I hope everyone is having a good week so far. I meant to do this post at the beginning of the month but I completely forgot.
I have been really trying to read the books on my list of 24 Books in 2024 with the aim of reducing my TBR list. Here is the post with the original list.
I have so far managed to read a total of 5 books off the list which is behind on where I would like to be but I am hoping to catch up. Reading hasn’t been going very well this year but I live in hope it will improve!
Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Happy Monday Everyone!
I hope everyone has had a good start to the week. My day has been jam packed with teaching so not much reading has happened but I’m hoping to get more in tomorrow.
My chosen book to feature this week is another one that I have recently added to my Goodreads TBR. I am really enjoying reading George R. R. Martin’s books outside of The Song of Ice and Fire series, especially his science fiction.
From the multiple award-winning, best-selling author of The Song of Ice and Fire Haviland Tuf is an honest space-trader who likes cats. So how is it that, in competition with the worst villains the universe has to offer, he’s become the proud owner of the last seedship of Earth’s legendary Ecological Engineering Corps? Never mind, just be thankful that the most powerful weapon in human space is in good hands-hands which now control cellular material for thousands of outlandish creatures. With his unique equipment, Tuf is set to tackle the problems human settlers have created in colonizing far-flung hosts of hostile monsters, a population hooked on procreation, a dictator who unleashes plagues to get his own way… and in every case the only thing that stands between the colonists and disaster is Tuf’s ingenuity-and his reputation as an honest dealer in a universe of rogues… Tuf Voyaging interior illustrations by Janet Aulisio. Included will be her original eight illustrations, along with 28 newly commissioned ones.
Please drop me a link with your Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit.
Stacking The Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Marlene of Reading Reality. It is all about sharing the books that you have recently added to your bookshelves. These books can be physical books, ebooks and of course audiobooks.
Hello!
I am really not doing well on the book buying at the moment. My resolution this year was to not buy too many books and this month I just haven’t been able to stop.
I went to Ironbridge this week and visited the second hand bookshop there and found a book that has been on my wish list for a long time. I have wanted to read this book for ages so now I have no excuse because I own a copy. It is also one of the books on my Classics Club list.
The setting for this, the third novel by Dorothy Whipple Persephone have published, is Saunby Priory, a large house somewhere in England which has seen better times. We are shown the two Marwood girls, who are nearly grown-up, their father, the widower Major Marwood, and their aunt; then, as soon as their lives have been described, the Major proposes marriage to a woman much younger than himself – and many changes begin.
Review
This is my first book by Dorothy Whipple and I was not disappointed, in fact I went to Persephone Books and bought three more books by Whipple so I can read more of her work.
At the beginning of the book we are introduced to Saunby Priory which is owned by the cricket obsessed Major Marwood. Major Marwood has two daughters living with him who he chooses to ignore most of the time and his spinster sister who he does nothing but moan about. Due to the Major’s love of cricket and despair about how his sister runs the house during his cricket weeks he decides to marry Anthea. Anthea is much younger than the Major but he thinks she will be perfect for taking over the running of the house and making things better during his cricket weeks.
The book soon moves from the Major’s point of view and his relationship with the Priory to Anthea’s. Anthea has always wanted to be happy and she thinks her way to happiness lies with the Major but then she realises that things are not as she dreamed about. We then begin to see the relationship Anthea has with the Priory and how she desperately seeks a friend.
This book really is all about relationships and the big relationship is the characters’ relationship with the Priory. Even when Christine gets married and moves away she is always drawn back to her beloved Priory. Penelope however has very different feelings about the Priory. The Priory is the centre of this book and every character we meet has some connection to it even if it is only fleeting.
There are so many things I love about this book; the Major’s quirks, especially his love of the telephone, the descriptions of the beautiful land around the Priory, how the events of the Priory seem to be reflected in the slow collapse of the scarecrow, the subtle humour, and I could go on and on. I could not put this book down and give it a big 5 out of 5 Dragons.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Born in 1893, DOROTHY WHIPPLE (nee Stirrup) had an intensely happy childhood in Blackburn as part of the large family of a local architect. Her close friend George Owen having been killed in the first week of the war, for three years she worked as secretary to Henry Whipple, an educational administrator who was a widower twenty-four years her senior and whom she married in 1917. Their life was mostly spent in Nottingham; here she wrote Young Anne (1927), the first of nine extremely successful novels which included Greenbanks (1932) and The Priory (1939). Almost all her books were Book Society Choices or Recommendations and two of them, They Knew Mr Knight (1934) and They were Sisters (1943), were made into films. She also wrote short stories and two volumes of memoirs. Someone at a Distance (1953) was her last novel. Returning in her last years to Blackburn, Dorothy Whipple died there in 1966.
Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Hello!
I hope everyone has had a good start to the week. I have had a packed day of teaching so very little reading has taken place but whenever I have had a minute I have read a page of A Gentleman in Moscow because I simply can’t put it down.
My chosen book to feature today is one that I have wanted to read for a very long time. It was the first full length book George Eliot published.
