#WWWWednesday – 26th August 2020

WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!


Currently reading

Two books for blog tours and my Buchan of the Month.

Somerville_The Night of the Flood_HBThe Night of the Flood by Zoë Somerville

Summer, 1952. Verity Frost, stranded on her family farm on the Norfolk coast, is caught between two worlds: the devotion of her childhood friend Arthur, just returned from National Service, and a strange new desire to escape it all. Arthur longs to escape too, but only with Verity by his side.

Into their world steps Jack, a charismatic American pilot flying secret reconnaissance missions off the North Sea coast. But where Verity sees adventure and glamour, Arthur sees only deception. As the water levels rise to breaking point, this tangled web of secrets, lies and passion will bring about a crime that will change all their lives.

Taking the epic real-life North Sea flood as its focus, The Night of the Flood is at once a passionate love story, an atmospheric thriller, and a portrait of a distinctive place in a time of radical social change.

A Prince of the CaptivityA Prince of the Captivity by John Buchan

Adam Melfort is an officer and a gentleman with a brilliant career ahead of him until he is imprisoned for a crime he did not commit.

Afterwards, he embarks on daring missions in the service of his country including espionage and dangerous work behind enemy lines in World War One.

The Museum Makers - front coverThe Museum Makers by Rachel Morris

Museum expert Rachel Morris had been ignoring the boxes of family belongings for decades.

When she finally opened them, an entire bohemian family history was laid bare. The experience was revelatory – searching for her absent father in the archives of the Tate; understanding the loss and longings of the grandmother who raised her – and transported her back to the museums that had enriched her lonely childhood.

By teasing out the stories of those early museum makers, and the unsung daughters and wives behind them, and seeing the same passions and mistakes reflected in her own family, Morris digs deep into the human instinct for collection and curation.

Part memoir, part detective story, part untold history of museums – this is a fascinating and moving family story.


Recently finished

Links from the titles will take you to my review.

A Little London Scandal by Miranda Emmerson

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce

The Night of Shooting Stars (Martin Bora #7) by Ben Pastor

The Bitch by Pilar Quintana

 


What Cathy (will) Read Next

V For Victory CoverV For Victory by Lissa Evans

It’s late 1944. Hitler’s rockets are slamming down on London with vicious regularity and it’s the coldest winter in living memory. Allied victory is on its way, but it’s bloody well dragging its feet.

In a large house next to Hampstead Heath, Vee Sedge is just about scraping by, with a herd of lodgers to feed, and her young charge Noel ( almost fifteen ) to clothe and educate. When she witnesses a road accident and finds herself in court, the repercussions are both unexpectedly marvellous and potentially disastrous – disastrous because Vee is not actually the person she’s pretending to be, and neither is Noel.

The end of the war won’t just mean peace, but discovery…

#TopTenTuesday Questions I’d Ask Authors

Top Ten Tuesday new

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

  • Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
  • Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
  • Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
  • Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

This week’s topic is Questions I Would Ask My Favourite Authors. I thought I’d turn the tables by posing the questions to them they posed to us in their book titles.  Links will take you to the book description on Goodreads.


So, Agatha Christie, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? Come on, give us a clue.

Look here, Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her? or not?

I completely understand, Dorothy L. Sayers, why you may not want to say for fear of spoilers but Whose Body? 

Sorry to press you again, Agatha Christie, but which was it – N or M? 

Spill the beans, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir Why Did You Lie?

3781Finally, to mark the anniversary of John Buchan’s birth on the 26th August 1875, five questions posed to Mr Memory by members of the music hall audience in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 film version of the author’s most well-known novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps. (The scene does not appear in the original book…nor for that matter does the character played by Madeleine Carroll.)

  • How old is Mae West?
  • What causes pip in poultry?
  • What won the Cup in 1926?
  • How far is it from Winnipeg to Montreal?
  • What are the Thirty-Nine Steps?

The last two are asked by the hero, Richard Hannay, played by Robert Donat.