Books are one of the great loves of my life and when I go on holiday, one of the delights of lying under a warm sun on my sun bed is a good undisturbed read. I read a lot at home but some books, as we all know, are just made for a really long, uninterrupted read.
I’ve just returned from a holiday in France and I thought I might share the contents of my ‘book bag’ with you. I’m a really big second hand book buyer and I buy my books from many sources. Second hand book shops, car boot sales, charity shops and of course, the internet. Even the occasional book comes my way as a gift. Anyway, without further ado, here are my holiday books:
Death in the Clouds; A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Agatha Christie
I do like a good crime read and for a long while I’ve been wanting to try a book by a writer who is the acknowledged master (or mistress) of the crime mystery genre, Agatha Christie. Agatha wrote over 66 detective novels as well as numerous short stories and created the famous detectives, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. I picked this book up ages ago at a second hand book shop and recently found it filed away in a box of books unread. Perfect for a holiday read I thought.
The murder happens on board a flight from Le Bourget to Croydon. A woman is found dead just prior to landing and Hercule Poirot travelling on the same flight sees that she has been murdered, possibly from a poisoned dart. A further investigation finds a blowpipe hidden on the aircraft so clearly the culprit must have been one of the passengers, but who?
This was a short read but a very entertaining one and very well thought out and put together. The author introduces her cast of characters, all passengers on the fatal flight and scatters various clues throughout the book. Once the flight arrives in England Poirot begins his investigations alongside Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard and an officer of the French Sûreté but of course it is Poirot who ultimately unmasks the murderer.
I was pleasantly surprised to find this was a short but highly enjoyable read. I must look out for more of Agatha’s books.
Death of a Village: A Hamish Macbeth Mystery by MC Beaton
Some time ago I set myself the task of reading all the Hamish Macbeth books written by author MC Beaton. I haven’t read one for a while and I thought this would be a good opportunity to read another. Quite a lot happens in this story, the 18th in the series. Hamish as usual has to solve various issues but of course needs to avoid promotion so he can stay in his beloved village of Lochdubh. He has to deal with a husband beating wife, an old people’s home that seems to be murdering its residents and an entire village that seems to be behaving oddly. Nice to see a little more personal stuff thrown in about Hamish. He’s still pining for his old girlfriend who is about to marry someone else but at least he seems friendly enough with reporter Elspeth although romance doesn’t seem to be blossoming for the couple yet.
As usual, an entertaining read but the main story about the village was a little bit farfetched.
Eve’s Hollywood by Eve Babitz
I ordered this from an online bookshop after reading another of Eve’s books Slow Days, Fast Company. Eve was born and bred in Hollywood and worked as a writer and artist. She designed album covers for a while and wrote essays and articles that were published in magazines like the Village Voice, Cosmopolitan and Esquire.
I picked up this book because I mistakenly thought the title referred to Hollywood as the centre of American film making rather than the place where Eve grew up. The book is actually a series of essays and thoughts about her life growing up and living in Hollywood both as a child and as an adult. Eve talks about the people she meets and gets involved with. The book is really a sort of wandering stream of thoughts going off in various directions and although parts of it are interesting, for the most part I just wanted to get to the end. I read another review of this book on Goodreads and the reviewer said that reading Eve’s Hollywood was like hopping along the stepping stones of Babitz’ memories and not stopping until you reach dry land. I couldn’t agree more.
The sure sign of a book that fails to keep my attention is when I pick up another book and begin to read that one instead.
Sorry Eve but this just didn’t do it for me. It was a bit of an up and down read with passages that were really fascinating and others that just couldn’t get me interested.
American Prince: A Memoir by Tony Curtis
This was a little more in my line. I am a great fan of film and cinema and especially Hollywood. This is Tony Curtis’ own account of how he made it as a film star in Hollywood and it was interesting reading. Curtis clearly loved the film business and being a part of it and he seems to have especially loved his fame and success. The other thing he loves is women and to a certain extent this is a sort of voyeuristic journey through Hollywood and the stars (and non stars) that he has loved and bedded. One particular woman he married after being captivated by her beautiful breasts so I can’t say I was surprised when that one didn’t work out.
Tony spends a lot of time detailing his relationship with Marilyn Monroe, seeming to imply they were in love or at least close to being in love but their careers gave them little time for relationships. Later when the two made Some Like it Hot Together Tony goes to great lengths to explain his famous remark that kissing Marilyn was like ‘kissing Hitler’. Apparently, so he says, it was a sarcastic response to some crew member asking what was it like to kiss Marilyn. Obviously, so he says, it was great so he sarcastically responded with the Hitler comment.
Well I’m sure I’ve seen him years ago on TV actually denying he ever said it. Anyway, it was a good read and I loved hearing his stories about Sinatra, Kirk Douglas, Janet Leigh (wife number 1) Monroe and many more.
In the 1970s Tony was determined to keep working and making money and so when the film work dried up he appeared in the TV show The Persuaders with Roger Moore. He didn’t get on well with Joan Collins who starred in one of the episodes but Moore became a great friend. What is really interesting about Tony Curtis’ body of work is that even though he has given great performances in classic films like Some Like it Hot, Spartacus, and The Sweet Smell of Success, he has also appeared in some really poor features.
