Wendy's daughter.

'The story of the romance between the two of them forms the central narrative of the novel,' Juliet Gardiner continues, 'and the attitude of the other villagers when the news gets out illuminates their understanding - or rejection - of the village's elaborately calibrated social stratification. This is a finely-observed novel about the losses and gains of the Second World War, how hopeless and how isolating it would be to hold onto the past, how illusory was the notion that the war had broken down class barriers, or had managed to save "deep England" from the future and how peace, too, would produce its own list of casualties. It is also about the futility of 'keeping up appearances', the boredom of middle-class women with nothing to do, even the realisation that cooking and housework had to be streamlined if theose women were to take their place in society. But above all The Village is an extremely enjoyable and well-written novel evoking an entire community (there is a long cast of characters at the beginning) and a whole way of life, and has one of the most ancient plots in the world - a young couple who fall in love but are forbidden to marry.]]> 302 Marghanita Laski 1903155428 Val 3 4.12 1952 The Village
author: Marghanita Laski
name: Val
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1952
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/17
date added: 2024/06/19
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Boy at the Back of the Class]]> 39884333
There used to be an empty chair at the back of my class, but now a new boy called Ahmet is sitting in it.

He's eight years old (just like me), but he's very strange. He never talks and never smiles and doesn't like sweets - not even lemon sherbets, which are my favorite!

But the truth is, Ahmet really isn't very strange at all. He's a refugee who's run away from a War. A real one. With bombs and fires and bullies that hurt people. And the more I find out about him, the more I want to be his friend.

That's where my best friends Josie, Michael and Tom come in. Because you see, together we've come up with a plan.




RUNNING TIME � 5hrs. and 37mins.

©2018 Onjali Q. RaĂșf (P)2020 Tantor]]> 312 Onjali Q. RaĂșf 1510105018 Val 4 4.36 2018 The Boy at the Back of the Class
author: Onjali Q. RaĂșf
name: Val
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/13
date added: 2024/06/13
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]]> Summer of Love 37641243 The dark days of the war are over, but the family secrets they held are only just dawning.

In the hot summer of 1949, a group of family and friends gather at Harry Denholm's country house in Kent. Meg and Dan Ranscombe, emerging from a scandal of their own making; Dan's godmother, Sonia; and her two young girls, Laura and Avril, only one of whom is Sonia's biological daughter. Amongst the heat, memories, and infatuations, a secret is revealed to Meg's son, Max, and soon a terrible tragedy unfolds that will have consequences for them all.

Afterward, Avril, Laura, and Max must come of age in a society still reeling from the war, haunted by the choices of that fateful summer. Cold, entitled Avril will go to any lengths to take what is hers. Beautiful, naive Laura finds refuge and love in the London jazz clubs, but Max, with wealth and unrequited love, has the capacity to undo it all.]]> Caro Fraser Val 3 3.98 Summer of Love
author: Caro Fraser
name: Val
average rating: 3.98
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/10
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves:
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]]> The Summer House Party 34515308 423 Caro Fraser Val 3 3.96 2017 The Summer House Party
author: Caro Fraser
name: Val
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/07
date added: 2024/06/06
shelves:
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]]> Jill 111890
"Jill is, in a sense, a kind of cryptic manifesto. It is a novel about writing, about discovering a literary personality, and about the sorts of consolation that art can provide." -Andrew Motion]]> 230 Philip Larkin Val 3 3.56 1946 Jill
author: Philip Larkin
name: Val
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1946
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/03
date added: 2024/06/03
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Checkmate to Murder (Robert MacDonald #25)]]> 54806926 226 E.C.R. Lorac 0712367071 Val 3 3.95 1944 Checkmate to Murder (Robert MacDonald #25)
author: E.C.R. Lorac
name: Val
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1944
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/30
date added: 2024/05/30
shelves:
review:

]]> The Sea Gate 54396859
After Rebecca’s mother dies, she must sort through her empty flat and come to terms with her loss. As she goes through her mother’s mail, she finds a handwritten envelope. In it is a letter that will change her life forever.

