My reading list

The Beautiful Mystery
Louise Penny

It's more than 5 years since I wrote my first book review, and that was for Louise Penny's second novel featuring the Canadian Surete detective Armand Gamache. At the time I describe Penny's creation as audacious, and as I read this, her eighth novel in the series, I continue to be astounded by the way she writes.

I've never come across another genre author who so comprehensively bares the souls of her characters, exposing everything to the harsh light. Their insecurites, misgivings, petit prejudices and most importantly the gaping flaws that make them human.

This is a quiet, contemplative novel, struggling to hide a seething mass of rage and fury.

Day of the Triffids
John Wyndham

Of all the books that have lain unread on my bookshelves for a very long time, this is perhaps the most inexplicable.

Day of the Triffids is one of four classic science fiction novel collected in this volume from Marks and Spencers which I received as a Christmas present thirty years ago. The other three; "2001", "I, Robot" and "The Demolished Man" I've read several times each, yet the Triffids has always eluded me.

More peculiar still since I sought out and read almost every other piece of Wyndham's sci-fi, even obscure titles such as "Web" or "The Trouble with Lichen"

Perhaps I was put off, by cowering behind the couch during the BBC adaptation featuring John Duttine. But that didn't stop me reading Dr. Who.

Time to put this right.

Whispers Underground
Ben Aaronovitch

This is the first book I've read on the Kindle, although I did start the Woman in White at some point.

I'm getting the hang of a Kindle and I might buy a Paperwhite at some point.
But at the moment I still miss the feel and heft of a real 'papery thing tied up with string'

The Lost Luggage Porter
Andrew Martin

Heavenly Date and Other Flirtations
Alexander McCall Smith

The Girl Who Married a Lion
Alexander McCall Smith

V is for Vengeance
Sue Grafton

King Death
Toby Litt

A Brief History of Time
Stephen W Hawking