A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

Having already enjoyed The Curious Incident... I was looking forward to this.

It's an entertaining tale of middle-aged crisis and family life with all its ups and downs, told with humour but touching on serious themes: mental and physical health and relationship problems, all focused on a particular family event which may or may not take place. Uncertainty is present until the very end.

Soap-opera like, it's a chunky read, but a light one nevertheless, written in very short chapters, even shorter, mainly fragmentary sentences and full of dialogue. Characters are well-drawn and mostly convincing without being too predictable. The ending resolves fairly satisfactorily, though I couldn't help feeling that some characters were rather let off the hook.

S is for Silence by Sue Grafton

I don't usually read crime fiction, and this is not an author I'd heard of, so this was a bit of a step in the dark for me, but I was pleasantly surprised. Very little blood or gore (which I thought would be par for the course), just an intriguing mystery with the whodunnit question not revealed until the very end.

It's a murder, of course; one which occurred many years ago in the 1950s, an era fashionably and faithfully reconstructed in chapters alternating (but clearly signposted) with the 1980s - when the main novel is set. The detective protagonist is a feisty female (naturally!) who becomes, by the end, more entangled with the mystery than she finds comfortable.

It's a fast-paced, atmospheric and entertaining read with an ending which is gripping, full of suspense and worth the wait. On the down side, English readers might find the endless Americanisms in the narrative somewhat grating (though strangely enough the dialogue does not seem to have this problem), and the vast array of characters (i.e. suspects) can be very confusing: they are not sufficiently well-drawn to be distinctive, in my opinion, though that might be intentional, given the character of the victim - who is thoroughly dislikeable. I think I might need to read it again to work out exactly what was going on.

On the basis of this one, I would read others by the same author if I came across them, despite that fact that I wouldn't normally choose to read this genre.

What Katy Did at School by Susan M. Coolidge

This trilogy (begun by the more famous What Katy Did) is generally thought of as a children's - specifically, girls' - book, and I would agree, but there's much more to it than that. Written in the 1870s, these books - much in the same way as the Laura Ingalls Wilder series - are worth looking at for the social history alone, and the What Katy Did trilogy in particular gives an interesting insight into American urban middle class life at that time.

In this one, we see the precursor of Enid Blyton's Malory Towers series, Brent-Dyer's Chalet School books and many others, written almost three-quarters of a century earlier - and in America.  Amazingly, it sounds very similar and thus refreshingly "modern", especially when you consider what was being written in England at that time. If you liked Malory Towers, you'll love What Katy Did at School in spite of the 19th century language. The same characters are there: the sensible one, the madcap trickster, the spoilt brat, the inseparable sisters. Injustices are perpetrated and avenged. Teachers are feared, pranks are played, feasts are eaten, friends and enemies made. The only rather strange omission, which I noticed for the first time when reading as an adult, is the complete absence of any kind of lessons or teaching going on, despite this being a school story. Another difference between this and later school story types is the tendency for the author to intervene and address the reader directly, in order to make a point - a 19th century feature of style, maybe, as it also crops up in books such as Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

I really enjoyed reading this again after so many years. I found it funny, cleverly written and full of convincing characters, though a much shorter read than I remembered.

The Big Bang Theory and Philosophy by (eds.) William Irwin and Dean A. Kowalski

This is an academic work (fairly hefty at 278 pages), based upon the popular American TV comedy The Big Bang Theory, which I happen to be a big fan of.

It's a series of essays, taking various strands/traditions/theories of philosophy and ethics and showing to what extent each one is reflected in the show. Examples of themes under discussion are: is it morally wrong to laugh at Sheldon (the main character)? What is friendship? and science, religion and the family. All are liberally illustrated by events and quotes from the programme.

I'm a non-philosopher, and this did give me a bit more of an insight into what philosophy is all about. It did get a bit heavy in a very few places, but other parts were very enjoyable and entertaining, reminding me just how funny and insightful the show is.

If you are a fan of the show and either know or want to know more about philosophy, then this book is for you.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

This is non-fiction, based on real life events as told to the author.

Kamila is the second-oldest of a large family of mainly girls in Kabul during the take-over by the Taliban, and here she tells of what it was really like to live under that regime.

When her father left home to avoid imprisonment for supporting the previous regime, she took responsibility for the family and started a business making and selling women's clothes to support the family. She also began a project to teach women sewing, so they could help themselves in a society where there were so many widows, yet women were forbidden to work, be educated or even talk to men who were not relations. Her life was fraught with danger, especially when she later began to branch out and join an internationally funded project to help local people.

This is a fascinating account, if a bit depressing at times (though there is a happy ending) and the events certainly ring true when compared to other books I've read on the subject. It's the everyday details of people's lives that are so captivating, though I feel the tone is a bit pedestrian at times and some of the time frames are a bit confusing and less plausible, but these are minor quibbles. Kamila is certainly an inspiring person who deserves our attention and praise for her courage and hard work.

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier

In this gripping, action-packed Hardy-esque story of courageous young girl goes to live with ghastly relatives, the brave if foolhardy heroine overcomes fear and just about everything thrown at her only to waltz off at the end to another adventure, making the book feel ultimately more like Part One of a series than a stand-alone novel. Themes are similar to those found elsewhere such as in Bronte's Wuthering Heights or Austen's Northanger Abbey, but this is nowhere near as well-written as any of those, being more Catherine Cookson in tone and language, though none the less thrilling for all that.

I really enjoyed this for its bleak evocation of scenery, air of mystery and above all the plot, which contained some genuine surprises.

The Book of Books by Melvyn Bragg

This is a history of the King James Bible and its impact on the world since first publication.
It's a very wide-ranging book, beginning with earlier Bibles and covering such themes as feminism, philosophy, the American Civil War, 19th century philanthropy and socialism, to name but a few. It makes the case well but I feel is a little too wide-ranging at times, straying into territory (for example, taking on Dawkins) which would be better covered in another book, though fascinating nevertheless and of course well-written. It certainly kept my interest throughout the 350 or so pages and altered my perspective on what I had previously considered a rather outdated book.
 I'd recommend this to anyone with an interest in church or American history,  language or social change.

Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale

This is another one with an interesting structure; here, each chapter begins with the gallery notes on what is presumably an item in an exhibition, and the events in that chapter serve to illustrate or explain that particular item. There's a lot of jumping around through different times and places, which can be confusing at first, but as the book progresses a more complete picture emerges. 
The characters are not particularly distinctive , in my opinion, nor is the main character a particularly attractive one - in fact, she is downright irritating, but more sympathy is evoked from the reader as the book progresses, throwing light on the character's problems. My husband gave up on it, but what kept me reading was the desire to find out what happened as the jigsaw of events is pieced together. The ending is rather abrupt.

Salmon Fishing in The Yemen by Paul Torday

Really interesting structure: a series of emails, interview scripts and diaries adds up to a gripping story with interesting characters. This has recently appeared as a film, but the book itself paints a colourful picture of the places visited - imagination is free! The relationship between the main protagonist and his estranged wife is an interesting one - not explored fully in the film, where the relationship between the main character and his female colleague takes centre stage instead - to its detriment, I feel. Don't see the film - read the book instead; it's way superior.

Love and War in the Apennines by Eric Newby

This is a brilliant memoir of an Englishman's time as an escaped POW during World War 2. It reads almost like a novel, certainly with as many twists and turns, full of geographical details, local characters, narrow escapes and, yes, romance. The good news is Newby became a writer after the war, so there are other books for me to track down and hopefully enjoy as much as this one.