Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison - M C Beaton

Between all the 'heavyweight' books I read I turn from time to time to something much lighter

and easier to read. This book I knocked off within a matter of a couple of days. On this occasion (and I have to say I seem to have skipped several volumes in the series) Agatha is running a detective agency and is called in to assist at an event in a neighbouring village where a notorious singer is going to open the proceedings and during the ensuing few minutes some LSD is slipped into the jam being used for a tasting competition - two old ladies die. Gradually the usual array of convoluted themes and red herrings emerge until the case is solved. Agatha is a very flawed heroine - middle aged, slightly overweight, very irritable and desperate for romance - what a good thing she has the help and support of Vicar's wife, and Bill Wong - a member of the local constabulary. This isn't great literature, but it is quite fun - and very light! Rating: 7/10

The Razor's Edge - W Somerset Maugham

An usual book for this author - a rather philosophical discussion about the meaning of life and

issues of spirituality. The author is the narrator (as himself slightly oddly) who talks about his relationship (very much on the fringes) with a terribly rich American family and their hangers on in the 1920s and 30s. The central character is Larry - a man who is long term engaged with the daughter of the family - but doesn't seem incredibly keen to be married to Isabel. Larry has been deeply affected by his experiences in WWI - and really doesn't wish to settle down now - despite being offered tremendous opportunities to get rich quick. When it comes to the crunch Larry wants to tour the world and live a life of relative poverty while he finds himself (very New Age for so long ago!) Isabel is horrified at the prospect and marries the man who has been desperate to wed her - even though she is not in love with the All American Boy...The book then meanders around France discovering as though through snapshots how Larry had attempted to find spiritual fulfillment - in the mines of Belgium, the farms of Germany, with the gurus in India - and rescuing the distraught women of France. I'm not certain that it is entirely successful, but it is thought-provoking....Rating 7/10

According to Queeney - Beryl Bainbridge

This is the story based on the relationship between the lexicographer and man of literature Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale - as seen through the eyes of her daughter - the eponymous Queeney. This is a period I know little about and frankly I'm not sure how much wiser I am now. I found the style most confusing and irritating, and the cast of characters tremendously difficult to pin down. The book ends up as a series of incidents and tales about Dr Johnson's life in his later years. I did learn that the good doctor was eccentric to the point of madness, and it would appear (from this book at least) that most of the circle he moved in were equally strange, and frankly unprepossessing. Queeney herself doesn't have her own character shaded in - she seems shadowy and this is a fault with the book. The overall effect is that I found the plot (such as it was) slippery to deal with, and I remained unenlightened about someone supposedly ones of the greatest literary figures of English history. Rating 5/10

Jane and Prudence - Barbara Pym

I do like Barbara Pym's novels - they are so observant, light and yet hilarious. They make me

laugh out loud - a rare quality, and one to be much admired. The books all follow standard themes - single people getting through life, having brushes with 'romance' (probably not love) and trying to not fall out with friends and family. This particukar volume centres on a Vicar's wife (another common theme), very happy with her lot, but easily outshone by the Church workers in assisting her husband. Because she is so happy she tries (often desperately and unsuccessfully) to pair off her friends and villagers alike. As this is the 1950s women are only just beginning to forge their own careers and gaining the upper hand in relationships. Her daughter is off to University and in contrast to her mother is much more practical and clear sighted in her aims and ambitions. People fall in and out of love - there are many occasions of people speaking at cross purposes, and intentions being unfulfilled. Lets face it we all know Barbara Pym characters. Rating 9/10

The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett

A beautiful book - unusual I know to describe a book in that way but Alan Bennett does write with great beauty and tremendous elegance. Most of his books are slim volumes - and this is no

exception. It tells a simple tale but oh so touchingly, with humour and with tenderness. The Queen is taking the corgies for a walk one day and discovers a mobile library in the Buckingham Palace forecourt. Not wishes to appear churlish she goes in and borrows a book and finds one of her servants who can act as her guide to this undiscovered pleasure - reading. Gradually reading becomes an obsession and has all sorts of unexpected and unlooked for consequences for both the Queen and her advisers and family. This is one of the few books that makes me laugh out loud, and although it is light in so many ways, perhaps hardly conventional literature it does have a lot of things to say about modern attitudes to books, reading and the pleasure it can bring. Rating: 8/10

Hons and Rebels - Jessica Mitford

This is the autobiography of one of the notorious Mitford daughters. The whole family seemed extremely strange, eccentric to the point of being marginally insane. Of the girls, Diana married Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, after breaking up his marriage to fellow MP Lady Cynthia who was dying, having previously married the heir to the Guiness fortune; Unity developed an obsession with Hitler, stalking him in Berlin, and attempted suicide when the War broke out; another married the Duke of Devonshire; yet another becanme a successful novelist writing thinly veiled books about her upbringing, while Jessica became a Communist fellow traveller and eloped with a cousin who was fighting for the Republicans in Spain. She certainly had a lot of life to include in this book - which only covers the period up to 1942, when she was still young. It is difficult to tell how much of this book is true (as it the world as seen through her eyes) - but she clearly writes from the heart with great humour and lightness of touch, in places with almost too much impartiality, distancing herself from the obviously emotionally searing events of her life. At times I found her approach too dispassionate - but maybe that is her form of protection. A classic poor little rich girl perhaps, leading such a strange childhood as to be surprising that these girls didn't turn out even more strange than they were in real life. The earliest sections are her best and when she gets to the times after the Spanish Civil War it begins to drag slightly, but then picks up. A true classic though, and such an insight into all aspects of life in the 1920s and 30s. Rating 8/10

Some Tame Gazelle - Barbara Pym

This is a typically Pymish novel - full of brilliant observations on life - timeless in their accuracy. As usual the theme centres on the Church and the devoted ladies that serve the Church. In many ways these people are ludicrous - ladies

of a certain age becoming overcome with the arrival of a new curate. However, the reader becomes sympathetic to them because they are so positive and enthusiastic and behave honourably in many ways. The men - whether they are Archdeacons, Churchwardens or Curates are regularly bested by these women. This book is about two sisters living together and their relationships - with each other and the couple at the Vicarage, the Curate and fellow Church Workers. There are a surprising number of emotional undercurrents in their lives, and although they might consider their lives dull there are plenty of incidents for the reader to enjoy. Rating 9/10

Gentlemen & Players - Joanne Harris

Part of the serendipity of the library is coming across a book by chance and loving it! This book was truly excellent. A strange mixture of fantasy, whodunnit and study in character it tells the

tale (and Joanne Harris seems to be an true storyteller) of St Oswald's, a public school and those associated with it, many of whom find it difficult to adapt to modern life. The novel is set out like a chess game - the central character the child of a former resident porter of the school who becomes obsessed with life within this 'forbidden' institution - forbidden because they are of the wrong class, and poor, and the child of someone working for the school. This obsession leads tragically to death and revenge - against both the place and those who teach and are pupils there. The two competitors in the chess game are a Latin Master coming towards his retirement and the child of the porter who as a teenager assumes a new identity to infiltrate the school as a 'pupil' and then returns to inflict havoc on the school. It is a true page turner and has a magnificent twist in the tale. Rating 8/10