Just a bit of gentle name dropping....

I am doggedly ploughing through C.J. Sansom's Winter in Madrid, a tale set against the backdrop of WW2 and the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. I thought I'd really like this but it's failing to set me alight. Historically interesting - and this author's a pretty serious historian - but it just seems to be plodding a bit too slowly and ponderously along. Or maybe it's just me, not in the right frame of mind for it.

C.J. Sansom (who really is a great writer notwithstanding my slight whinge) was our runner-up in the Dagger in the Library Award, which I need to name-drop here since I'm just back from the swanky awards dinner in London. Guest of honour was Gyles Brandreth, who gave a faintly insane but entertaining speech. I think he's writing something where Sherlock Holmes and Oscar Wilde form a crime-busting duo, if I understood right?! Our winner was Craig Russell, an author I'd never read before the Dagger. He's Scottish but sets his books in Hamburg. The setting is really interesting, the characters good and the stories gory, so I commend him to this blog! And he was a nice man, and let us hold his Dagger. This is him in the middle, with me and my fellow judges.

book group choice

Have just finished reading The Second Husband and don't want to say too much about it here because I am hoping to be at the next book group meeting to discusss it. Just want to say,though,that this is another of these books (remember Housewife Down)? that had I been writing it I would have taken a completely different and less predictable approach! Perhaps I should start writing my alternative versions of popular fiction!
I am also reading Russell Brand's My Booky Wook and a self help book callled the Four Day Win which Aileen recommended -I can't seem to get the hang of this book though -I understood the message to be that if you can be good for four days you can treat yourself with lots of chocolate,but Aileen says this is not the case unfortunately! Must read beyond the twenty pages I've covered so far....