Engleby - Sebastian Faulks

The Sittaford Mystery - Agatha Christie

When the weather is dull and gloomy - or the view from the window is of deep snow and ice (like it was earlier this week!) then Agatha Christie is an ideal author to relax into - and this is a

particularly appropriate volume. This book features none of Ms Christie's popular amateur detectives - there is no Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot makes no appearance. This murder mystery is set on Dartmoor in the middle of winter. Thick snow covers the area, and a group of people gather for the evening - and for entertainment have a go at 'table turning'. A message comes through revealing the murder of the owner of Sittaford House, temporarily absent - having rented his home out to a mother and daughter who bizarrely want to spent some months away from civilisation. The message turns out to be true - and the reader is taken through the investigation, with plenty of suspects, and false trails to match. This is easy reading, but satisfying never the less - all very believable, and illustrating how much easier detective work should be today - with the assistance of mobile phones, the Internet, DNA and a criminal records data base. Rating: 8/10

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