The Last Apache Girl by Jim Fergus

ISBN 978-0-330-44585-6

Set in the 1930′s Ned Giles, an aspirant photographer from the North, joins an expedition to track down a young Mexican boy, taken by Apache. Ned meets a young Apache girl who survived her family’s massacre by scalp hunters. The Mexican government paid for Apache scalps at the time.

My grandfather travelled in the “wild west” in the first decades of the 20th century crossing the country under trains and dragging bodies out of bars. This historical romance certainly rings true, including the social attitudes and lawlessness of the time concurring with his stories.

Although my description makes the book sound very violent, it is not. It’s an easy-to-read, historically fascinating romance, and well worth a read.

The Street Philosopher by Matthew Plampin

ISBN 978-00-0-7313242 Harper Collins, 2008

This centres around a newspaperman, Thomas Kitson, and is set in Crimea and Manchester during and just after the Crimean war in the 1850s. This is Plampin’s first novel. I will be first in line to buy the next one.

The British military leadership’s arrogance and sociopathic attitude of the time is very clearly shown, along with the way the main characters’ lives are affected by their society and their personalities. The book is full of historic facts and descriptions of the society of the time, but also full of fast moving drama, passion, treachery and betrayal.

A French Affair by Susan Lewis

ISBN 978-0-7531-2704-9 Isis Audio Books, Read by Karen Cass

An excellent “page turner”, read extremely well by Karen Cass. Set in the UK and France, it combines escapism, sensuality and drama, and has sent me back to the library to look for more books by the same author.

The story is about a Jessica, a wife and mother, who suspicious of the circumstances around her daughter’s accidental death, insists on travelling to Burgundy to investigate.

It’s the kind of book that makes you wish you had the money to allow you to move to France and start a vinyard.

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

ISBN 9780006514008 HarperCollins

This is the first Philippa Gregory book I’ve read and I’m very impressed. She has an extremely convincing knowledge of the Tudor period and manages to bring the sorry saga of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn to life. Vivid, easy to read and fascinating.

Like any good historical novel, it seems wrong to label this fiction.

I’ll be reading more of her books soon.

My Reading Life by Bob Carr

My Reading Life: adventures in the wonderful world of books by Bob Carr
ISBN 978 0 670 07066 4 Viking – Penguin

The problem with this book, is that although you start the book thinking you have a little under 400 pages to read, by the time you have finished, you will find this has expanded by many thousands of pages.

The book is full of quotations, recommendations and overviews covering a lifetime of reading.

I was delighted to find my favourite first line quoted. “It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me” from Earthly Powers by Antony Burgess.

My Reading Life includes excellent indexes of authors and titles.

Bob Carr discusses the themes in his book in the epilogue, including the quest for decency. I’m not that comfortable with the word as, like “liberal” it has so many meanings. Nevertheless, that aspect of the author’s beliefs comes across clearly. My respect for him has increased enormously since reading the book.

Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (CDs)

…actually, a book I’ve heard. I’ve just spent the last week’s trips to work and back listening to Neil Gaiman’s “Graveyard Book”, read by Neil Gaiman (ISBN 978-0-7475-0076-0).

It was thoroughly entertaining and brilliantly read. I’ve listened to a number of books read by famous actors and Gaiman’s reading ability is easily right up there with the best actors. Like all his works, he goes a little further than most, including music, with jacket art by Chris Riddell.

It’s all about Nobody Owens, a normal boy raised by ghosts in a graveyard.