Just browsing

      I had a quick browse in a bookshop today, seeing what's new to me, noticing what other customers were picking up and putting back. I'd love to have had the nerve to say, "Buy that, it's great", and "Leave that one there, it's not up to much", but they might not have appreciated being accosted by a complete stranger trying to influence their choice of reading matter, so I contented myself with mentioning to an assistant - to whom I was chatting in passing anyway - that Katherine Swift's The Morville Hours: The Story of a Garden doesn't belong on the fiction shelves. (I'm sounding awfully bossy and interfering here, and I'm not really like that at all, just a bit daft when it comes to books).

    I didn't buy anything, but scouted round to store up some likely-looking titles for later. Three things caught my eye, and I'm wondering if anyone has read them and would recommend - or not.

    I think I've mentioned Shirley McKay's Hue and Cry here before as I've been aware of it for a while, but this "gripping mystery" set in sixteenth century St. Andrews and featuring young lawyer Hew Cullen has a new cover and now a sequel. Being tempted by C.J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake books (Dissolution etc.) I thought as this sounds vaguely like a Scottish equivalent I might give it a go.

    I'm not sure how to summarise The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen - illustrated with maps and its 12-year-old protagonist's thought processes, it's about travel and the adventures of a prodigy; "a treasure", says Stephen King. Eye-catching, certainly.

    Quilt by Nicholas Royle was face-out on the shelf, and knowing nothing about it, I was drawn to it by its title, its cover and Frank Kermode's words, "a work of remarkable imaginative energy". Amazon reviewers are unanimous in giving this mystery and love story 5 stars, and it sounds unusual and intriguing.

    The irony of all this potential library augmentation is that over the last fortnight I've managed almost no reading at all, just a few pages in bed each night, and that's despite the fact I'm enjoying all the books I have on the go very much indeed. I'm hoping for a quieter, more focused few days soon.