Olivia, her mother’s elderly cousin, needs help to save her beloved home. Rebecca immediately goes to visit Olivia in Cornwall only to find a house full of secrets—treasures in the attic and a mysterious tunnel leading from the cellar to the sea, and Olivia, nowhere to be found.

As it turns out, the old woman is stuck in hospital with no hope of being discharged until her house is made habitable again. Rebecca sets to work restoring the home to its former glory, but as she peels back the layers of paint and grime, she uncovers even more buried secrets—secrets from a time when the Second World War was raging, when Olivia was a young woman, and when both romance and danger lurked around every corner...

A sweeping and utterly spellbinding tale of a young woman’s courage in the face of war and the lengths to which she’ll go to protect those she loves against the most unexpected of enemies.]]> 416 Jane Johnson 1982169338 Val 3 3.91 2020 The Sea Gate
author: Jane Johnson
name: Val
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/30
date added: 2024/05/30
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]]> The Uncommon Reader 1096390 120 Alan Bennett 0374280967 Val 3 3.75 2007 The Uncommon Reader
author: Alan Bennett
name: Val
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/28
date added: 2024/05/28
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]]> The Lie of the Land 34349197
Mud, mice, and quarrels are one thing - but why is their rent so low? What is the mystery surrounding their unappealing new home? The beauty of the landscape is ravishing, yet it conceals a dark side involving poverty, revenge, abuse and violence which will rise up to threaten them.

Sally Verity, happily married but unhappily childless knows a different side to country life, as both a Health Visitor and a sheep farmer's wife; and when Lottie's innocent teenage son Xan gets a zero-hours contract at a local pie factory, he sees yet another. At the end of their year, the lives of all will be changed for ever.

A suspenseful black comedy, this is a rich, compassionate and enthralling novel in its depiction of the English countryside and the potentially lethal interplay between money and marriage.

Although it stands alone, it continues Amanda Craig's sequence of novels featuring inter-connected characters which illuminate aspects of contemporary life. It is the work of a writer at the height of her powers.]]> 432 Amanda Craig 1408709295 Val 4 3.60 2017 The Lie of the Land
author: Amanda Craig
name: Val
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/23
date added: 2024/05/23
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]]> Midnight Blue 36301034 The Miniaturist, Tulip Fever, and Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Amsterdam 1654: against the backdrop of Holland's Golden Age, a dangerous secret threatens to destroy a young widow's new life.

Following the sudden death of her husband, twenty-five-year-old Catrin leaves her small village and takes a job as a housekeeper to the successful Van Nulandt merchant family. Amsterdam is a city at the peak of its powers: science and art are flourishing in the Golden Age and Dutch ships bring back exotic riches from the Far East. Madam Van Nulandt passes her time taking expensive painting lessons from a local master, Rembrandt van Rigin, and when Catrin takes up a brush to finish some of her mistress's work, Rembrandt realizes the maid has genuine talent and encourages her to continue.

When a figure from her past threatens her new life, Catrin flees to the smaller city of Delft. There, her gift as a painter earns her a chance to earn a living painting pottery at a local workshop. Slowly, the workshop begins to develop a new type of pottery to rival fancy blue-on-white imported Chinese porcelain—and the graceful and coveted Delft Blue designs she creates help revolutionize the industry. But when tragedy strikes, Catrin must decide whether to defend her newfound independence or return to the village that she'd fled.]]> 332 Simone van der Vlugt 0062686860 Val 3 3.72 2016 Midnight Blue
author: Simone van der Vlugt
name: Val
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/13
date added: 2024/05/13
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]]> Girl with a Pearl Earring 2865
Girl with a Pearl Earring centers on Vermeer's prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel's quietly perceptive heroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. First, the 16-year-old narrator becomes increasingly intimate with her master. Then Vermeer employs her as his assistant—and ultimately has Griet sit for him as a model.]]> 233 Tracy Chevalier 0452287022 Val 4 3.93 1999 Girl with a Pearl Earring
author: Tracy Chevalier
name: Val
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/29
date added: 2024/04/29
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]]> Tulip Fever 72872
In 1630s Amsterdam, tulipomania has seized the populace. Everywhere men are seduced by the fantastic exotic flower. But for wealthy merchant Cornelis Sandvoort, it is his young and beautiful wife, Sophia, who stirs his soul. She is the prize he desires, the woman he hopes will bring him the joy that not even his considerable fortune can buy.

