Archive for April, 2007

Second Honeymoon by Joanna Trollope
Joanna Trollope's one of those authors I enjoy whilst finding their books a bit much sometimes. In her case it's usually because I find the characters a bit too posh to be feel real to me. But I usually end up enjoying things. I liked this more than I remembered enjoying the last couple of her books.
Here we have a couple who have just waved their youngest child off and have the empty nest to deal with. Edie, mother of the family wants the children back, whilst, Russell, father of the family, wants the titular second honeymoon. Their children come across various crises that lead to Edie getting her wish, sort of, whilst Russell figures other things out.
Although, as I say, they're all a bit upper class, it actually ends up ringing quite true to me. The children do behave like children with their upbringings often seem to, and some of the silly things seemed less silly by the end of the book.
Enjoyable, and recommended if you like a bit of domestic drama.
Borrowed.
5 copies of this book are available on BookMooch.
A Cursed Inheritance by Kate Ellis
This book has a good and twisty present day story; and for (I think) the first time in this series I didn't find the historical part of the plot to be whacking me over the head with a sledgehammer. Different to the other books as the local archeologist, Neil, got shunted off to the States for most of the book. Which probably helped.
Borrowed.
Visitors by Anita Brookner
Slow, quite serious and it thoroughly entertained me. I think the "young people" bursting into the lives of the "old people" in this book got rather a bad rap, and there are so few characters on the stage that it sometimes feels like a dreadful stereotype. But mostly: good stuff.
Borrowed.
The Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy
This book surprised me. It's mostly about things I learnt on my maths degree and mostly hated at the time. Linking the whole history of the exploration of prime numbers, which mostly comes down to trying to prove the Riemann hypothesis, together with the background and biography of the mathematicians involved, the reasons why they were exploring this problem, and modern day real world applications makes it really interesting though. Wish I'd read it about 18 years ago really.
Borrowed.
A Plum in Your Mouth by Andrew Taylor
Just for the record this is by a different Andrew Taylor than the one who writes crime novels that I read!
Very interesting look at English accents/dialects and how they change and develop and why we're prob'ly all doomed to thinking that the next generation can't talk prop'ly.
Borrowed.
A Rare Interest in Corpses by Ann Granger
It looks like the Mitchell & Markby series which I've always found entertaining is now history. And Ann Granger is now writing this new series, which is history (London, 1864 to be precise). I didn't really get into this book until near the end, it was a little too "cozy" for me and not really my kind of thing.
Borrowed.
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