It’s a good wee while since I blogged about any books that I’ve borrowed from the library – so here goes!
The White Cottage Mystery by Margery Allingham was first serialised in 1927, but according to the Fantastic Fiction link it wasn’t published as a book until 1928. I think it’s the first Allingham book which I’ve read that doesn’t feature Albert Campion. I’m enjoying it, it only has 157 pages and I reached page 75 in one sitting.
I decided to give M.C. Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth books a go so took out the first in the series Death of Gossip which was published in 1995. I’m not sure about this one and I’ve only seen snippets of the TV series, but I want to give it a go anyway as I know it was so popular. Mind you I’ve found that popularity is not always a plus where books or TV are concerned.
Another by Margery Allingham – Hide My Eyes was first published in 1958. I requested this book and I assume that I did that because a blogger that I follow had recommended it recently, but it’s always late at night when I go onto the library website to request books – or even early in the morning, and I can’t remember doing it!
I decided to do a bit of research about Shetland as we’ve been meaning to holiday there for a few years now. Shetland by Ann Cleeves seems an ideal place to begin. It has some gorgeous photographs, but one thing puzzles me. Everyone says that Shetland is so different from Orkney (which we have visited) but from the photos they look very alike to me. Maybe the people mean it’s different in atmosphere. I hope we’ll find out one day – but it’s quite a difficult place to get to by car and the ferry trip is very long. Well it is about halfway to Norway I suppose.
Have you borrowed anything good out of the library recently? I know I should be concentrating on reading my own books, but I also feel the need to use the local libraries to keep their stats up. I suspect that the local council would be happy to close just about all of them.
The White Cottage Mystery was my first Margery Allingham book and I think I preferred it to the Albert Campion mysteries I’ve read (not that I’ve read many of them yet). I hope Hide My Eyes is a good one!
Helen,
I’ve read a lot of Campion books, but I’ve finished this one now and I also liked it better than Campion, the early ones anyway.
I read The White Cottage Mystery a few years ago and enjoyed it better than the Campion books which don’t often appeal to me much. I loved the line where the detectove says ‘Oh, you women, you women. When will you realise what is important and what is not?’ When, indeed? Doesn’t it make you just want to hit him over the head with a brick? ?
FictionFan,
Yes, I did have a bit of a laugh over that bit though! I think Campion improves a lot with age and especially after he marries Amanda, she seems to have brought him out of himself!