An artist living on an isolated island off the coast of Brittany just before WWI is visited by an eminent art critic, who used to be his mentor and now wants his portrait painted.

A series of monologues from the artist to the sitter while he's painting explore what has brought them that point. Although the ending is fairly predictable early on it is only in the last 30 pages that we learn the motivation behind it. Something of a tour de force.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

#coffeeandabook

#coffeeandabook #bookclubchoice

Hilary Fenton finds the student in the rooms next door dead, apparently from an accident while cleaning his gun.

The first chapter was funny but the condescending eye-dialect for Mrs Bigger and the author showing off his familiarity with university slang rapidly got tiresome - one more “sported oak“ and I would have screamed. The actual mystery was good but the romance with the Profile was very unconvincing.

#sunlightwellness

Micah Summers sketches boys he meets as fairy-tale characters and posts romantic fantasies about them on IG. Will the fantasy become a reality with boy No. 100?

The first half was quite fun as we follow Micah and friends in their quest to track down boy No. 100 after an encounter on a train, but when Micah tried to create a similar fairy-tale for his new best friend, Elliot, he started to get on my nerves.

Recent acquisitions to celebrate 18th Thingaversary (30 April) and 7th Litsyversary (10 May)

How do I know it's Love? Because I've already thrown up twice, and I haven't even asked him out yet.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

#coffeeandabook

Inspector Grant must find out who the victim of a stabbing in a theatre queue was to have any hope of finding the murderer.

I didn't really get engrossed in this early example of a police procedural but I would be interested to read more from the author.

Television in 1929

#coffeeandabook

Just as P.I. Declan Hunt's assistant goes on holiday for 3 weeks, he gets a new case, the disappearance of a local businessman. Can the temp help with more than just the office admin work?

An entertaining piece of fluff for when the brain needs a rest. Looking forward to the next one.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

#coffeeandabook

Novella giving the Recovery Man's back story and telling part of the story from “The Recovery Man“ from his point of view.

I enjoyed it, but not much point if you haven't read the main story.

Going through Paloma's old case files, Miles finds a reference to his deceased daughter and Callisto, somewhere she'd never been. What had Paloma known?

An intriguing mystery with some side characters I'd like to see more of.

😱 The secret life of a crime novelist 😱

#MayReadingPlans

#breakfastandabook

On his return to the Moon after a vacation, Miles Flint receives a message from his mentor begging for help. When he arrives at her apartment he finds she has been murdered and he is one of the main suspects.

Whenever I put this down I felt no strong urge to pick it up again. The Bixians were not present enough to be interesting aliens and without them it was a fairly run-of-the-mill mystery.

#coffeeandabook

When a body is uncovered during construction work in Mars' Sahara Dome, it provokes a crisis in Human-Disty relations which can only be solved by finding out who died and why.

I liked that the author's aliens really are aliens, part of cultures which are logical on their own terms but which we can't really understand. However, there were lots of references to earlier events in Flint's and DeRicci's careers only some of which I recognised.

#coffeeandabook

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

Got 1/3 of the way through on my 2nd attempt. I'm just not following her arguments. Probably my fault.

After a quick run down through the life (which we don't know much about (but more than I thought)), the author looks at Elizabethan theatre and the poems, then takes us through WS's output, play by play. A short final chapter looks at WS's influence and reputation. The descriptions of the plays were too short to be useful unless you already knew the play. I think this could have been shortened and more time spent on the final chapter.

#coffeeandabook

📚 📚 HAPPY WORLD BOOK DAY 2024 📚 📚

#coffeeandabook

The book opens with Steve Archer returning home in the morning having woken up in a strange bed, only to find the police at his apartment ready to arrest him for the murder of his boyfriend, Coy. The bulk of the book is a flashback telling how this all came about (which I did not realise for quite a while and was thus terribly confused), and the final 20-30 pages (out of 200) shows Steve looking for the real murderer to exonerate himself. ⬇

One of the richest men in Edinburgh is found dead in bed with traces of arsenic in his stomach. His son is accused of the murder but Raven's new fiancée believes him to be innocent and asks him to investigate.

Despite some well-worn tropes, the mystery all came together nicely enough but the social and medical background are still what attracts me to this series.

#coffeeandabook

HE WAS NAKED IN A STRANGE BED, one of those beds that stands in a closet all day, like a bad child.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

Unknown to the rest of Earth's inhabitants, Enoch Wallace is looking after a station in a inter-stellar transportation network but affairs on Earth and in the Galactic Council are coming to a crisis.

This was a pioneering work of pastoral science fiction which still exerts its quiet attraction with on one level weird and wonderful goings-on but on another an uneventful slice of life until the last 1/3 of the book.

#ClassicLSFBC
@RamsFan1963

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@ShyBookOwl

#ClassicLSFBC
@RamsFan1963

Alternates sections on the author's list of favourite philosophers and on themes and questions. Mostly concerned with the European tradition with occasional glances at India. Does what it says on the tin, serves as an introduction.

#dinnerandabook

An unfortunate example for a book published in 2020

TV-writer Elliott's 6-year relationship with Gus implodes after he books a session with a sex worker but he learns to be more comfortable with himself and starts to overcome his addictions.

A book that is probably funnier if you are part of the milieu depicted but there were too many refs to TV shows I don't watch or singers I'm only marginally aware of, if that, not to mention places & brands I don't recognise for me to really enjoy it

#coffeeandabook

👍👍👍

A nurse's patients are dying - but is she unwittingly spreading disease or is she a serial killer?

A good mystery set in a time when medical practitioners had noticed a better survival rate if they washed their hands between patients but didn't know why.

#sunshinewellness #bookclubchoice

#sunshinewellness

There is not a woman in this realm who does not understand what it is to be afraid.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

In 1847 Edinburgh, Will Raven, apprentice to Professor of Midwifery James Young Simpson, and housemaid Sarah Fisher look into the death of a friend of Will's and a friend of Sarah's both written off as suicide.

The mystery was a bit predictable at times but the historical background was very well done. The professor was a real person, and his discovery of chloroform as an anaesthetic is one of the events in the book.

🪡 or 📚 ?