whatcathyreadnext

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was a Freebie so I shared a list of ten Books I’ll Be Reading Soon.

Wednesday – WWW Wednesday is the opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next…and have a good nose around to see what other bloggers are reading. I also shared my review of the fabulous Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook by Celia Rees as part of the blog tour.

Thursday – I published my review of Belladonna by Anbara Salam.

Friday – I shared my review of my Buchan of the Month for July – The Gap in the Curtain by John Buchan.

Saturday – The first Saturday of a new month means 6 Degrees of Separation. My bookish chain took me from How To Do Nothing to The Illumination of Ursula Flight.

As always, thanks to everyone who has liked, commented on or so generously shared my blog posts on social media this week.

New arrivals

The Warlow Experiment by Alix Nathan (audio book)

Herbert Powyss lives in an estate in the Welsh Marches, with enough time and income to pursue a gentleman’s fashionable investigations and experiments in botany. But he longs to make his mark in the field of science – something consequential enough to present to the Royal Society in London.

He hits on a radical experiment in isolation. For seven years a subject will inhabit three rooms in the basement of the manor house, fitted out with rugs, books, paintings, and even a chamber organ. Meals will arrive thrice daily via a dumb waiter. The solitude will be totally unrelieved by any social contact whatsoever; the subject will keep a diary of his daily thoughts and actions. The pay: fifty pounds per annum, for life.

Only one man is desperate to apply for the job: John Warlow, a semi-literate labourer with a wife and six children to provide for. The experiment, a classic Enlightenment exercise gone more than a little mad, will have unforeseen consequences for all involved.

Skelton’s Guide to Domestic Poisons by David Stafford (eARC, courtesy of Allison & Busby via NetGalley)

Unassuming Yorkshireman, Arthur Skelton, is one of the most celebrated and recognisable barristers in the land. His success in the high-profile Dryden case – ‘the scandal of 1929’ – catapulted him to the front pages of the national newspapers. His services are now much in demand and, after careful consideration, he agrees to defend Mary Dutton. Dubbed ‘The Collingford Poisoner’ by the press, Mary is accused of poisoning her husband after years of abuse. Together with his trusted assistant, Skelton digs deeper and discovers that secrets and lies run deep in the Dutton family and all is not as it appears.

The Whispering House by Elizabeth Brooks (eARC, courtesy of Doubleday via NetGalley)

Freya Lyell is struggling to move on from her sister Stella’s suicide five years ago. Visiting the bewitching Byrne Hall, only a few miles from the scene of the tragedy, she discovers a portrait of Stella – a portrait she had no idea existed, in a house Stella never set foot in. Or so she thought.

Driven to find out more about her sister’s secrets, Freya is drawn into the world of Byrne Hall and its owners: charismatic artist Cory and his sinister, watchful mother. But as Freya’s relationship with Cory crosses the line into obsession, the darkness behind the locked doors of Byrne Hall threatens to spill out.

Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce (hardcover, signed)

Margery Benson’s life ended the day her father walked out of his study and never came back. Forty years later, abandoning a dull job, she advertises for an assistant. The successful candidate is to accompany Margery on an expedition to the other side of the world to search for a beetle that may or may not exist. Enid Pretty is not who she had in mind. But together they will find themselves drawn into an adventure that exceeds all Margery’s expectations, eventually finding new life at the top of a red mountain.

This is a story that is less about what can be found than the belief it might be found; it is an intoxicating adventure story and it is also a tender exploration of a friendship between two unforgettable women that defies all boundaries.

A Little London Scandal by Miranda Emmerson (eARC, courtesy of 4th Estate and William Collins via NetGalley)

Nik felt the mistake in his bones. The man in the snakeskin suit reached down towards him and pulled Nik upright by the collar of his coat. Nik didn’t see what happened next but he felt the wall. He cried out and then someone hit him and he closed his eyes and waited for it to be over.

London, 1967. Nik Christou has been a rent boy since he was 15. He knows the ins and outs of Piccadilly Circus, how to spot a pretty policeman and to interpret a fleeting glance. One summer night his life is turned upside down, first by violence and then by an accusation of murder.

Anna Treadway, fleeing the ghosts of her past, works as a dresser in Soho’s Galaxy theatre. She has learned never to place too much trust in the long arm of the law and, convinced Nik is innocent she determines to find him an alibi.

Merrian Wallis, devoted wife to an MP with a tarnished reputation, just wants proof that her husband couldn’t have been involved.

But how do you recognise the truth when everyone around you is playing a role – and when any spark of scandal is quickly snuffed out by those with power? As Anna searches for clues amongst a cast of MPs, actors, members of gentlemen’s clubs and a hundred different nightly clients, will anyone be willing to come forward and save Nik from his fate?

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

Book Review: The Housing Lark by Sam Selvon
Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Colours In Their Titles
Waiting on Wednesday
Blog Tour/Book Review: The Whispering House by Elizabeth Brooks
Blog Tour/Book Review: The Borrowed Boy by Deborah Klee
My Five Favourite July Reads

It’s the first Saturday of a new month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation!

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post. You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees

This month’s starting book is How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. I certainly can’t have been paying attention because I confess I’d never heard of this book before it was mentioned by Kate. From the blurb, I gather it’s a critique of the forces vying for our attention in the modern world of social media. Unfortunately, I can’t say it’s likely to draw my attention away from the books I already have on my shelves waiting to be read.

Taking a rather literal approach, my first link is to The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard, a thriller with a book-within-a-book structure.

A numerical train of thought took me from ‘nothing’ to Towards Zero by Agatha Christie in which connections must be discovered between a seemingly random series of events.

Also by Agatha Christie, The ABC Murders concerns a series of murders that seem to have no connection besides the alphabetical sequence of their location. Hercule Poirot must put his “little grey cells” to work.

Back to my literal approach and The Alphabet of Heart’s Desire by Brian Keaney. It involves the meeting of three people from very disparate backgrounds, one of whom is Thomas de Quincey.

Another writer, diarist Samuel Pepys, is the main character in Entertaining Mr Pepys by Deborah Swift. Set in 1666, the book features the dazzling world of Restoration theatre.

Another book set in the 17th century and involving the theatre is The Illumination of Ursula Flight by Anna-Marie Crowhurst. The titular heroine of the book harbours an ambition to become a playwright.

So this month we’ve travelled from our always on, 24/7 world via numbers and letters to the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd. Although in the 17th century, perhaps it was likely to be less the smell of the greasepaint and more the smell of the crowd… mitigated a little, perhaps, by the scent of Nell Gwynne’s oranges.

Where did your chain take you this month?