Read, Reading and to be Read

Throughout December, over Christmas and into the New Year I seemed to read quite a lot of different books. Some of them by new authors, some by old favourites. 

More fiction than non-fiction and also some short stories by a local author. 

Running up to Christmas I dipped into Nigel Slater's Christmas Chronicles which is a joy to read and nudges you gently into feeling festive.  John Lewis Semple's The Private Life of the Hare is still to be read as is Mudlarking by Lara Maiklem.  It's Gone Dark over Bill's Mother's by Lisa Blower is a set of short stories written by a local author.  I have mixed feelings about them.  Stark and gritty they are about growing up and mostly the bad memories attached to experiences during childhood and teenage years and feelings about parents and siblings.  The Woman in the Photograph by Stephanie Butland I am still reading it's set in the 1960s, 70s and 80s and also 2018.  It's about a young woman local newspaper photographer who in the early 60s dares to leave home, boyfriend and father and becomes involved with members of the Women's Movement and her friendship with one of them.  In the present the niece of this woman is putting together an exhibition about her Aunt with the help of and photographic records of the now elderly photographer. 

As usual I've been reading my favourite genre Crime and Detective fiction.  I read Blood on the Rocks by one of my favourite local authors Priscilla Masters over New Year. It's the latest DI Joanna Piercy novel set in and around the nearby Staffordshire Moorlands town of Leek.  As always I enjoyed it but I found the ending a bit unnerving and it left a bitter taste with its hints of controlling and manipulation.

Many years ago I used to read Gladys Mitchell's Mrs Bradley books, the language was archaic even then but I quite enjoyed Death comes At Christmas which actually stretches out until Easter before the mystery is solved.   I've also found two new detective series by writers Cara Hunter and Conrad Jones  I've read all four of Cara Hunter's books set in Oxford and I like the way she writes them.  No chapters, written from two viewpoints and also with tweets, local newspaper online newsfeed and letters, e-mails and written interview reports and statements. The Anglesey Murders by Conrad Jones are newly discovered and I found the first one intriguing but quite blood thirsty, I think there were more murders than in Midsomer.  I have the second one (above) yet to read so I'll see how it goes.

Below are a few photos from Thursday morning's walk around the lake. 

The lighting was so strange with a sort of intensity that you could almost feel and touch. 
 

It was so quiet too which was good, just the sound of birds in the trees and on the lake.
 

Of course by the time we were walking back on the other side of the lake the lighting had changed completely.

But it seemed for just a short time that we were in another world.