Top Reads for July

I am happy with my July reads, a book from the darkest corner of my TBR pile, another I received as a gift, a trio of Asian mysteries and more!  I am still working on The 11 in 11 Category Challenge : Soffitta1's 11 in 11.   I've got more books on my top reads than in previous, this is a nod to my 1001 Challenge and also to the fact that I was doing a summer camp and needed some "switch-off" reads for the evenings.  I am pleased to say that there were no bad apples this time, which probably accounts for so many "top reads"!



I read three page-turners, whilst they aren't the highest rated books, they all entertained me.  First up was Water for Elephants, which I received this as a RABCK, as it was on my wishlist and couldn't resist getting stuck in immediately. I haven't seen the film, and didn't know much about it before starting, all the better.  The book has two timelines, a man in an old folks' home is reliving his past, a very colourful past. Jacob worked on a circus as a young man, and here the story of his life on the road and his love, Marlena.  A good love story told against a rather unusual backdrop, though I felt it could have done with some tweaking to make it great.  Next was The Winter Ghosts, a real page turner, I sat down in a cafe to read " just a few more chapters" and ended up finishing the book!   I was already familiar with Mosse's work, having read Labyrinth a few years ago. The Winter Ghosts also takes place in the same area of France, the Languedoc region, famous for the Cathars. Starting in the inter war period, a young man walks into a shop with a piece of parchment with an almost forgotten language written on it, he then tells the story of how he came into possession of it.  I enjoyed the dual time period of the book, and Mosse certainly knows how to draw in her audience and paint a beautiful scene. Perfect after a long day at summer camp, it is the kind of book that sucks you, entertains you, but ultimately won't remain with you for long.   The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce, another of my long term TBR books. I really enjoyed Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, which is why I picked this up.   Wilberforce is a wine-lover, though that term doesn't really get close to how he really feels about the drink, he "inherited" a great wine cellar when he bought up a dying friend's collection. He justifies his drinking, claiming not to be an alcoholic as he only drinks great wine, not just any bottle.   The style of the book is unusual, with Wilberforce narrating his story, each part starts a year before the previous, so while you know how it will end, only slowly do you find why.   I would recommend the book, for the literary style and also a, sometimes painful and often sad, intimate portrayal of a man's self-destruction.

I kept up with my 52x 1001 books in 2011 Challenge, this months offereing differed wildly.  I had put off reading The Age of Innocence, putting it down and picking up again and again, over a period of 3 years!  It is a tale of clandestine love in the upper echelons of society in New York in the 1870s.  Archer is torn between love and desire on one side and social duty on the other.  Very good, not only because of a well-told romance, but also as a window into the society of the time.  The Trial, another book on my radar since studying some Kafka at uni, was a good, thought-provoking read. I did have a severe case of deja vu with the priest's description of the door keeper, but as none of the rest of the book seemed familiar, I think I had studied that section as part of background reading. Strange, but fitting I suppose!  A lighter entry from the list was Fantomas.  I knew nothing of this, being sent it through the 1001-Library. It was great fun, a mystery about famed mysterious criminal, Fantomas, and Juve, the detective determined to catch him. Three seemingly unlinked crimes, 2 rather gruesome, are connected by Juve and he sets off to find evidence. There are better books in the genre, but apparently this book was the inspiration for those which followed.

I got stuck into Colin Cotterill's Dr. Siri series, reading the first three in July.  It is an unusual series, from the setting in Laos, a little known country, to its main characters.  The first in the Dr. Siri series, The Coroner's Lunch, introduces us to Dr. Siri, a reluctant coroner in '70s Laos.  Siri is a great character, he is a grumpy 70 year old,  a party member, though he admits to joining up for a woman, his wife.  He doesn't suffers fools gladly, and he, and his unusual team made up of a rotund nurse and a young man with mild Down's Syndrome, solve a series of unusual murders.  In the first book, the bodies of an official's wife and 3 Vietnamese torture victims cause the doctor to look more closely, especially when it becomes clear he is not wanted on either case.  In the second book, Thirty-three Teeth, there is a bigger nod to the supernatural.  Here Siri has two missions, first to discover how to open a box with a royal seal and second, to capture the creature terrorising Ventiene.  The third installment, Disco for the Departed pulls you straight into a strange mystery, this time an arm is found sticking out of a concrete path. Siri and Dtui are called to investigate.  It is always good to come across an interesting new series.  The only snag is I have book 6, but not book 4 or 5. I may crack my buying moratorium, as it means I can read book 6 which is on my TBR pile. That means it isn't really buying new books, doesn't it?

Wildcard of the month must go to The Ministry of Fear. Not what I thought it would be from the title - another wartime thriller. It is set in WW2, but is a a psychological thriller. Arthur Rowe is a man with a guilty conscience, he killed his ill wife, deemed a mercy killing, but he can't get past it. He goes to a fair, and on a whim goes to have his fortune read, accidentally giving the code phrase to the fortune-teller. He leaves with a cake, the weight of which was revealed to him by the fortune-teller, wondering why the fair organisers don't want to give it to him.  Good thriller, unexpectedly so from the cover.