Tales from the tbr

I’m having quite a slow reading week after all the excitement of Daphne Du Maurier reading week. However, I am looking forward to some extra reading time next week over half term.

I am not a blogger who accepts that many books for review – but despite not getting the piles some people seem to – I have rather let them pile up. Some I really have had a while – (another reason I don’t take on many is because I am so useless at reading them in good time). So, I am trying to get on top of those I have had ages – and those that have recently come in.

I am currently coming to the end of a lovely book (reissued next week) that I received for review, from Handheld Press called Blitz Writing by Inez Holden – a novella Night Shift and a memoir It was Different at the Time. Originally published in 1941 and 1943 respectively, they are both wonderful portraits of life in World War two. I know lots of regular readers love WW2 texts as much as I do – so I am looking forward to telling you all about it next week in my review.

Some other books that have sent to me for review have come into my house recently, and in case I don’t read them as quickly as they deserve to be read – I will tell you about them now. I’m always so grateful for the books I receive, I just need to get down to them. It’s all the other books I have waiting to read that’s the problem of course.

Life in Translation by Anthony Ferner – a novel by a lovely, literary writer I have been lucky enough to read before. Published by Holland Park Press – I believe that it came out last week. This novel describes the ups and downs of the life of a translator who dreams of achieving literary fame.

Noel Streatfeild’s Holiday Stories – which will be a must for all Streatfeild fans. I must admit I am not usually one to read children’s stories – though I love reading them to children. However, the blurb of this one assures us that this collection will delight Streatfeild fans of all ages – so I shall certainly be dipping in. Perhaps it’s a book adults will love to read to children, parents and grandparents fighting over whose turn it is to read them. I love Noel Streatfeild’s adult books – and this collection, illustrated by Peter Bailey – look very tempting. The cover art does make it look more like a children’s collection – but I don’t suppose it matters. Originally these stories were written for annuals and magazines between the 1930s and 70s. This gorgeous collection is published by Virago Modern Classics on the 20^th June.

The Reading Party by Fenella Gentleman has recently come out in paperback – and I have a copy that I am looking forward to reading. It concerns a reading party of an Oxford college in the 1970s.

The Stranger by the Sea by Paul Binding has just arrived today. A dramatic re-imagining of characters from Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea, it is set in the late nineteenth century on the Kent coast.

So, I aim to do better with the books I get sent by publishers and authors – only I shall probably just carry on being a bit rubbish about them. Which of these would you read next?

It’s a bank holiday here in the UK this weekend – so let’s hope the sun shines and we all get some lovely, relaxing reading time.