Anyway, his ethic seems to have been to keep working no matter what and even if the film was poor, he gave his absolute best.
Verdict: A great read even though Tony comes over as being obsessed with women but then again, it’s his story, and he certainly doesn’t seem to have been short of them.
What have you been reading this summer?
We arrived in France at the end of August. The weather in the Loire was lovely and the only cloud on our horizon was that our favourite gite in France, a lovely villa which we regularly rent, was booked on the exact week we wanted it.
This book was on a shelf in my late brother’s lounge and I picked it up when I went to clear his place out after his death. Despite all the praise and good reviews on the back cover, I really found it hard to read. It’s about a group of people who work for the UK intelligence service and all of them are either out of favour with the service or have fouled up in some way. They are all assigned to Slough House instead of the main HQ and they are all a bit fed up and disgruntled.
Author Patricia Cornwell first introduced Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta in the book Postmortem originally published in 1990. The character is an Italian American. She is a perfectionist and workaholic and lives in a custom-built home where she cooks many Italian meals while she ponders her cases. She also, and perhaps this is me looking at the character from a UK perspective, seems to be overly obsessed with guns although on one occasion, having a gun under her pillow in the bedroom saves her life. In the first book Scarpetta has to deal with a series of murders and works with Benton Wesley from the FBI to create a profile of the murderer. The book also introduces DNA testing as a new technique and later Scarpetta hatches a plot to flush out the murderer. The murderer however, targets Scarpetta herself but is shot dead by policeman Pete Marino.
The first thing that comes to mind when one thinks about spies and espionage is probably James Bond, perhaps not the version of Bond as written by Ian Fleming but more the version given to us by the producers of the Bond films and portrayed by a succession of actors like Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore and latterly Daniel Craig.
I was probably first introduced to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by the 1979 TV series starring Alec Guinness as George Smiley. In the story Smiley has retired but he is brought back into the intelligence fold after Lacon, the senior civil servant responsible for the service, asks him to investigate a story that has been brought to him by a missing agent named Ricki Tarr. The story concerns a ‘mole’ working for British Intelligence but passing information to the Soviet Union.
Kathy Burke plays Connie Sachs, an old Soviet watcher who became convinced Soviet diplomat Polyakov was a spy but her idea was rejected by the new Circus leaders but Smiley realises Connie might have been on to something. There are various suspects for the mole and they have all been given code names by Control; Tinker, Tailor, Poorman and so on. Control expected Prideux to come back with a code word but he did not and by the time he was exchanged and returned to the UK, the poorly Control had passed away.
Slow Days, Fast Company
Red Strike by Chris Ryan
The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry
The Man who Died Twice by Richard Osman
Amanda appeared in Coronation Street for a number of years but I’ve always known her as the girl who played Cleopatra in the Carry On film Carry on Cleo, you know, the one where Kenneth Williams says ‘Infamy, infamy; they’ve all got it in for me!’
I know I’ve written about this first book already but as it’s part of this month’s holiday read, I feel I have to talk about it once again. As I mentioned in a 
I sought this book out on the internet after reading Bennett’s The Lady in the Van which was a very enjoyable although short book. This volume is a collection of various essays and diaries by the author and it begins with the title essay, Untold Stories which is a series of observations mostly about his mother and father. He describes the life of his family in Yorkshire as he saw it evolve. It is perhaps a very ordinary story of a working class family and their fairly uneventful journey through life. It is very sharply observed and the author takes us through the lives of not only his parents but also of his two aunts as well as other family members. I found this section hugely interesting and with many parallels to my own life, especially when Bennett deals with his aging parents and he has to take them to numerous hospital appointments. His mother suffered with depression and was even hospitalised on a couple of occasions. Later in life she begins to suffer with dementia.
I picked this book up in a sale ages ago, in fact actually a few years ago. I think it was one of those offers like ‘buy two and get one free’. This was my free choice and as such it’s been lying around waiting to be read. It’s a collection from the author’s radio series ‘Letters from America’ which used to be broadcast many years ago on BBC Radio 4. I can’t say I’ve ever listened to the broadcast but I do remember watching a quite exceptional TV documentary series called ‘Alistair Cooke’s America’ which detailed the history of the USA.
This is not one of Forsyth’s thrillers but an autobiography and it was a really interesting read. Forsyth spoke many languages and he puts this down to learning them with local people. He studied French and German at school of course but then spent the summer holidays in France learning from a French family and then later did the same with a German family and even later with a family in Spain. His observations in France were really interesting. The French welcomed Forsyth as an English hitchhiker with the union flag on his backpack but later when travelling in what had been Vichy, France, he felt the English were not as popular.
It’s cold, in fact it’s bloody cold and it’s no secret that I hate the cold. I could write about the cold I suppose but then 
In the latter part of the book Mia talks mostly about Woody Allen with whom she started a relationship with in 1980. I’m a huge fan of Woody and his films. The two met in 1979 and were introduced to each other by Michael Caine. Woody invited her to his New Year’s Eve Party and later, in April of 1980, Mia received a call from his secretary asking if Mia would like to meet Woody for lunch.
