March books 2012

This month I've been a bit short on Non-Fiction. Just the one. It's Judy Robertson's Out of Mormonism, which follows the struggle of one woman to leave that religion.

There is only one plain fiction novel this month. It's Henning Mankel's History of Daniel that is eminently readable.

A lot of my reading this month has been in Historical Fiction.  My starter is Peter Carey's excellent True History of the Kelly Gang. Brilliant book that follows Kelly's development from poverty-stricken child to the desperate man making his last stand wearing his home-made armour (plenty of decent replicas about). One Victoria museum has a cast of Kelly's head made after he was hanged. I loved Anita Shreve's Sea Glass about a strike on the East Coast of the USA in 1929-1930. The Memory Man by Lisa Appignanesi is about a neurologist who attends a conference in Vienna and who is led from there back to visit the old death camps and towns of his largely forgotten Polish youth. He suffered under the Nazi's but survived to work beside a doctor in one of the post-World War II Displaced Persons Camps when he decided to become a doctor. Which he did in Canada. The whole novel is about recovering lost memories and is utterly enthralling. Karen harper's Shakespeare's Mistress follows the life in London  of the woman who Shakespeare was licensed to marry the day before he married Anne Hathaway. The last in this group of books is Red Plenty by Francis Spufford.  I really loved it. Each section has a summary of the true facts of an aspect of life in the USSR followed by illustration through fiction. For the aspiring historical fiction writer, this book is a good example of the actual process of writing.

There are only two thrillers this month. Derek Gecone's The Truant Officer and Jill Paton Walsh's Debts of Dishonour. I would recommend the latter as one worth reading more than once. 

And, so to Romance. Amber Dermont's The Starboard Sea is a combination of romance with a bit of murder on the side. Laurel O'Donnell's The Bride and the Brute is a glorious medieval romance in which the hero makes off with the wife of a monster knight. Birdie Jawoski's Don't shoot, I'm just the Avon lady follows the career of a seemingly hopeless single mother which eventually leads to a man. Cinderella the Intern by R S Mendelson is a medical romance. Replica by Lexi Revellian is a combination of sci-fi and romance and is a pretty good read.

February books 2012

So, let's start with Non-Fiction. It's difficult to know whether non-canonical gospels count as fiction or non-fiction, so I've counted them in here: The Gospel of Peter and The Gospel of Thomas. The latter, of which versions survive in Coptic and Greek, is filled with sayings of Jesus that suggest the world he wanted to see as a strongly moral and ethical one.  From the sublime to the ridiculous is Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a donkey in the Cevennes. It's old but still a good and entertaining read. Kevin Paul Woodrow, resident in Mallorca, had an accident that resulted in the amputation of a leg. He wrote to friends while he waited to be discharged. His main worry was how he was going to continue running his bar. The resulting book is called Letters from Mallorca and is a good, entertaining read. Michelle Williams, a mortuary technician, writes about her life serving both the dead and coroners in  Down among the Dead Men. Matt Gable writes about his life being abused first by his mother and then his father in Daddy Knows Best. Lily O'Brien writes about her life of abuse at the hands of Irish nuns in an orphanage in The Girl Nobody Wants.

I loved the story of the daughter of a Jewish murderer in Jerusalem contained in The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman.  Her father, brother and herself flee from the Roman in the wake of the AD 70 Destruction of the Temple. They join some other small groups on the way and part from them under varying circumstances. In the end they end up in the Masada fortress. The daughter and a friend manage to escape at the very last minute from the mass suicide and make their way to Alexandria where they practice as herbalists. I'm afraid that is the only Historical Fiction I've read this month.

Far too many Romances fell under my gaze this month. Most of them were very readable. First was Mona Risle's No more lies, then Jennifer Connor's Valentine Surprise. Frankie Valente's Dancing with the Ferryman is set in Shetland, which is a nice change. Lanie Kinkaid's Kelsey's Song is an enthralling story. Jeffe Kennedy's Sapphire is all about domination with a good twist at the end. Nikki Logan's Their Newborn Gift is set in the Australian outback while Nita Bruhns' Warrior's Bride is set in the USA in the context of native Indian life. Fred Limberg's Ferris' Bluff combines romance and thriller in a very convincing way.

David Downing's Silesian Station is a brilliant thriller set in Nazi Germany. Dougie Brimson's Thed Crew: trouble is their game is about football hooligans and how one particular group manage to outwit the police of Britain and Italy.