Welcome to #DDMreadingweek 2020, a celebration of the life and work of Daphne du Maurier.
Halfway through this reading week – the 13th May it would have been Daphne’s birthday, and it is also mine! That is what inspired the reading week in 2019, and it was so much fun I thought we should do it again.
Throughout the week, and afterwards, I will be adding links to other bloggers’ posts and reviews. Remember if you are joining in on Twitter or Instagram to use the hashtag #DDMreadingweek so I can catch your comments or blog posts more easily. If you think I have missed something please alert me to it – although it can take me a day or so to catch everything and update this page.
If you aren’t able to read anything by Daphne du Maurier this week, never mind, perhaps you can share some photos of your favourite DDM books on social media, share, and comment on the different blog posts/reviews that come out over the week from other bloggers – and perhaps be inspired to read something by Daphne du Maurier soon.
This year, I chose to read The Birds and other Stories, The Flight of the Falcon and The Parasites. Reviews will appear throughout the week.
Have fun, and happy reading.
Click on the titles to go to the blog post.
Short stories
Caroline from Beauty and the Cat – started the week off with an interesting comparison of The Birds short story and the Hitchcock film of the same name. The two versions are clearly quite different.
Lizzie at Lizzie’s Literary Life has also reviewed The Birds, she found the first and final stories to be far the strongest.
Constance from Staircase Wit also read the Birds though under the alternative title of Kiss me Again Stranger
Jacqui from Jacquiwine’s Journal read The Breaking Point Stories – a collection I read and loved last year.
Marcelle from Lesser Known Gems has read The Doll and other stories, a collection of Daphne du Maurier’s early pieces.
Novels
Liz from Adventures in reading, running and working from home has read Rebecca. Her first novel by Daphne du Maurier, and then went on to read Jamaica Inn which I know she found rather more alarming than her usual reading fare.
Laila from Big reading life read Mary Anne – one of the books I read last year. It’s a fictionalised account of Daphne du Maurier’s great great grandmother’s life.
Teresa from Shelf love also read Mary Anne and her experiences of it were a little mixed.
Cathy from 746 books read Jamaica Inn, a wonderful brooding novel, which has now become Cathy’s favourite du Maurier to date.
Susan from a Bagful of Stories has written about several du Maurier books including The King’s General, Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel . Later Susan read The Scapegoat, a book I finished myself just after the reading week finished.
Imogen from Reading and Watching the World re-read Rebecca, finding it less comforting this time around.
Mary from Library Notes and News wrote about the books she intended to read this week, including The House on the Strand – I look forward to Mary’s thoughts.
Caroline from Bookword read The House on the Strand which I so enjoyed last year, unfortunately Caroline’s experience of the novel was less positive.
Marcia from BuriedinPrint read Jamaica Inn – saying she loved the dense thickets of atmosphere.
Simon from Stuck in a book read The Scapegoat – following a Twitter poll – it’s the book that I am reading right now.
Liz from Leaping Life read Jamaica Inn following her introduction to Daphne du Maurier’s writing last year.
Lisa from ANZ Litlovers litblog read The Glass Blowers one of Daphne du Maurier’s historical novels – it really sounds like one I would like.
Helen from She reads novels read Castle Dor the novel started by Arthur Quiller-Couch and finished by Daphne du Maurier at the request of his family.
Jessica from The Bookworm chronicles read The Loving Spirit, Daphne du Maurier’s first novel, a historical novel set in Daphne’s beloved Cornwall.
Dorian from Eiger, Monch and Junfrau has reviewed The Flight of the Falcon.
Other books
Blogger A Hot cup of pleasure has been reading Daphne by Justine Picardie – not a book I know anything about, so I will be interested in finding out more about it. Her final review of Daphne is up now.
Constance from Staircase Wit read Myself when Young Daphne’s autobiography. I must say I really love the sound of it myself, a great choice to read for this event.
Are we allowed to repost your photo announcing DDM Reading Week on our blogs? Thanks.
Yes of course, that is fine. Very happy for you to do that.
I read The Scapegoat last week but I didn’t write a post and I’m taking a blogging break at the moment — I loved it though! I wonder if anyone else will review it.
Always interested to read about DDM’s life and work. Thanks for hosting.
I hope someone reviews The Scapegoat, I really wanted to read it too, not sure it will be possible now. I shall have to see how I get on with my current read.
I persuaded my book group to read The Scapegoat a couple years ago and most of my friends really enjoyed it. The discussion was excellent. If I hadn’t lent my copy to someone I would review it tonight.
Here is my review of what appears to have been a similar but not identical collection of short stories to yours of The Birds (that is a weird sentence but you know what I mean). The two collections are not identical! I am not a big short story fan but found these entertaining.
Here’s my read: Daphne by Justine Picardie
https://ahotcupofpleasureagain.wordpress.com/2020/05/16/daphne-by-justine-picardie-2008/
Thanks for hosting the event.