It was one of my favourite reads of last year, and I am hoping I can pass on some of that literary joy to my fellow commuters. Either that or they will think I am raving mad and hide behind their laptops in disgust....

ISBN: 978-0099530237

Published by Vintage Classics

Alan, a WW2 fighter pilot returns, to his parent's sheep station in a remote area of Australia after many years in England studying after the war. He arrives home to find that the parlour maid has committed suicide for no apparent reason, having seemingly destroyed all her identification papers beforehand.  Alan investigates and uncovers the woman’s background and her life during the war.

Set in the mid 1950s with flashbacks to the 40s, it is utterly compelling. The writing feels so natural it is almost as though Alan is sat in the room with you telling you his war time memories. What makes this different from other books I have read about this period is Shute’s ability to make the reader understand what the war and the years afterwards were like for those who actively served, and how they coped afterwards. Much is made of the acts heroism as well as the widespread suffering on all sides, but little time is given over to considering what it was like for an individual serving in the forces. For young people, just leaving school when war broke out, it was the conflict which shaped and formed them in the early years of their adulthood, and coping with peace after the regimented life of military service seems to have been even more difficult than the service itself.

This is a wonderful, thought provoking read, with some great detail about life in the WRENs, and I have been thinking about the story, and the characters, on and off for several weeks now. This has earned a place on my favourite reads list, and I can see me returning to it again.

Has anyone read any other of Neville Shute's work? Are they all as good as this?

Blue Peter is running an online vote for the best children’s book from the last 10 years. The shortlist of books is on the Blue Peter Website and anyone under 16 years old can vote. Voting is open until 23^rd February. The list is quite varied:

Alex Rider Mission 3: Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz
Candyfloss by Jacqueline Wilson
Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling
Horrid Henry and the Football Fiend by Francesca Simon
Mr Stink by David Walliams
Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo
The Series of Unfortunate Events: Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket
Theodore Boone by John Grisham
Young Bond: SilverFin - A James Bond Adventure by Charlie Higson 

I have only read a couple of them,  the Alex Rider and the Harry Potter, both very good fun. The John Grisham has had varied reviews, but sounds interesting. What really caught my eye was Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo, who also wrote War Horse. It is about a young boy who signs up to fight in the first World War. The reviews have been fantastic, so that is definitely one for my “Would Like To Read” list.

Has anyone read any of the others on the list? Any you would particularly recommend?

Quentin Blake is one of my favourite illustrators. I think he captures the insane world of Roald Dahl’s book perfectly. The Royal Mail has issued some stamps celebrating the collaboration between Blake and Dahl. The stamps show images of six of Dahl’s books. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Twits and The Witches. All brilliant stories, but I am a bit disappointed that they didn’t do the BFG.

I wonder whether many of these stamps get actually used on letters? I get written letters from an old school friend and they are such a pleasure to come home to. I need to reply to her last missive, and if that isn’t a good excuse to buy some Roald Dahl stamps, I don’t know what is!

It is National Libraries day today. I adore my local library, and go and visit several times per week. I think many people don't realise how much goes on in a modern library. There are book groups, children's groups, visits from authors and other literary events. 

The stock is also much improved, with many best sellers and the ability to order books online from the county catalogues for as little as 50p. Many libraries also have e-books for loan, so you don't even have to physically visit, just download your book from the comfort of your armchair.

Given how darn cold it is outside, why not go to your local library and pick up a nice comfort read ready for when the snow arrives?

ISBN: 978-1908276001

Published By And Other Stories

Tochtli lives with his powerful drug baron father in a luxurious and heavily guarded palace. His father is, not unreasonably, paranoid about security and so Tochtli lives in an isolated world. His view of this strange and violent world is very matter of fact. He has a disturbing understanding of how many bullets it takes to “make a corpse” depending on which body part is hit.  This knowledge combined with a child’s thought process can make uncomfortable reading. Tochtli is charming in his own way though, having his own obsessions which we all have when we are young. His include hats, samurai swords  and Liberian Pygmy Hippopotamuses.   To try and help his young son’s obvious loneliness his father takes him to Liberia to capture two of the hippos.

The story has a very claustrophobic feeling to it, and I was constantly left worrying what would happen him has he grew older. There are some similarities to Room where a young boy’s understanding of the world is distorted by his limited experience of it.  The writing is fantastic, and by inference so it the translation, at once capturing an innocence sullied by knowledge no child should ever have.

This is a great read and I can see this may well be one of the best reads of 2012.

I heard about last year very late, so didn't apply to be a giver, but I did watch the coverage on the BBC on the night, which was very good. So, this year I have applied to give away some books, it would be lovely to be selected. I will have to think where I would give them away though. I did hear last year that some people found it hard to convince others that they were giving away free books without a catch!

The list of books is very varied, and I have read quite a few of them. Which would you go for?

ISBN: 978-0-099-51224-0

Published By Vintage

According to The Guardian, War and Peace By Leo Tolstoy is one of the books people lie about having read. I have never read War and Peace, I have never even tried, although I have never lied about reading it either. It is a book I would like to read, but the task does seem enormous, and it will displace other valuable reading time. Nevertheless, I have decided that 2012 will be the year I read this Russian classic. 

Fortunately, Tolstoy wrote short chapters, and I think a chapter a day or thereabouts will see me get through this enormous tome by the end of the year. Whether I understand any of it is an entirely separate matter. 

I get the impression that whilst the writing is fairly straightforward, no tricky olde worlde language in this one, the vast number of characters and multiple names for the same person is where the difficulty lies. 

I'll update the blog with progress reports as I go along. If anyone fancies joining me in a War-And-Peace-Read-Along, leave a comment and I'll send you the reading schedule.  

I think Jeeves would be proud of me - he does approve of an "improving book".

ISBN: 978-0007354597

Published By Harper Collins

Sittaford House is in a small village of only a few houses in a remote location on the edge of Dartmoor. Cut off by snow, Mrs Willetts and her daughter who rent the house, invite their neighbours to tea.  They decide it might be fun to hold a séance. It all beings with good humour, but quickly turns more sinister when a spirit seems to tell them that Captain Trevelyan who lives in a local town has been murdered. His friend, Major Burnaby who was at the tea decides to set out to make sure his friend is OK, even though it is a six mile walk through a serious snow storm. On arriving at his friends house, he discovers the Captain has been murdered, and it happened at the exact time that the séance occurred.

The police arrest a rather stupid young man called James Pearson, the Captain’s nephew, who stands to gain from the will. James is engaged to Emily Trefusis who refuses to believe that James is guilty and with the the help of a local journalist starts to investigate herself.

I rather enjoyed the set up of the mystery, I like the idea of an “impossible” crime. In this case, how on earth did a séance manage to predict the Captain’s death? Sometimes a “how-dunnit” is more satisfying than a “who-dunnit”. It did rather loose pace towards the end, and some key clues were left right until the very last pages, so it would have been hard to solve this based on the previous chapters. Having said that, when the solution was revealed it was blindingly obvious, if only I had stopped to think about it.

In this book Christie focuses a little more on her characters, and we start to see some more emphasis placed on how people really do react to different circumstances, rather than her characters simply being tools to execute the plot. The motive of the murderer in particular shows she has started to develop her thoughts in this area.

After a few dodgy ones, it looks like Christie is back on form!