Recent Reads: January 2020

hi everyone I'm Miranda and welcome to my youtube channel apologies for how long it's been since my last video December got really crazy for me and then unfortunately I got sick in January and was just in bed for days feeling awful although fortunately I was able to read during that time so I thought in my little comeback video today I would tell you about some of the books that I've been reading recently that I've really enjoyed first of all this was a reread for me it's de Stevenson's misses him of the regiment and it's the first in her series of misses ten books Dini Stephenson is one of my favorite Scottish writers she wrote a lot in the interwar period which is one of my very favorite periods to read about a dozer to read authors from that time and this book is written in diary format it actually starts on January 1st so that's why I thought it was really appropriate to reread it in January it's based a lot on de Stevenson's own life she started out just sort of writing about what it was like to be the wife of an army officer for a friend of hers and her friend said this is brilliant you must actually write this as a proper book so de Stephenson did and how mrs. Tillman series turned out to be really really popular but the stars very much like the diary of a provincial lady by Ian Delafield which is another of my very favorite books this is really humorous just like diary of a provincial lady the main character Hester who is based on these demons and herself is really charming really witty I don't think it's quite as funny as diary of a provincial lady which just has me laughing all the time but it still is a really end attaining light-hearted read and it's the perfect sort of hot water bottle and duvet kind of read so I highly recommend this one this edition also includes I think it was called golden days or something like that which was originally written as a sequel to the first book mrs. Kim of the regimen but this edition includes golden days within it and that is basically the June chapter in the books you can see this is all June and it is a really big big section of this book and that's actually originally golden days and in that mrs. Kim goes on holiday to the Scottish Highlands with a good friends of hers and I love the description of the Highlands and of the adventures that she has there but yes this is just a wonderful read if you like The Diary of a provincial lady you will love this book next up is rhododendron pie by Marjorie sharp you might remember from my london library book haul video I'll pop a link to that in the description box but I mentioned that I got this from the London library in that video and I read it and really enjoyed it this is Marjory sharks first novel again this is one from one sort of interwar period and it's also very entertaining it's about a young girl who is a member of a very intellectual family and they very much fancy themselves as real intellects and artists and also being the free spirits free thinkers it's a bit of a parody on the sort of Bloomsbury group and intellectuals of the time in some ways I feel but and the heroine in this book is very much not like that she always feels that she's the stupid one in her family and she enjoys life simple pleasures a lot more than her family members do she falls in love with a young man he works in a bank which she knows her family would not approve of at all if she wanted to marry an artist or writer someone like that they would be happy but not anything as mundane as someone working in a bank it's really a coming-of-age story about and she has to realize what is really important to her who she really is and take a stand against her family but there are definitely some darker undertones to this book as well father figure is not very pleasant in many ways he's shown as very selfish person and there are hints that he's got a bad drinking habit in the book so all of this pseudo-intellectual lifestyle mask some much deeper anxieties within the family Ahmad Rashad does touch on that a bit which makes this a more interesting but then it first appears to be having said that I think you can still tell it's her first novel it's not her best but it still was a really really good read I enjoyed this one a lot too okay next is dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent I started this in December and I finished it in January for some reason I was convinced that this was fiction when I first picked it up and whilst I was reading it I realize it's actually a memoir which actually makes a story even more charming because it's about Isabel Vincent's friendship with a man in his nineties he's the father of one of her best friends and he has recently been widowed is about herself is going through a very difficult situation in her marriage she gets divorced within the book so she's struggling with her own kind of grief over a relationship ending and her marriage not working out and she befriends Edward she starts going over to his flat first to sort of check on him for her but Edward is such a charming man and he makes the most wonderful meals for her whenever she comes over and offers such marvelous advice on love and on life and he's just one of those really warm-hearted generous sorts of people who collects friends around him and he really encourages her to find happiness in her own love in her own life she also discovers a real love for food and through just human bonds and connection and the joys that you have in well the joys you can find in inviting friends over for a meal and how that can really enrich your life each chapter starts out with