Glad you enjoyed it
@genevieve - let me know if you read the travel memoir too!
Currently reading a book by J. Jefferson Farjeon. Haven't heard of him? Not surprised because he died decades ago and most of his extensive catalogue (close to 100 books!) is out of print. But they shouldn't be - he's from the so-called Golden Age of British Crime and is only just now being reprinted here and there. First I read
Thirteen Guests - typical country house murder mystery, only spicier than the usual Christie in both characters and writing. Then I read
Seven Dead - starts as a locked room mystery, then becomes a more epic quest to find out who the people in that room were. Bit far fetched, but a fun read. Now I'm into
Uninvited Guests and really appreciating the variety of characters he creates, and the humour in his writing.
Only criticism is he's one of those writers who has men falling madly in love with women (girls really) they have just met and barely exchanged five words with. He was born in the 1800s so maybe it's a era thing, but yawn.
Another recent was
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. Wow, that was a book! It's newish, translated from the Swedish, and hard to describe. Premise is a bank robber accidentally taking a bunch of people hostage at an apartment viewing (or an open house as some of us would more likely call it), but there are so many twists and turns, jumping back and forth in time, a lot of rashamon, deep character study, touches on a lot of issues (notably suicide and evolving relationships) and along the way, some truly funny bits too. I'd recommend it, but not sure it's for everyone.
Also read
The Guide by Peter Heller. I recall somewhere earlier in this thread when I was praising his previous book
The River as one of the best books I've read in a long time, really stayed with me, that others were not a fan of this author. I couldn't wait for
The Guide because it features some of the same characters and is a continuation (yay, more!) but it was very different than the first. Almost like his editors or whoever urged him to churn something out to capitalize on the success of
The River, and make it more Jack Reacher. There was still some of the poetry of
The River, but in the end, yup, it was a Reacher book. If you read it you'll know exactly what I mean. Not necessary to read
The River first to follow
The Guide, but it's a much better book.
. Sanna drove me nuts throughout the book and made me want to stop reading. Even when the explanation for her spacy behavior finally comes out--eh. She's still annoying as all get out. But I have to hand it to the tax attorney; she comes through at the end.
www.bbc.com
) but I looked at spoilers to find out whether I'd guessed correctly about the character who was mauled by a bear (I did). Also I was curious what was in Bree's bag and how Jenny would react to Roger. That's not enough to read 900 meandering pages, though.
