My reading has fallen into a neat pattern or timetable recently, one that happened by chance but is proving very agreeable and which involves different books for different hours or times of the day.
Keeping to review deadlines means concentrating on books such as Jubilee
by Shelley Harris which I've just finished (2007, and 30 years after the Queen's Silver Jubilee there is to be a reunion of the people whose images were captured in what became an iconic photograph of the time), and The Secret Children
by Alison McQueen which I'm starting (based on a true story, this novel is set in "the hidden heart of India" and the English countryside and spans the years from 1925 to the present). Coming up in that slot I'll have the latest Paul Torday
and then a book with a long and distinctive title, The Thoughts & Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals
by Wendy Jones.
At lunchtime, I turn very fittingly to Tracey Lawson's A Year in the Village of Eternity
and read about the tireless villagers of Campodimele and the delights they produce for their tables. The chapter I've just finished is about foraging for wild asparagus and then using it to make a frittata for breakfast - it's the early bird who catches the asparago - and Tracey Lawson's guide and hostess for this is a lady called Adalgesia, no longer in the first flush of youth, who daily serves up four course lunches for her husband. [Mr. C., don't even think about it!].
Bedtime reading has to be something soothing, particularly after a busy day, and James Runcie's Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death
is just perfect for winding down. Gentle and reflective, this is the first in a series of six novels which take us from 1953 to 1981, and as I'm finding the central character, Canon Sidney Chambers, such agreeable company, there is much to look forward to.
In our recent discussion on Lady Audley's Secret, Erika mentioned that it was her "kitchen book": one to be read "in snatches, stirring soup or waiting for the oven timer to ring". I thought that was a great idea - having a book for a particular place or purpose in that way - and that was partly what prompted me to pick up Tracey Lawson's lovely foodie book to read over lunch rather than just going on with whatever else I happened to be in the midst of. Does anyone else have a 'kitchen book' or a 'car book', or similar, or a book for a certain 'hour'?