a little menu of what Edward has made for her when she goes for dinner with him and it's just a really sweet lovely read and it's all the more special because it is actually based on a true story and a true friendship I think this would make a lovely Valentine's read coming up for February because it's about all sorts of different kinds of love so yeah this is what I really really recommend okay and this is a nonfiction book as well on truffle sands by Laura coming it says my mother and other missing persons this is a kind of autobiography of well a kind of biography of Laura Cummings mother and I was really excited to read this because I've heard very good things about it but I didn't really know what to expect I didn't want to find out too much about it before I read it and I don't want to give anything away because I think this is one that's really important to come to without a lot of expectations and to just let the story unfold for you because it's very deliberately revealed throughout the book I think Laura Cummings does a brilliant job of telling her mother's story and keeping the suspense going all through this book but the scent to me it's about her mother's rather extraordinary childhood her mother was kidnapped off of the beach in Lincolnshire and she went missing for a few days before she was found the mother didn't even know about this kidnapping until much much later in her life when she actually started delving into her past also with the help of her daughter and they discovered some very curious things along the way and one that she was kidnapped Fred for a few days oh so they found a photograph of her mother from when she was very young in which her mother was called grace her name Grace was written on the photo and her mother had always been known as Betty so there's this mystery of as to why she had a different name when she was very little why she was kidnapped what the real history was to her life and also her relationship to her father and her mother especially her father and how that all comes into play Laura Cummings mother went on to become an artist Laura coming herself is very interested in art so there's also a lot about looking at things from an artistic viewpoint I think that's why there's a lot of attention paid to details in photographs and family photographs oh so in the type of artwork her mother created and what inspired her mother and I find that really interesting looking at family history from that kind of perspective I thought that was really well done I admit when I initially was reading this I sort of felt how interesting is other people's family history to everyone else really but the more I read it the more engrossed I became in the story of law Laura Cummings mother so I really recommend this it was it's like nothing I've read before really fascinating read and I think you would all enjoy it too next up wakin Hurst by Michelle haver I recently read this book it's a brilliant gothic tale and it's set in the Fenland's and the landscape is like another character in the in the novel and the friends are seen to be this so in some ways quite creepy dangerous place that sort of filled with eels and it's a place where people can go missing or can be drowned but it's also shown as a haven and there's a beautiful natural environment waken host is set in early in the early Edwardian period it follows the story of forgotten her name Maud and at the start of the book at the very beginning you realized that mord's father has gone out one day and committed a murder so that's the start of the book and then you go back in time and you find out what circumstances led to that killing it's a sort of fascinating exploration of Moore's relationship with her father she finds his private diary and starts reading it when she's a young girl and it completely changes her idea of him and how they live together in this sort of big house in the countryside how she navigates her relationship with him and how things just start to crumble and just makes almost gripping gripping story story so if you're a fan of Gothic literature then I really recommend this one definitely one of my favorites from that genre and to date another brilliant January read is the glove maker by and what why is Garber I hope that's how you say her name I'm not quite sure but this book is set mainly in January so it's a great one to read this month it's set in 1888 in the Utah Territory in my Canyon countryside and it tells the story of Deborah yes Deborah I'm terrible at remembering names um but she is a glove maker she makes gloves out of leather and she is in this sort of very desolate landscape a sort of tiny little village that she lives in only has a few households and she is left alone by her husband who is a wheel maker and repairer so he is off travelling to fix wheels and make meal wheels for wagons and she's been left at home she's waiting his return he is late and she doesn't know why so one night there's a knock on her door and a strange man appears and for reasons that become clear in the book she agrees to help him and to hide him for a night this is about the Mormon settlers in that area it's based part on partially on a true story and true facts and a real place that and visited and she became really fascinated by the history and this sort of book and came out of that research it's a really good read it's not very long I read this very quickly but I really loved the story of Deborah who is shown to be such a strong strong woman there's a bit of romance that runs idiot as well but it also just shows the hardships of life at that time and how brave you had to be