What’s on your bookshelf: February

Here we are again with another round up of what I have been reading this past month. It was a much better month for reading with back to reading on the bus to work and two long weekend holidays, There was also a real mixture, and one book that will likely make it to the books of the year list.

This month’s fiction

Working from left to right below, first up and a fabulous read is Lily King’s Writers and Lovers. I really enjoyed Heart the Lover and was prompted to pick this up and was not disappointed.

Recently out of a devastating love affair and mourning the loss of her beloved mum, Casey is lost. The novel she has been writing for six years isn’t going anywhere, her debt is soaring, and at thirty-one, with all her friends getting married and having kids, she feels too old for things to be this way.

Then she meets Silas. He is kind, handsome, interested. But only a few weeks later, Oscar – older, fascinating, troubled – walks into her life, his two boys in tow. Suddenly Casey finds herself at the point of a love triangle, torn between two very different relationships that promise two very different futures. And she’s still got to write that book . . .

The characters were human, there was humour and sadness, there was excellent writing. It is also a companion piece to Heart the Lover which I also enjoyed. On my list for the end of the year round up of favourite books.

Next up two three ‘could read in a day’ books, again from left to right. The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop by Takuyo Asakura is one of those gentle, life affirming books, with a magical bookshop, with, naturally a cat, that appears when people have problems or questions. I enjoy listening to the 44 Scotland Street books, and picked up this one from the library because the ‘work’ book club theme this month is ‘food in the title’. I have to say I was a bit disappointed in this one, lots of typos (really!) and not the best in the series. Plus it reminded me of what I like and don’t like about Edinburgh (I was born and grew up there). The third small book was the latest Anne Tyler Three Days in June, a writer who never disappoints. This tale of a wedding, an estranged husband and wife and what happens over the course of a few days is a great book to pick up on a wet Sunday afternoon.

Then to a book that disappointed, Josie Shapiro’s Good Things Come and Go. While well written, I found the characters annoying and unlikeable, and the skateboarding bits dull. Someone at the book shop book club really enjoyed it, but not for me.

This month’s detective fiction

Again, from left to right…a very silly, daft and ridiculous book, Murder by Milk by Lynne Truss. Only pick this up if you want a laugh and an oddball set of characters. I think this would have been better as an audiobook. On my iPhone I read Denzel Meyrick Whisky From Small Glasses, another book with humour, but also some dark elements, set in the west of Scotland. This is the first of a series featuring DCI Daley, and I will definitely keep my eyes out for more.

I also read two more Margaret Hickey books An Ill Wind and The Creeper, both of which I enjoyed, and I am very glad to hear a new one is due later this year. Both are set in small town Australia, where the atmosphere and sense of place is as important as the plot. I particularly enjoyed An Ill Wind, with a suicide – or is it murder? – at a wind farm. Finally, Ann Cleeves Wild Fire, the last of the Shetland series which I somehow missed, and enjoyed more than the first of the Orkney series.

This month’s other reading was The Secret of Cooking Bee Wilson which I borrowed from the library and spent a lot of time dipping in and out of the interesting pages on food and cooking. No audio books this month, though I did catch up on a few podcasts, including one about that Salt Path controversy.

Ratings, in the order I read the books:

• Anne Tyler A Spool of Blue Thread 4 families
• Lily King Writers and Lovers 5 writers
• Margaret Hickey The Creeper 4 hikers
• Josie Shapiro Good Things Come and Go 3 skateboards
• Ann Cleeves Wild Fire 5 Shetland islands
• Denzel Meyrick Whisky From Small Glasses 4 drams of whisky
• Alexander McCall Smith The Enigma of Garlic 3.5 Edinburgh streets
• Margaret Hickey An Ill Wind 5 wind turbines
• Takuya Asakura The Cherry Blossom Bookshop 4 cherry blossom trees
• Lynn Truss Murder by Milk Bottle 3.5 bottles of milk

Entered in the What’s on Your Bookshelf monthly share.

Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer and good food. Thistles and Kiwis can be found on Facebook and Instagram @thistlesandkiwi