LitScapes
“Midsomer County”: A bit of English “Litscape” (Part 1)
… for Jennifer(‘s Books), Moonlight Reader, Portable Magic, and every other fan of the Midsomer Murders series … or of the English “litscape” at large. In their comments on Mike Finn’s review of Ngaio Marsh’s Scales of Justice, MR and PM said that England, to them, is more litscape than landscape, and Mike responded that […]
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“Midsomer County”: A bit of English “Litscape” (Part 2)
***** ALL PHOTOS MINE ***** Hambleden (Bucks.) Also featured in several Midsomer Murders episodes, most notably Blod Will Out (the church, post office and stores, and Stag and Huntsman pub); the pub also in Who Killed Cock Robin?, Down Among the Dean Men, and The Glitch. Hurley (Berks.) The cloisters and refectory next to […]
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“Midsomer County”: A bit of English “Litscape” (Part 3)
***** ALL PHOTOS MINE ***** The Haseleys (Little & Great) (Oxfordshire) The owner of this large private residence in Little Haseley, which became Melvyn Stockard’s house in Who Killed Cock Robin? and Noah Farrow’s home in Midsomer Rhapsody, sometimes makes their grounds accessible to the public. I was in luck — the gate was wide […]
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Book Rescue, Book-Related Places of Pilgrimage … and My Personal Literary Canon, Part 1
24 Festive Tasks: Door 7 – Mawlid, Task 2: The Five Pillars of Islam almsgiving and the pilgrimage to Mekka. Tell us: Have you ever donated books or rescued them from (horror of horrors) being trashed? Alternatively: Is there a book-related place that is a place of pilgrimage to you? If I donate books, I […]
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Susan Howatch: The Waiting Sands
Reading Progress Updates 33%: Not the edition I’m reading, but by far the most atmospheric cover of all the editions on BL. I don’t like either of the men — if I’m not supposed to, job well done, Ms. Howatch. If I am supposed to like one or all of them (or even find them […]
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16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 7 – International Human Rights Day
Tasks for International Human Rights Day: Post a picture of yourself next to a war memorial or other memorial to an event pertaining to Human Rights. (Pictures of just the memorial are ok too.) Anógia village, Crete: the Andartis (resistance fighter) monument near the museum to the village’s destruction in WWII. Crete was occupied by […]
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Peter May: Coffin Road
This book is billed as a stand-alone following May’s Lewis Trilogy, but that’s not actually quite correct, as the policeman from whose perspective part of the story is told (DS George Gunn) actually features in an important role in the Lewis Trilogy as well, and even the actual protagonist of that trilogy (Fin Macleod) and […]
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“Murder of a Lady” Buddy Read: Setting the Scene
So, a small picture insert on the book’s back cover informs us that the stunning front cover of Murder of a Lady is taken from an old advertisement poster for Tarbert Hotel on Loch Lomond. (This isn’t the only book where the British Library does this sort of mini “front cover source reveal” on the […]
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Raymond Chandler: Farewell, My Lovely / The High Window / The Long Goodbye
Farewell, My Lovely Farewell, My Lovely is supposed to have been Raymond Chandler’s own favorite novel, and although it didn’t quite manage to elbow The Big Sleep out of the top spot of my personal affections for Chandler’s writing, it came darned close, and It Is also, along with the Christopher Lee / Robert Louis Stevenson […]
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Chawton: Jane Austen’s Home
… during the last 8 years of her life, during which she wrote all of her major novels (and saw four of them published during her lifetime: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma). The dining room, with Jane’s writing table tucked away in a corner next to the window. Jane’s bedroom […]
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Hay-on-Wye
… minus the book festival, but anyway. Book town writ large. So there I was, nicely pacing myself (read: trying hard at least not to enter every single book store I was passing) — … but then this happened, and my self-control was toast: I left the store with, among other things, the better part […]
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Mary Stewart: The Merlin Trilogy – Tintagel
Reading Progress Update: 340 of 928 Pages. (Page numbers are for the omnibus edition.) Well, I finished The Crystal Cave (a while ago in fact) and have now moved on to The Hollow Hills, which picks up right where the first book of the trilogy ends. Merlin is still rather unlike the wise old […]
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Final Bingo Square: Grave or Graveyard
Changed my mind (yet again) and switched books for my final bingo square, as I’m not sure I’ll be in much of a mind to finish my previous choice for “Grave or Graveyard,” Umberto Eco’s Cemetery of Prague. So I switched to the 2016 BBC audio adaptation of Dracula, starring David Suchet in the […]
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Peter May: The Blackhouse
Book 1 of May’s Lewis Trilogy; a darkly atmospheric tale of childhood ghosts rearing their ugly heads to bring down the lives of a group of former schoolmates some 30+ years later; set on the northern end of the largest and northernmost of Scotland’s Outer Hebrides islands, the Isle of Lewis. May does an […]
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Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles … and Dartmoor
“Yes, the setting is a worthy one. If the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men ––” “I have been in Devonshire.” “In spirit?” “Exactly … After you left I sent down to Stamford’s for the Ordnance map of this portion of the moor, and my spirit has […]
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Selma Lagerlöf: Jerusalem
The 2013 Buddy Read This was a buddy read in the context of a private discussion group; I’ll therefore only include redacted / anonymized versions of comments other than mine. #1 – Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large) Setting the scene: . From Wikipedia: “Dalarna, English exonym: Dalecarlia, is a historical province or landskap in central Sweden. […] […]
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Jane Austen: Persuasion
The 2012 Buddy Read This was a buddy read in the context of a private discussion group; I’ll therefore only include my own comments in full, and redacted / anonymized versions of the comments of others, to the extent relevant. Quotes not italicized and not attributed to a participant of the buddy read are, unless […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen
The 2012 Buddy Read This was a buddy read in the context of a private discussion group; I’ll therefore only include my own comments in full, and redacted / anonymized versions of the comments of others, to the extent relevant. Quotes not italicized and not attributed to a participant of the buddy read are, unless […]
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