Death of a Celebrity by MC Beaton
Stalin became one of the leading providers of funds for the revolutionaries. He did this by masterminding numerous bank robberies and sending the funds on to Lenin.
Just now we have finished our touring part of the holiday and we have come to our rented gîte where we have parked the van and are spending time in this wonderful house that we regularly rent just outside the small village of Parçay-les-Pins.
I saw the film version of this a few years ago which was pretty good, if a little odd. It was presented in a very peculiar way in that the author, Alan Bennett, is portrayed as two people, one as himself as he appears in the story and two, as himself as he writes the story. That oddity aside it was really a rather good and original film. When I heard there was a book version I quickly went to one my usual internet book stores and promptly bought it.
Liz and I always visit a village fête at the weekend, usually those with a vide grenier or brocante attached. A vide grenier is just a car boot sale which we both love. I usually pick up connecting leads for my laptop or iPad, after all, you can never have enough electrical leads. Brocantes are more like flea markets or antique fairs. Just the kind of place to pick up those old telephones that I still love, especially those Bakelite ones.
I picked this book up ages ago and thought it would be a good holiday read. I’ve always liked Roger Moore even though I absolutely hate his James Bond films. I love Moore’s self-deprecating humour, plenty of which is evident in this book. The first part of the book was really interesting and entertaining but like a lot of celebrity autobiographies, this one just gets a little tedious when Roger just seems to list the films and locations and other celebrities he seems to know. On the back of the book was a review claiming this to be the best film autobiography since David Niven’s 
Rooting around in a secondhand shop in St Annes recently I picked up a hardback copy of Winston Churchill’s book My Early Life. It’s a thoroughly wonderful book written in Churchill’s inimitable style. He says in the introduction he has written a book about a vanished age and indeed he has. Churchill was born in 1974 at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. He was the son of Lord Randolph Churchill who was in turn the son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough. His mother was an American, Jennie Jerome, the daughter of an American businessman. She married Lord Randolph and became Lady Churchill.
Looking back, I must have seen the film version before I read the book. Young Winston was directed by Richard Attenborough and is a wonderful adaptation of the book. When Winston first attends school, which of course was boarding school, his headmaster was played by Robert Hardy and he directs Winston to learn some Latin. Winston doesn’t do very well and the headmaster glares down at him and informs him that if he misbehaves, he will be punished, which to a great extent was Churchill’s overall view of school. Later he comments about exams ‘they always contrived to question me about things I didn’t know. I would much rather they asked me about things I did know.
The charge was depicted in the film Young Winston and in his book Churchill ponders about fate and a problem with his shoulder which necessitated using his revolver rather than his sword during the charge, reflecting that if he had been using his sword he might well have been killed in the latter stages when he was surrounded by the enemy.
One of things I particularly liked about Young Winston was the music. I bought the soundtrack album in 1985. The music for the film was in the main composed by Sir Alfred Ralston. He was brought into the film by director Attenborough as the two had worked together on a previous film, ‘Oh what a Lovely War’. The soundtrack features music by Edward Elgar, notably the Pomp and Circumstance March no 4 as well as Nimrod from the Enigma Variations.
Churchill ended up in a POW camp but resolved to escape despite also claiming to the Boers that he was a correspondent and should not have been detained. With the help of a group of Lancashire miners, Winston stowed away on a goods train and made his way back to the British lines.
Goldfinger is probably one of the best books in the Bond series and only the second 007 book that I ever read. (I’ll tell you about the first one later). I was at school at the time and for one of our assignments in English, we were asked to bring in a book which contained a really good description of a character. I chose Goldfinger as in it, Ian Fleming describes Goldfinger as a man who appeared to have been made using bits of other peoples’ bodies. This must have been in the mid-1960s and although the character of James Bond was pretty well known, the films had not begun to permeate down to the television screen.
This is an interesting story and the resulting film has perhaps become the quintessential Bond film even more so than Goldfinger. The story is about a criminal underworld organisation (SPECTRE) that steals an aircraft with nuclear weapons and holds the west to ransom threatening to explode the bombs.
In this book the secret service find that Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE, is trying to assume the identity of the Comte Balthazar de Bleuville. Bond poses as Sir Hilary Bray of the College of Arms in order to meet with Blofeld. Interestingly, Sir Hilary gives Bond a quick resumé of Bond’s family history including the Bond family motto ‘the world is not enough’ which was used by the film producers for the title of a later 007 film unrelated to Fleming’s books.
This book follows on from the previous one and we find James Bond depressed and disillusioned with his job after the death of Tracy. M considers sacking Bond but instead sends him on a diplomatic mission to meet the head of the Japanese secret service. The British want access to Russian documents which the Japanese are currently decoding. The Japanese decide to offer this information to Bond if he will assassinate a British resident who has created a garden of death, a garden full of poisonous plants which are attracting many Japanese citizens who want to commit suicide. Bond realises that this man is Blofeld and decides to keep this quiet until after he has killed him.