Cornelis yearns for an heir, but so far he and Sophia have failed to produce one. In a bid for immortality, he commissions a portrait of them both by the talented young painter Jan van Loos. But as Van Loos begins to capture Sophia's likeness on canvas, a slow passion begins to burn between the beautiful young wife and the talented artist.

As the portrait unfolds, so a slow dance is begun among the household's inhabitants. Ambitions, desires, and dreams breed a grand deception--and as the lies multiply, events move toward a thrilling and tragic climax.

In this richly imagined international bestseller, Deborah Moggach has created the rarest of novels--a lush, lyrical work of fiction that is also compulsively readable. Seldom has a novel so vividly evoked a time, a place, and a passion.]]> 281 Deborah Moggach 0385334923 Val 3 3.50 1999 Tulip Fever
author: Deborah Moggach
name: Val
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/22
date added: 2024/04/22
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]]> The Secret Countess 853737
Then the young Earl returns home from the war - and Anna falls hopelessly in love. But they can never be together: Rupert is engaged to the snobbish and awful Muriel - and anyway, Anna is only a servant. Or so everybody thinks . . .]]> 344 Eva Ibbotson 0230014860 Val 4 3.98 1981 The Secret Countess
author: Eva Ibbotson
name: Val
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/18
date added: 2024/04/18
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]]> In the Dark 1444549 Tulip Fever, this is a tantalizing, page-turning story set in South London’s dark and dirty streets during WWI.

1916: Pretty young Eithne Clay runs a shabby-genteel South London boarding house while her husband is off at the War. There’s Ralph, her fourteen-year old son, and Winnie the young maid, a homely, goodhearted country girl, and the lodgers, of course, a curious but necessary burden. They include blind Alwyne Flyte, communist and cynic, victim of a gas attack in the trenches. When the dreaded telegram arrives at the house, things turn from difficult to desperate for the two young women.

Then along comes the butcher, Neville Turk, big handsome ladies� man, irresistible for his meat, money and brutish confidence, who throws flighty Eithne into a turmoil but has sinister plans of his own. Winnie and the blind lodger, meanwhile, conduct a strange, erotic liaison of their own. And young Ralph, ignored by his mother, looks on, feeling the undercurrents of desire, seeing more than he should. All the strands come together in a shocking denouement that turns a coward into a hero and young Ralph into a man.

They’re all in the dark with their dreams, secrets and fantasies, and electric light, new to their world, may be a boon but it reveals both grime and secrets. Life is tough on the home front and they’re all working the system in different ways, sometimes comic sometimes tragic, always human.]]> 240 Deborah Moggach 0701181095 Val 4 3.61 2007 In the Dark
author: Deborah Moggach
name: Val
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/15
date added: 2024/04/15
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]]> A Single Thread 43943459
Violet finds support and community in the group, fulfillment in the work they create, and even a growing friendship with the vivacious Gilda. But when forces threaten her new independence and another war appears on the horizon, Violet must fight to put down roots in a place where women aren't expected to grow. Told in Chevalier's glorious prose, A Single Thread is a timeless story of friendship, love, and a woman crafting her own life.]]> 336 Tracy Chevalier Val 4 3.72 2019 A Single Thread
author: Tracy Chevalier
name: Val
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/12
date added: 2024/04/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Death on the Nile (Hercule Poirot, #18)]]> 140303 420 Agatha Christie 0425200469 Val 4 3.93 1937 Death on the Nile (Hercule Poirot, #18)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Val
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1937
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/04/12
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]]> All We Shall Know 29752909 ‘Martin Toppy is the son of a famous Traveller and the father of my unborn child. He’s seventeen, I'm thirty-three. I was his teacher. I’d have killed myself by now if I was brave enough. I don’t think it would hurt the baby. His little heart would stop with mine. He wouldn't feel himself leaving one world of darkness for another, his spirit untangling itself from me.â€�

