Category: Read

My Week in Books – 19th April 2026

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On the blog last week

Monday – I published my review of Love Lane by Patrick Gale and a Q&A with Luna Westish, author of Meet Me at the Ruins. I also shared my Top 3 March 2026 Reads.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books Titles That Describe Me. And I shared an extract from The Oxford Affair by Lynne Kaufman.

Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading.

Thursday – I celebrated the announcement of the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2026.

Friday – I published an excerpt from The Unforgettable Mailman by April Howells.

Saturday – I joined other gardeners for the #SixonSaturday meme, sharing six things happening in my garden this week.

Sunday – I concluded a busy blogging week with my review of Thunderball by Ian Fleming for the #1961Club.

New on my shelves

The Weight of Angels by John Boyne (Doubleday via NetGalley)

When the Marquis of Queensbury left his calling card at the Albemarle Club in February 1895, it bore only his name and five words: ‘For Oscar Wilde, posing Somdomite’. The most feted playwright of his day famously sued for libel, which led to his arrest, criminal prosecution and ultimately prison. From then on, his gilded existence spiralled into public disgrace, humiliation and an early death.

But what if he had simply ignored the insult? What direction might his life have taken? This is the premise of John Boyne’s extraordinary new novel, The Weight of Angels.

Rather than dying in penury in Paris at the age of forty-six, what if he had lived to bear witness to the momentous events and cataclysmic changes of the first part of the twentieth century, and even influence some of them? What if the second half of his life were as celebrated, dramatic, tumultuous and exhilarating as the first?

In imagining the life that Oscar Wilde never had, John Boyne has written one of the great what-if stories of modern literature, giving the great Anglo-Irish poet and playwright a fresh new voice and the opportunity to take an entirely different path.

Miss Veal and Miss Ham by Vikki Heywood (Muswell Press)

It is 1951 and behind the counter of a modest post office in a leafy Buckinghamshire village Miss Dora Ham and Miss Beatrix Veal maintain their careful facade as respected local spinsters. But their true story is one of passion: suffragist activists who fell in love in the 1900s, danced in London’s secret gay clubs between the wars, and comforted one another during the first night of the Blitz. Together they have built a life of quiet dignity and service in rural England.

But now the harsh realities of the post-war world are encroaching as over the course of one pivotal day their carefully constructed world begins to fracture, forcing Miss Veal and Mis Ham to face heart-breaking decisions.

Farewell to Eden by Sebastian Faulks (Hutchinson Heinemann via NetGalley)

Philip Deval, a soldier recently returned from the beaches of Normandy, arrives in Palestine on a peace-keeping mission in the final days of the British Mandate. The Sea of Galilee glitters in the distance as war-weary troops marvel at the novelty of oranges and sun – a paradise that belies a fierce new conflict about to erupt.

Some years later, Philip begins work teaching at a school in the English countryside and meets the enigmatic music mistress, Frances Darwood. Over long evenings spent listening to records in her music room, they grow close. But Philip is a changed man, and must confront the secrets and scars of all he has lived through – which threaten, even now, to upend his future.

What I’m currently reading

I’m reading Paper Sisters, Dark is the Morning from my NetGalley shelf and All Cats Are Grey for the blog tour.

Look out for…

  • Book Review: A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia
  • Book Review: A Far-Flung Life by M. L. Stedman
  • Book Review: All Cats Are Grey by Susan Barrett

Book Review – Thunderball by Ian Fleming #1961Club

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About the Book

James Bond is in disgrace. His monthly medical report is critical of the high-living that is ruining his health, and M packs him off for a fortnight in a nature-cure clinic to be tuned-up to his former pitch of exceptional fitness.

Furiously, Bond undergoes the shame of the carrot-juice and nut-cutlet regime – and thereby minutlely upsets the plans of S.P.E.C.T.R.E, a new adversary, more deadly, more ruthless even than Smersh.

What is S.P.E.C.T.R.E? What are its plans? Alas, the organisation is all too realistically described, its plans all too contemporary for comfort. This, the latest James Bond adventure, casts a long and terrible shadow.

Format: Hardcover (191 pages) Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Publication date: March 1961 Genre: Thriller

Find Thunderball on Goodreads

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My Review

Thunderball is the book I read for the #1961Club, the reading event hosted by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings that ends today. It’s also one of the books on my second Classics Club list.

Thunderball is the ninth book in Ian Fleming’s spy thriller series starring James Bond. I only know James Bond from the film versions, expecially the classic ones starring Sean Connery, so I was surprised by how closely events in the book resemble the film. As I discovered, there’s a reason for this because the novel is based on an at the time unpublished screenplay that was a collaboration between Ian Fleming and four other people. When it was published under Ian Fleming’s name only a legal case followed.

Thunderball introduces Bond’s future arch-enemy Enrst Stavro Blofeld and his crime organisation S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (the Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion). Blofeld runs S.P.E.C.T.R.E with ruthless fanaticism, despatching members who disappoint him in inventive ways. The book also sees the return of Bond’s friend Felix Leiter, seconded back into the CIA. This is where it can get confusing if you’ve only seen the films because Leiter is bearing the physical evidence of a deadly encounter in an earlier book.

The plot concerns the theft of two atomic bombs by S.P.E.C.T.R.E in a plan to extort a huge ransom from the UK and US governments or risk the bombs being detonated in unnamed locations. The location of the airplane which carried the bombs is unknown but Bond’s boss M has a hunch it might be the Bahamas. Bond’s not so sure but resigns himself to being posted there. After all, there are worse places to be sent. ‘He would get himself a good sunburn, and watch the show from the wings.’ It will come as no surprise that Bond finds himself not on the sidelines but in the thick of it.

The man in charge of S.P.E.C.T.R.E’s plan on the ground is Blofeld’s second-in-command Emilio Largo whose super-yacht, the Disco Volante, is the operation’s headquarters. Aboard the yacht is Largo’s girlfriend, Domino, with whom Bond – naturally – becomes involved. Unknown to Domino she has a connection to S.P.E.C.T.R.E.’s plan and, when she discovers it, she agrees to help Bond, with unpleasant consequences.

Thunderball was a lot of fun. Yes, some of it is dated but I actually found Bond less misogynistic than I expected. There’s actually a quite tender scene at the end. The plot cleverly feeds in to contemporary concerns about nuclear weapons and introduces some great villains. There are exciting underwater scenes, especially towards the end of the book.

You get the sense Fleming’s Bond possesses many of the characteristics of his creator. A heavy smoker, a connoisseur of cocktails, thoroughly at home at the gaming table and with a taste for fast cars.

In three words: Exciting, glamorous, suspensful

About the Author

Ian Fleming was born in 1908. Best known for his post-war James Bond series of spy novels, he came from a wealthy family. Educated at Eton, Sandhurst, and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva, Fleming moved through several jobs before he started writing. He worked for Britain’s Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, drawing from his wartime service and career as a journalist for much of the background, detail, and depth of his James Bond novels. Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1952. It was a success and eleven Bond novels and two collections of short stories followed between 1953 and 1966. Fleming was a heavy smoker and drinker for most of his life and succumbed to heart disease in 1964 at the age of 56. Two of his James Bond books were published posthumously; other writers have since produced Bond novels. Fleming’s creation has appeared in film twenty-seven times, portrayed by six actors in the official film series.