27th May 2023

The second book of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children follows immediately on from the end of the first, and is an action-packed adventure across 1940s Britain as the children race to save their mentor.

There’s no real recap of the first novel, so it took a while for my head to catch back up with some of what was going on, but in some respects that doesn’t matter as the pace is fast and it’s easy to get caught up in that.

It definitely shows through that this is a book built around the found photographs which feature throughout (and are likely the reason for the really high quality of the paper and printing - which ends up making this a really heavy book), and yet I think that’s a strong part of what makes the narrative move so compellingly.

I was thinking early on that I probably would stop after this book, but now I’m considering again whether to look out for book three.

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27th May 2023

The second of Alex White’s books I’ve read, this time an original story in which they create a happily queer future full of music, technology, and giant alien not-robots who attempt to destroy humanity.

I really love the worldbuilding of White’s future, in which they don’t bother to explain things that would be mundane to the characters - we don’t know how they interact with their computers for example, just how they describe doing so.

The nature of the interaction between the characters and Mechas of the title is also fascinating. White has clearly done a ton of research into this and thought a lot about how to bring character to what might otherwise be generic baddies.

I found some aspects hard to visualise, but that’s not unusual for my brain for science fiction concepts or battle scenes, so I think that’s probably more on me than the text.

Looking forward to seeing how White develops this world in book two.

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27th May 2023

Graham Norton’s third novel is a quite sad tale from the start about a community whose lives are all damaged by a local tragedy, and how that grows over the following decades.

I’m glad in a way that this book has lived on my shelf for some time, as the are definitely moments where I might have found it harder to read. As it was I raced through it in about three days and found it a really interesting look at lives and history of cultural attitudes.

There are parts of the narrative where we jump back and forth in time quite abruptly, and that did throw me off in places and I needed to reread a few paragraphs to work out what was going on.

But overall another really interesting story from Norton, and an encouragement to read his new novels too.

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27th May 2023

I picked this up purely on the strength of the marketing, which it seems I’ve become a sucker for. It’s a story of a woman who travels the country as a freelance killer of gods (gods being illegal), but also of a couple of other characters equally, who have their own complex views on the whole god situation.

I enjoyed it, racing through the back half on a couple of long train journeys. The world building is thorough, the characters are compelling, and they play off against one another well.

I especially liked the town built on a bridge that features around the middle of the book. I thought this was a fascinating idea and made for quite a few interesting scenes.

I shall be looking forward to the rest of the trilogy.

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27th May 2023

For nostalgia reasons, I’m revisiting the Enid Blyton series that I read as a kid, and have now arrived at this entry.

Three Cheers is a great Seven story, seeing them randomly find a mystery and need to investigate it. It shows a level of social consciousness that’s not often present, and paints a picture (maybe unintentionally) of the class divide of the era.

However as a modern reader there’s a hugely clear level of sexism within the seven - the boys must do almost everything, and only one of the girls gets anything to really do as part of the plot, most of the time just being told to stay at home or otherwise being excluded. Weirdly though this doesn’t extend to the protagonist character Susie, who although the boys act towards with sexism, refuses to partake herself and demonstrates a lot of agency. It’s an odd contrast between the characters and I’m not really sure what it’s meant to be saying to the reader.

Overall though a very simple, quick tale, without any risk or danger.

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27th May 2023

I’ve enjoyed Dan Schreiber’s audio works (podcasts and radio shows) for many years, so when his book was announced it went straight onto my list. This is a book of what he describes as ‘facts’ (quote marks his), which are things that people choose to believe, but likely aren’t quite actually true.

I can see this being an excellent book to keep in the bathroom. The chapters are short, and could easily be spread across a number of sittings. However you can also just devour the entire book in a couple of days, which was the approach I took.

As I had expected, the book is excellently researched, well written, funny and enjoyable to read. There are so many fascinating stories and I kept finding myself wanting to share some of its revelations, before remember that they are only ‘facts’.

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27th May 2023

The third Her Majesty The Queen Investigates novel takes us to overwinter at Sandringham, where another mystery awaits.

It’s strangely bittersweet, reading this in the week of the coronation. It’s another delightful and incredibly respectfully put together tale, and very much a price of fun to imagine that this is one of the late Queen’s activities.

I didn’t feel quite so hooked as with the first two novels, but then I also had a theory in my head which was not proved correct by the eventual reveal.

I’m very happy though to continue reading these cosy novels, and am intrigued to see how they will play out going back in time to earlier in the Queen’s life.

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