Melody Shee is alone and in trouble. Her husband doesn't take her news too well. She doesn't want to tell her father yet because he’s a good man and this could break him. She’s trying to stay in the moment, but the future is looming â€� larger by the day â€� while the past won’t let her go. What she did to Breedie Flynn all those years ago still haunts her.

It’s a good thing that she meets Mary Crothery when she does. Mary is a young Traveller woman, and she knows more about Melody than she lets on. She might just save Melody’s life.

Donal Ryan’s new novel is breathtaking, vivid, moving and redemptive.]]> 192 Donal Ryan 0857524372 Val 4 3.84 2016 All We Shall Know
author: Donal Ryan
name: Val
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/09
date added: 2024/04/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Rental Person Who Does Nothing]]> 128183600 Need a rental person who does nothing?

Shoji Morimoto provides a fascinating service to the lonely and socially anxious. After an old boss told him that he contributed nothing and that it made no difference whether he showed up to work or not, he wondered if a person who ‘does nothingâ€� could still have a place in the world. With a tweet, his Rental Person service was born.
- Have a deep secret you desperately need to reveal, so deep that you can’t tell a friend or family member?
- Have you spent a long time home alone, and want to know what it’s like to have somebody with you at your apartment?
- Or for someone to simply think of you on a stressful day? Or wave to you as you leave the train station on a long journey?

Morimoto is dependable, non-judgmental and committed to remaining a stranger throughout each request, and his encounters are revelatory about both Japanese society and human psychology.

In Rental Person Who Does Nothing, Morimoto chronicles his extraordinary experiences in his unique line of work and reflects on how we consider relationships, jobs, and family in our search for meaningful connection and purpose in life.]]> 160 Shoji Morimoto 1035012839 Val 4 3.32 2023 Rental Person Who Does Nothing
author: Shoji Morimoto
name: Val
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/04
date added: 2024/04/04
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]]> The Reading List 55276648 An unforgettable and heartwarming debut about how a chance encounter with a list of library books helps forge an unlikely friendship between two very different people in a London suburb.

Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life in the London Borough of Ealing after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries.

Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she’s facing at home.

When Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading listâ€� hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again. ]]> 368 Sara Nisha Adams 0063025280 Val 4 4.02 2021 The Reading List
author: Sara Nisha Adams
name: Val
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/01
date added: 2024/04/01
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]]> The Mist (Hidden Iceland #3) 46125723
1987. An isolated farm house in the east of Iceland.

The snowstorm should have shut everybody out. But it didn't.

The couple should never have let him in. But they did.

An unexpected guest, a liar, a killer. Not all will survive the night. And Detective Hulda will be haunted forever.]]> 400 Ragnar JĂłnasson 0718189078 Val 3 3.90 2012 The Mist (Hidden Iceland #3)
author: Ragnar JĂłnasson
name: Val
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/26
date added: 2024/03/26
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]]> <![CDATA[The Island (Hidden Iceland, #2)]]> 41150509
But only three return....

Detective Inspector Hulda HermannsdĂłttir is sent to the isolated island of ElliĂ°aey to investigate and soon finds haunting similarities with a previous case - a young woman found murdered 10 years ago in the equally desolate Westfjords.

Is there a patient killer stalking these barren outposts?

As Hulda navigates a sinister game constructed of smoke and mirrors she is convinced that no one is telling the truth, including those closest to her.

But who will crack first? And what secrets is the island hiding?

