When we drove up north of Aberdeen for a few nights last week we had a specific goal in sight – a bookshop in Huntly that we had been told about by a friend. To be honest I was quite disappointed when I saw the shop as it’s really small, however I managed to buy a surprising number of books.
1. Continental Crimes Edited by Martin Edwards – a compilation of short stories, another in the British Crime Classics series.
2. Man Overboard by Monica Dickens
3. An Impossible Marriage by Pamela Hansford Johnson
4. Coot Club by Arthur Ransome
5. Company Parade by Storm Jameson
6. No Signposts in the Sea by Vita Sackville-West
and three Puffin books – yes it seems that I have started a Puffin collection – sort of inadvertently.
7. The Wool-Pack by Cynthia Harnett (A Carnegie Medal Winner)
8. The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall (A Carnegie Medal Winner)
9. A Parcel of Patterns by Jill Paton Walsh
Have you read any of these books?
I have Continental Crimes on the TBR stack, but the edition I have looks a lot thinner.
I’ve read Man Overboard, it’s not one of her better ones, to my mind.
Lisa,
I read some Monica Dickens books back in the 1970s and enjoyed them, I’ll leave it a while before embarking on this one as you say it’s not so good. That’s weird about your copy of Continental Crimes being thinner.
Have read only Coot Club from that list. A nice introduction to some more Ransome characters, the usual meticulous details and maps, and an interesting and exciting story.
Hi Katrina,
OK!
Robert Westall is an absolute favorite of mine. I’ve read many, many of his books. Although boys are always his focus, they are sensitively handled and all in context of the history ongoing. He has written one or two novels with teenage girls as the main characters. They are excellent also.
I haven’t read Machine Gunners, but I obviously need to. I resonate with him Westall very deeply. I hated it when he passed away.
And I am positive I own a slim copy of A Parcel of Patterns. I think that Jill Paton Walsh is a wonder. The book I think is her best is Fireweed. It’s about a teenage boy and girl who are separated from their families during the bombings of London and how they tried to make a go of it together, despite being terribly young. I think it is a classic.
Judith,
Thanks for the info, I’ll definitely read The Machine Gunners soon. I’ve read a few by Jill Paton Walsh, I’m sure she finished off a Dorothy L. Sayers book and I wasn’t too happy about that one (probably me being grumpy) but I’ve since enjoyed others by her.