Adam Bede is an upstanding, hardworking, intelligent young man, the kind of person who knows what he wants—and what he wants is the incredibly shallow Hetty Sorrel. Though Hetty is a milkmaid, she harbors dreams of becoming a dignified member of the upper class. To that end, she has set her sights on Captain Arthur Donnithorne, a squire and heir to much of the town’s wealth. Meanwhile, Dinah Morris, Hetty’s compassionate cousin, harbors irrepressible romantic feelings for Adam.
This love rectangle forms the character basis for one of the greatest English novels of all time. Upon its release in 1859, Adam Bede was immediately lauded as a seminal work for its depiction of English country life at the turn of the nineteenth century, garnering the praise of Charles Dickens. Eliot’s deft mixing of the fictional with the real has made Adam Bede a timeless classic.
Please drop me a link with your Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit.
I hope everyone has had a nice weekend. I haven’t managed much reading this weekend due to work but I’ve managed a little bit. I’m back teaching tomorrow so sadly my reading will most likely plummet for a bit.
I am really enjoying A Gentleman in Moscow and getting thoroughly annoyed that I can’t binge read the rest of the book because I have to work! The Fires of Heaven is still plodding along but to be honest I have been avoiding it sometimes.
Stacking The Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Marlene of Reading Reality. It is all about sharing the books that you have recently added to your bookshelves. These books can be physical books, ebooks and of course audiobooks.
Hello!
I hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. I have been busy with my Etsy shop today so sadly haven’t managed much reading but hopefully I will manage some later.
I have bought three books today. Two I have already posted about in my Cambridge Waterstones post.
I have already started reading A Gentleman in Moscow and I am absolutely loving it.
Stacey Halls is an auto buy author for me so I’ve had this preordered since December. I really hope this book will be as good as Halls previous books.
New York is slipping from Cleo’s grasp. Sure, she’s at a different party every other night, but she barely knows anyone. Her student visa is running out, and she doesn’t even have money for cigarettes. But then she meets Frank. Twenty years older, Frank’s life is full of all the success and excess that Cleo’s lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint, and the opportunity to apply for a green card. She offers him a life imbued with beauty and art―and, hopefully, a reason to cut back on his drinking. He is everything she needs right now.
Cleo and Frank run head-first into a romance that neither of them can quite keep up with. It reshapes their lives and the lives of those around them, whether that’s Cleo’s best friend struggling to embrace his gender identity in the wake of her marriage, or Frank’s financially dependent sister arranging sugar daddy dates after being cut off. Ultimately, this chance meeting between two strangers outside of a New Year’s Eve party changes everything, for better or worse.
Cleopatra and Frankenstein is an astounding and painfully relatable debut novel about the spontaneous decisions that shape our entire lives and those imperfect relationships born of unexpectedly perfect evenings.
Review
I really need to stop reading books because of all the hype I see on Bookstagram because I am too often disappointed and this was no exception.
In all the books I have read over the years I don’t think I have ever read a book where I have hated so many of the characters. I nearly gave up several times but I kept going because I was convinced it would get better. Sadly, I was quite wrong.
The two main characters are Frank and Cleo. Cleo is a twenty something artist whose student visa is running out. She also has a tragic childhood that has affected her more than she or her friends realise. Frank is a forty something advertising executive who is successful and allows Cleo to live the dream life to follow her love of art. However, they are really not good for each other.
In fact nobody in this book seems to be good for each other. Quentin who is Cleo’s drug addict best friend couldn’t really care about anyone but himself. Zoe is Frank’s much younger half sister who has just wanted someone to love her and make her feel safe. Then there is Eleanor who works in Frank’s office. I’ve read quite a few reviews that rave about how Eleanor is their favourite character but I’m sorry I just don’t see it. I think she is probably the most likeable in the book but I still don’t like her.
This is a book of unlikeable characters, characters who are all on their own journeys. Some journeys revolve around love and lust which blinds them to all else and some journeys are journeys plunging further into the deep black hole. I personally need a book with at least some characters I like, that I care for but sadly by the end of this book I couldn’t care less about of any of them. I give this book 2 out of 5 Dragons.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Coco Mellors is a writer from London and New York. She received her MFA in Fiction from New York University, where she was a Goldwater fellow. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband. Cleopatra and Frankenstein is her first novel.
The rules are answer the questions below and share a link to your blog in the comments section of Sam’s blog.
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you will read next?
Hello!
I hope everyone is having a good week so far. I have had an enforced day of rest but this has also meant I have had a lovely day reading my book.
What I am Currently Reading
Tomorrow I will probably start another book to run along side this one but at the moment I am just reading The Fires of Heaven. I will be honest my reading of this book hasn’t been going exactly according to plan but over the last few days I have really made a push with it so I can catch up slightly.
What I have Recently Finished Reading
I finished this just a few hours ago and I absolutely loved it! I will be writing up the review soon but I can’t wait to read more books by Whipple.
What I Think I will Read Next
I will be honest and say that I actually think I will be reading A Gentleman in Moscow next but you never know what mood I will be in tomorrow.
Please drop me a comment with your WWW Wednesday and I will head over for a visit.
Lady Book Dragon 