Haunting, suspenseful and as chilling as an Icelandic winter, The Island follows one woman's journey to find the truth hidden in the darkest shadows and shine a light on her own dark past.]]> 336 Ragnar JĂłnasson 1250193370 Val 3 3.73 2016 The Island (Hidden Iceland, #2)
author: Ragnar JĂłnasson
name: Val
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/21
date added: 2024/03/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Darkness (Hidden Iceland #1)]]> 38480966
The body of a young Russian woman washes up on an Icelandic shore. After a cursory investigation, the death is declared a suicide and the case is quietly closed.

Over a year later Detective Inspector Hulda HermannsdĂłttir of the ReykjavĂ­k police is forced into early retirement at 64. She dreads the loneliness, and the memories of her dark past that threaten to come back to haunt her. But before she leaves she is given two weeks to solve a single cold case of her choice. She knows which one: the Russian woman whose hope for asylum ended on the dark, cold shore of an unfamiliar country. Soon Hulda discovers that another young woman vanished at the same time, and that no one is telling her the whole story. Even her colleagues in the police seem determined to put the brakes on her investigation. Meanwhile the clock is ticking.

Hulda will find the killer, even if it means putting her own life in danger.]]> 294 Ragnar JĂłnasson Val 3 3.58 2015 The Darkness (Hidden Iceland #1)
author: Ragnar JĂłnasson
name: Val
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/16
date added: 2024/03/18
shelves:
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]]> Point Zero 125483470 A beautifully written mystery novel that takes on the taboo of Japanese prostitution catering to GIs during the American post-war occupation.

First published in Japanese in 1959, the novel abandoned the template of closed-room mysteries so popular in pre-war Japan to embrace social criticism.

Tokyo 1958, Teiko marries Kenichi Uhara, ten years her senior, an advertising man recommended by an intermediary. After a four-day honeymoon, Kenichi vanishes. Teiko travels to the coastal and snow-bound city of Kanazawa, where Kenichi was last seen, to investigate his disappearance.

She discovers he had been a police officer in Tokyo after the war, keeping watch over pan pan girls, Japanese prostitutes catering to GIs. Some of these women have created a new life in Kanazawa and may have taken extreme measures to hide their past.]]> 320 Seichƍ Matsumoto 191339493X Val 3 3.72 1959 Point Zero
author: Seichƍ Matsumoto
name: Val
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1959
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/14
date added: 2024/03/14
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]]> But What Can I Do? 62601716 321 Alastair Campbell 1529153336 Val 3 3.82 But What Can I Do?
author: Alastair Campbell
name: Val
average rating: 3.82
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/11
date added: 2024/03/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1)]]> 8490112
In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?]]> 418 Laini Taylor 0316134023 Val 3 3.98 2011 Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1)
author: Laini Taylor
name: Val
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/25
date added: 2024/02/28
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review:

]]> The Murder Game 61659088 One house. Nine guests. Endless motives for murder...

In the seaside town of Hamlet Wick, guests assemble for the party of the year.

At tonight's 1920s-themed murder mystery party in the crumbling Hamlet Hall, everyone has their own part to play.

But before the dessert has even been served, one of the guests is found murdered in his room.

Trapped in the house together, can the killer be found before they strike again?

In a close-knit community, old rivalries run deep...
]]> 384 Tom Hindle 1529902177 Val 4 3.54 2023 The Murder Game
author: Tom Hindle
name: Val
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/26
date added: 2024/02/26
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]]> Tokyo Express 38588764 Con questo noir dal fascino ossessivo, tutto incentrato su orari e nomi di treni â€� un congegno perfetto che ruota intorno a una manciata di minuti â€�, Matsumoto ha firmato un’indagine impossibile, ma anche un libro allusivo, che sa con sottigliezza far parlare il Giappone.]]> 175 Seichƍ Matsumoto 8845932443 Val 3 3.66 1958 Tokyo Express
author: Seichƍ Matsumoto
name: Val
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1958
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/19
date added: 2024/02/19
shelves:
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]]> A Fatal Crossing 57873454 Endeavour sets sail from Southampton carrying 2,000 passengers and crew on a week-long voyage to New York.