and how frightening it was to be a woman on your own and this is just a really gripping read absolutely recommend it too and great for this month I also read random commentary by Dorothy Whipple I spoke about this in my London library book or video to learn Dorothy Whipple is one of my favorite writers and Persephone books have published all of her novels but this hasn't been republished by anyone yet and it's a selection of entries from Dorothy Whipple's journals and Diaries she wrote she wrote these entries in the sort of 1930s and also a bit during World War two I found they're such inspiring read it's really funny it's so so it also tells Dorothy Whipple's excitement over getting her first book published her sort of trials of writing and being an author but I saw why she loved it so much and as well as just little snippets of her life which I found so interesting but also really inspiring as someone who wants to write myself I really enjoyed reading Dorothy Whipple's ideas on writing and what it meant to her so I really hope Persephone books republish this I would absolutely love them to so then we can all buy it and read it ok next I wanted to share a couple of books that I'm featuring on my podcast and cattle this month so the first one is the other Bennet sisters by Jonas head low this was just published this month but I actually read it in the autumn I read a proof copy I absolutely adored this it was my favorite read of 2019 I'm such a fan of Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice the other Bennet sister is about Mary Bennet who had never thought much about at all from reading Pride and Prejudice but Janice is clearly such a huge Jane Austen fan as well and this book is written so sympathetically very much in the style and tone of Jane Austen herself and it sets slightly before the start of Pride and Prejudice oh so a bit during the events that happen in Pride and Prejudice and then a lot of Mary's story is told um after the time frame in which Pride and Prejudice and so a lot of it goes on after is married to mr. Darcy what happens to Mary and Janice hello just did such a good job at explaining how Mary became the character that we find in Pride and Prejudice she then goes on to imagine Mary's future and she makes a proper heroine out of Mary which i think is quite a feat but it's so believable the way that she writes it this book really has you rooting for Mary Bennet and she finds such happiness at the end which i think is wonderful you also get to hear of other favorite characters like mr. and mrs. Collins and Lady Catherine de Bourg and the Gardiners which is really lovely I love learning more about those characters from Pride and Prejudice and how Janice has imagined them Miss Bingley has a starring role too but yes if you love Pride and Prejudice you would really enjoy this book so I really recommend it and then the other book and that is going to be featured this week content as well cast I'll put a link to the podcast in the shown in the description box for this video so you can check out both these interviews this is a Renison a co J's nudibranch this is a collection of short stories which I was really interested to read I don't read a lot of short stories I want to read more and I was really really pleased to read this collection honestly it's like nothing I have read before I said - I Renison in my interview with her your stories remind me of Dorothea Tanning's paintings Dorothea tanning was a surrealist painter and I Renison is an incredible writer she doubles a lot in magic realism there's a big element of the surreal to her writing but she conjures such incredible images with her words some of the short stories are very very short - it's summer only really like from a poem and a Renison loves poetry which i think really comes through in this collection but it's in the form of some of the stories also in hunt for a lyrical style of writing and there's a great order I feel to the stories too they are meant to be read in a particular order so the symbolism kind of builds up in the in the book as you read through it and you start making all these connections between the stories the real themes are on women heard and what it means to be a woman on transformation or reinvention on rebirth oh so there's a lot about language in different cultures it's a really really fascinating read that very much stays with you and it's one if you like short stories what you want to be maybe challenged and to read something in a very different style of writing then you might be used to then I would absolutely recommend this book it will definitely stay with you okay but there's all of the books that I've been really enjoying recently I admit I've actually left out sort of books I've been listening to inaudible but to be honest that's been mainly either Agatha Christie mysteries or Jane Austen's books because I listen to those over and over and over again now my favorite audible listens but I hope you found this video inspiring I hope you found some books that you might like to read let me know if any of these days have appealing to you and let me know what you've been reading recently if you have any recommendations for me I'd love to hear them but thanks so much for watching do give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it and subscribe to my channel and I'll see you again very soon in the next video bye

Channel: Miranda Mills

Views: 2,734

Rating: 4.958549 out of 5

Keywords: booktube, reading, books, bookstagram, ukbookstagram

Id: AJ429wJZOrs

Length: 21min 51sec (1311 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 19 2020