Tag: Review

Top Ten Tuesday: Settings I’d Like To See More Of

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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 Settings I’d Like to See More Of (Or At All).  I love reading books set in places I’ve travelled to (or intend to travel to). Equally, there are books I’ve read set in places I’ve never visited, including some I’m never likely to. My list consists of a combination of the two.

Links from the book titles will take you to my review.

Places I’ve Visited

The Caribbean – Cruises have given me the opportunity to visit a number of lovely Caribbean islands and allowed me to fall in love with my personal favourite: Barbados. Find a list of books set in Barbados here, including Sugar in the Blood by Andrea Stuart. Or try Sugar Money by Jane Harris, set in Martinique and Grenada.

The Greek Islands – Experience the island of Crete in the 1960s (and during World War 2) in The Secret Life of Alfred Nightingale by Rebecca Stonehill or become immersed in ancient superstition on a fictional Greek island in The Dancing Floor by John Buchan

Barcelona – Take a trip back to the past and explore entirely different parts of the city than you’ll see as a tourist in historical mystery The Secret of Vesalius by Jordi Llobregat.

Venice – If ever there were a place ideal as a setting for a book it’s this city of canals and narrow alleyways. Explore contemporary Venice in Venetian Blood by Christine Evelyn Volker or step back in time in City of Masks by S. D. Sykes.

Cornwall – Back the UK and joining the long list of books set in Cornwall is The Cliff House by Amanda Jennings (available in paperback on 25th July 2019).

Places I’ve Never Visited

Iceland – But I’ve been there in a literary sense through reading books such as The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea and Smile of the Wolf by Tim Leach.

New York – I’m not sure the violent, gang-ridden New York depicted in Paddy Hirsch’s The Devil’s Half-Mile and Hudson’s Kill is the best advertisement for the city but it’s OK because that was a long time ago…

Tokyo – I’ve loved the contrast between old and new Japan so convincingly depicted in Michael Pronko’s Detective Hiroshi series: The Last Train and The Moving Blade.

Pakistan – Two books set, at least partly, in the historic city of Lahore: The Inside City by Anita Mir and Razia by Abda Khan.

Space – The final frontier, right? In the week we’ve been marking the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, it seems only right to include a couple of books with an out of this world setting: The Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar and The Things We Learn When We’re Dead by Charlie Laidlaw.

Buchan of the Month/Book Review: Castle Gay (Dickson McCunn #2) by John Buchan

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Buchan of the Month

Castle GayAbout the Book

Retired Glasgow provisions merchant and adventurer, Dickson McCunn, first seen in Huntingtower, features for a second time in Castle Gay.

His group of boys known as the ‘Gorbals Die-Hards’ have gone on to Cambridge University. Now Dougal and Jaikie embark on ‘seeing the world’.

Their escapades involve Castle Gay, its occupant Mr Craw, and all manner of interesting characters.

Format: ebook (237 pp.)    Publisher:
Published: [1930]  Genre: Fiction, Adventure

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com 
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Castle Gay on Goodreads

My Review

Castle Gay is the ninth book in my Buchan of the Month reading project.  You can find out more about the project plus my reading list for 2018 here.  You can also read a spoiler-free introduction to the book here.   Castle Gay is also one of the books on my Classics Club list.

Retired middle-aged Glasgow grocer, Dickson McCunn, first introduced in Huntingtower, returns for a second adventure in Castle Gay.  This time he plays a less prominent role in proceedings (but ultimately no less significant, as it turns out).  Instead, two of the group of boys known as the ‘Gorbals Die-Hards’ – Dougal and Jaikie –  now young men making their way in the world, find themselves in the midst of an adventure involving a reclusive press baron and the political machinations of rival factions in the fictional central European country of Evallonia.

Unlike Huntingtower, there’s no damsel in distress but there is a besieged Scottish manor house and a gang of baddies who are not only foreigners but – even worse – possibly Bolsheviks.   Throw in a few cases of mistaken identity (accidental and deliberate), some makeshift disguises, the laying of false trails and a few fortunate escapes on bicycle or on foot and you have a lighthearted entertaining adventure.   Buchan also finds an opportunity to introduce a scene involving an impromptu political speech like that first seen in The Thirty-Nine Steps.  As in Huntingtower,  Buchan has chosen to render some of the dialogue in broad Scots, but, thankfully, in Castle Gay, this is confined to just one or two characters.

The book includes two recurring features of Buchan’s adventure stories: a villain who has a great brain but no scruples to go with it; and a female character whose attractions, along with her beauty, include tomboyish tendencies, courage, the ability to move through the countryside undetected and skills as a horsewoman.   Once again Dickson McCunn plays a part in proceedings that demonstrates his calm, sensible and business-like approach to problems and that appeals to his sense of history and romance: ‘At last – at long last  – his dream had come true.  He was not pondering romance, he was living it…’.

Along the way, the previously mentioned reclusive press baron undergoes a sort of conversion.  Shorn of the luxuries of life and the protective carapace he has built around himself, not to mention a few days’ experience of ‘roughing it’ in the Scottish countryside,  he becomes a man of action rather than just populist rhetoric. ‘There were unexpected depths in him.  He was a greater man than he had dreamt, and the time had come to show it.’

Next month’s Buchan of the Month is Witch Wood.  Look out for my introduction to the book at the beginning of October and my review of Witch Wood towards the end of that month.

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In three words: Adventure, action, romance

Try something similar…The Island of Sheep  by John Buchan

John BuchanAbout the Author

John Buchan (1875 – 1940) was an author, poet, lawyer, publisher, journalist, war correspondent, Member of Parliament, University Chancellor, keen angler and family man.  He was ennobled and, as Lord Tweedsmuir, became Governor-General of Canada.  In this role, he signed Canada’s entry into the Second World War.   Nowadays he is probably best known – maybe only known – as the author of The Thirty-Nine Steps.  However, in his lifetime he published over 100 books: fiction, poetry, short stories, biographies, memoirs and history.

You can find out more about John Buchan, his life and literary output by visiting The John Buchan Society website.