Category: Literature

One For The Road

I am re-reading James Lees-Milne’s diaries. Like re-reading Marcel Proust or Anthony Powell each visitation is rewarding. Spot the lie? Yes, I have never read Proust; maybe a project for winter nights? More likely an unfulfilled aspiration.

In My Reading Room

“Historical crime fiction is sometimes little more than a modern adventure in fancy dress. Not so the novels of CJ Sansom, whose magnificent books set in the reign of Henry VIII bring to life the sounds and smells of Tudor England…” (Sunday Times)

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The John Blake Conspiracy

“How five art dealers, four policemen, three picture restorers, two auction houses and a journalist plotted to recover some of the world’s most beautiful stolen paintings.” ( Double Dealer by Peter Watson, dust jacket)

A Cold Night in Florence

The thefts in the Iain Pears art heist series are often close to reality, the main characters are well portrayed, the descriptions of Rome excellent but of course the plots and denouements contrived.

Paperback Writers

I’m looking forward to meeting Charles Thoroughgood and Commissario Soneri. If they arrive in time I will take them both away with me next week and go to bed with them – not at the same time obviously.

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Rabbit Curry

It had been freezing hard all the way home, and the Quaker skated perilously once or twice on the northerly stretches. As I passed the forge near my gate I issued an order for frost-nails, and while I did so the stars were kindling like diamonds over the black ridge of Shreelane Hill. The overture… Continue reading Rabbit Curry

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In the Curranhilty Country

“It is hardly credible that I should have been induced to depart from my usual walk of life by a creature so uninspiring as the grey horse that I bought from Flurry Knox for £25. Perhaps it was the monotony of being questioned by every other person with whom I had five minutes’ conversation, as… Continue reading In the Curranhilty Country

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Early Days, Part V

“Now that I have come to the end of my first day’s hunting I am tempted to moralize about it. But I have already described it at greater length than I had intended, so I will only remind myself of the tea I had at an inn on the way home. The inn was kept… Continue reading Early Days, Part V

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Early Days, Part IV

“November, with its darkening afternoons and smell of burning weeds, found me gradually becoming acclimatized to ‘the new mare,’ as I importantly called her (using Dixonian phraseology). The groom was able to give me all his attention, since my aunt never rode in the winter. We now went longer distances; sometimes he would tell me… Continue reading Early Days, Part IV

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Early Days Part III

“Since the continuity of these memoirs is to depend solely on my experiences as a sportsman, I need not waste many words on the winter, spring, summer, and autumn that chronologically followed the last episode which I narrated. Outwardly monotonous, my life was made up of that series of small inward happenings which belong to… Continue reading Early Days Part III

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