When an elderly gentleman is found dead at the foot of a staircase, ship's officer Timothy Birch is ready to declare it a tragic accident. But James Temple, a strong-minded Scotland Yard inspector, is certain there is more to this misfortune than meets the eye.

Birch agrees to investigate, and the trail quickly leads to the theft of a priceless painting. Its very existence is known only to its owner . . . and the dead man.

With just days remaining until they reach New York, and even Temple's purpose on board the Endeavour proving increasingly suspicious, Birch's search for the culprit is fraught with danger.

And all the while, the passengers continue to roam the ship with a killer in their midst . . .]]> 464 Tom Hindle 1529135699 Val 4 3.41 2022 A Fatal Crossing
author: Tom Hindle
name: Val
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/18
date added: 2024/02/18
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]]> Malice Aforethought 309434 310 Francis Iles 0752864785 Val 0 to-read 3.91 1931 Malice Aforethought
author: Francis Iles
name: Val
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1931
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Red House Mystery 1333202
In it, Milne takes readers to the Red House, a comfortable residence in the placid English countryside that is the bachelor home of Mr. Mark Ablett. While visiting this cozy retreat, amateur detective Anthony Gillingham and his chum, Bill Beverley, investigate their genial host's disappearance and its connection with a mysterious shooting. Was the victim, whose body was found after a heated exchange with the host, shot in an act of self-defense? If so, why did the host flee, and if not, what drove him to murder?

Between games of billiards and bowls, the taking of tea, and other genteel pursuits, Gillingham and Beverley explore the possibilities in a light-hearted series of capers involving secret passageways, underwater evidence, and other atmospheric devices.

Sparkling with witty dialogue, deft plotting, and an intriguing cast of characters, this rare gem will charm mystery lovers, Anglophiles, and general readers alike.]]> 156 A.A. Milne 0486401294 Val 3 3.66 1922 The Red House Mystery
author: A.A. Milne
name: Val
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1922
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/12
date added: 2024/02/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Murder Is Easy (Superintendent Battle, #4)]]> 131374
Luke Fitzwilliam does not believe Miss Pinkerton’s wild allegation that a multiple murderer is at work in the quiet English village of Wychwood and that her local doctor is next in line.

But within hours, Miss Pinkerton has been killed in a hit-and-run car accident. Mere coincidence? Luke is inclined to think so—until he reads in the Times of the unexpected demise of Wychwood’s Dr. Humbleby.
]]> 277 Agatha Christie 0312979827 Val 3 3.79 1939 Murder Is Easy (Superintendent Battle, #4)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Val
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1939
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/05
date added: 2024/02/05
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]]> Winter Love 5326225 134 Han Suyin 1853817449 Val 3 3.87 1962 Winter Love
author: Han Suyin
name: Val
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1962
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/01
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Went to London, Took the Dog: A Diary]]> 75471755
These are just some of the questions plaguing Nina Stibbe as she makes her return to London, reflecting on what it means to turn your whole life around aged sixty. Whether it's dinner parties with the great and the good of the London literati, micromanaging her son's online dating profile, or avoiding peak times at the launderette, Nina Stibbe's utterly inimitable wit is ever present throughout this diary forty years after the Love, Nina years.]]> 346 Nina Stibbe 1035025280 Val 3 3.61 Went to London, Took the Dog: A Diary
author: Nina Stibbe
name: Val
average rating: 3.61
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/21
date added: 2024/01/21
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]]> The Feast 3409731
A Cornish cliff collapses on top of a seaside resort hotel, squashing everybody but those lucky enough to be away on a picnic. The story tells why some were spared and some were not...

The germ of the idea for The Feast - Margaret Kennedy's ninth novel and perhaps her most ingenious, first published in 1950 - came to the author in 1937 when she and a social gathering of literary friends were discussing the Medieval Masque of the Seven Deadly Sins. The talk turned excitedly to the notion that a collection of stories might be fashioned from seven different authors, each re-imagining one of the Sins through the medium of a modern-day character. That notion fell away, but something more considerable stayed in Margaret Kennedy's mind over the next ten years, and so she conceived of a story that would gather the Sins all under the roof of a Cornish seaside hotel managed by the unhappy wife of Sloth.

Among The Feast's entertaining cast of characters are a clergyman, a gaggle of adolescents and children, a quarter of lovers, and a clutch of frustrated husbands & wives - all serving Kennedy's dark and witty moral fable, which bears out the Biblical adage that many are called but only a very few chosen.]]> 308 Margaret Kennedy 0718208110 Val 4 3.95 1949 The Feast
author: Margaret Kennedy
name: Val
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1949
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/09
date added: 2024/01/09
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]]> <![CDATA[The Christmas Appeal (The Appeal, #1.5)]]> 124949815 Run Time = 3hr 36min

A charmingly festive novella from the “modern Agatha Christieâ€� (The Sunday Times, London): In Lower Lockwood, a Christmas theater production takes a dark turn when a body is discovered onstage. As rivalries flare and secrets unravel, lawyers Femi and Charlotte race to uncover the killer before the final curtain falls â€� for good. Read by a full cast of narrators!


This immersive holiday caper follows the hilarious Fairway Players theater group as they put on a Christmas play—and solve a murder that threatens their production.

The Christmas season has arrived in Lower Lockwood, and the Fairway Players are busy rehearsing their festive holiday production of Jack and the Beanstalk to raise money for a new church roof. But despite the season, goodwill is distinctly lacking among the amateur theater enthusiasts with petty rivalries, a possibly asbestos-filled beanstalk, and some perennially absent players behind the scenes.

Of course, there’s also the matter of the dead body onstage. Who could possibly have had the victim on their naughty list? Join lawyers Femi and Charlotte as they investigate Christmas letters, examine emails, and pore over police transcripts to identify both the victim and killer before the curtain closes on their holiday production—for good.]]> 208 Janice Hallett 166803588X Val 5 3.53 2023 The Christmas Appeal (The Appeal, #1.5)
author: Janice Hallett
name: Val
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/31
date added: 2023/12/31
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]]> The Appeal (The Appeal, #1) 54621096 447 Janice Hallett 1788165292 Val 5
The setting is as simple as any golden age crime story. A group of amateur actors in a small community are putting on a production of Miller’s All My Sons. Emotions are heightened by this being combined with a fundraising project to pay for treatment for the young daughter of one of the families. The premise is that one of the group was murdered, another convicted, and now a lawyer and two law students are revisiting all the evidence to see if it was a wrongful conviction. The students and we are given all the emails and text messages available to try to spot anything that could explain what happened. Nobody is quite who they seem to be, there are all the inconsistencies common to multiple interconnected conversations in a small group, and somewhere in all that is the truth.]]> 3.83 2021 The Appeal (The Appeal, #1)
author: Janice Hallett
name: Val
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/30
date added: 2023/12/30
shelves:
review:
I didn’t so much read this book as feverishly mainline the words. This is the epistolary novel come of age.

The setting is as simple as any golden age crime story. A group of amateur actors in a small community are putting on a production of Miller’s All My Sons. Emotions are heightened by this being combined with a fundraising project to pay for treatment for the young daughter of one of the families. The premise is that one of the group was murdered, another convicted, and now a lawyer and two law students are revisiting all the evidence to see if it was a wrongful conviction. The students and we are given all the emails and text messages available to try to spot anything that could explain what happened. Nobody is quite who they seem to be, there are all the inconsistencies common to multiple interconnected conversations in a small group, and somewhere in all that is the truth.
]]> The Long Shadow 5397744 192 Celia Fremlin 0575019867 Val 3 3.17 1975 The Long Shadow
author: Celia Fremlin
name: Val
average rating: 3.17
book published: 1975
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/25
date added: 2023/12/25
shelves:
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]]> The Ladies of Lyndon 2702658 320 Margaret Kennedy 0385272278 Val 3 3.60 1923 The Ladies of Lyndon
author: Margaret Kennedy
name: Val
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1923
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/22
date added: 2023/12/22
shelves:
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]]> Norse Mythology 37903770 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780393356182

Neil Gaiman, long inspired by ancient mythology in creating the fantastical realms of his fiction, presents a bravura rendition of the Norse gods and their world from their origin though their upheaval in Ragnarok.

In Norse Mythology, Gaiman stays true to the myths in envisioning the major Norse pantheon: Odin, the highest of the high, wise, daring, and cunning; Thor, Odin’s son, incredibly strong yet not the wisest of gods; and Loki—son of a giant—blood brother to Odin and a trickster and unsurpassable manipulator.

Gaiman fashions these primeval stories into a novelistic arc that begins with the genesis of the legendary nine worlds and delves into the exploits of deities, dwarfs, and giants. Through Gaiman’s deft and witty prose, these gods emerge with their fiercely competitive natures, their susceptibility to being duped and to duping others, and their tendency to let passion ignite their actions, making these long-ago myths breathe pungent life again.]]> 301 Neil Gaiman Val 3 4.11 2017 Norse Mythology
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Val
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/19
date added: 2023/12/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Body Language (Cassie Raven, #1)]]> 54440134
Camden mortuary assistant Cassie Raven has pretty much seen it all. But this is the first time she's come face to face with someone she knows on the slab. Someone she cared about. Her friend and mentor, Mrs E.

Deeply intuitive and convinced that she can pick up the last thoughts of the dead, Cassie senses that there must be more to the ruling of an accidental death. Is her grief making her see things that aren't there, or is her intuition right, and there's something more sinister to her friend's death than the ME thinks? Harbouring an innate distrust of the police, Cassie sets out to investigate and deliver justice to the woman who saved her life.

For fans of Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway series and Kathy Reichs' Temperance Brennan, Cassie Raven is the edgy new forensic sleuth on the block.]]> 384 A.K. Turner 1838770046 Val 3 3.93 2020 Body Language (Cassie Raven, #1)
author: A.K. Turner
name: Val
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/30
date added: 2023/12/20
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]]> The Whalebone Theatre 59900661
With her step-parents blithely distracted by their endless party guests, Cristabel and her siblings, Flossie and Digby, scratch together an education from the plays they read in their freezing attic, drunken conversations eavesdropped through oak-panelled doors, and the esoteric lessons of Maudie their maid.

But as the children grow to adulthood and war approaches, jolting their lives on to very different tracks, it becomes clear that the roles they are expected to play are no longer those they want. As they find themselves drawn into the conflict, they must each find a way to write their own story...

This is the story of an old English manor house by the sea, with crumbling chimneys, draping ivy and a library full of dusty hardbacks. It's the story of the three children who grow up there, and the adventures they create for themselves while the grown-ups entertain endless party guests: the worlds they imagine from books they aren't supposed to read, and the lessons they learn from eavesdropping through oak-panelled doors.

This is the story of a whale that washes up on a beach, whose bones are claimed by a twelve-year-old girl with big ambitions and an even bigger imagination. An unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, chafing under the confines of her traditional upbringing and fiercely determined to do things differently.]]> 558 Joanna Quinn 0593321707 Val 4 3.98 2022 The Whalebone Theatre
author: Joanna Quinn
name: Val
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/16
date added: 2023/12/16
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]]> Who is Mr. Poliakoff? 75599977
Samuel Rozoff, Schmulik to his family and friends, survived World War Two as a small child. He grew up in the Jewish community in Samara in what was then the Soviet Union. He became involved with the Refusenik movement, resulting in his arrest and transportation to a Gulag, from which he escaped. Rozoff and Poliakoff’s lives crossed frequently over the years, even if they often did not know it.

Simon Majaro weaves this story within a lively history of the conflicts of the time before Poliakoff and Rozoff have a final, explosive meeting at the Belluno Restaurant.]]> 120 Simon Majaro Val 2 3.00 Who is Mr. Poliakoff?
author: Simon Majaro
name: Val
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2023/12/04
date added: 2023/12/04
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