Reading Log: June

June hadn't felt like a very read-y kind of month, but yet somehow there are another ten books added to the year list, and three more categories from the 52 book challenge ticked off, bringing me up to (I think) 24 there so I'm almost on target. I've spent a bit of time recently looking through the remaining categories and adding in titles which look appealing or which are already on my TBR 'pile', so hopefully that will help me catch up with these.

Cornish Folk Tales of Place: Traditional Stories from North and East Cornwall by Anna Chorlton

I wanted to pick up a book with some connection to Cornwall during our holiday there in March, and while browsing in the lovely independent bookshop Shrew Books, this one caught my eye. It's an attractive little collection of (very) brief folk tales from the region around where we were staying, and the illustrations are the product of workshops with local schools, community groups, and artists. I didn't manage to read much of it while on holiday, but have enjoyed revisiting the area in my mind while reading its folklore.

A Stroke of the Pen: the lost short stories by Terry Pratchett

I hadn't realised this was a new collection until my Chaos Gremlin saw it in a shop recently and asked me if I wanted it! This brings together the short stories which Pratchett published in local newspapers under his own name as well as a few different pen names. It's interesting to see which of his ideas became enduring themes, and discover a few moments which were later more fully developed. A lovely collection to pick up and dip into.

Soul Music, Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett

Only two discworlds this month - I've reached the point where there were several which were fine but didn't grab me, so am taking a short break from the re-read. I've also bought rather a lot of books recently so am giving the new pile a bit more attention for a little while.

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Sutanto [audiobook]

I'd read this hardcopy last year, but saw it was available as an audiobook from the library and decided to listen to it again, as I'd enjoyed it the first time around. The second time was just as good. Vera Wang is the epitome of (the media stereotype of) an aging Chinese mother, so when faced with a dead body in her own tea house, she decides to investigate. Of course her pushiness is the result of a generous, caring heart, and through her bossiness she brings together an apparently unlikely group of people into a close knit circle of friends. The narrator of the audiobook, Eunice Wong, is excellent and brings out the individual characters and their voices superbly.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett [audiobook]

It's 1909, and a somewhat stuffy professor of dryadology is travelling to the small Scandinavian island of Ljosland, to research the hitherto undocumented Folk living there. The population of the village of Hrafnsvik where she will be based are cautious but welcoming to her, although in her standoffishness she rebuffs their overtures of friendship. During her stay in Hrafnsvik, Emily not ony finds out about the Hidden Ones, but also about hidden aspects of herself, and will never be quite the same again.

My daughter recommended this to me, and I'm very glad she did. There were a few small inaccuracies which bugged me slightly (Cambridge University doesn't have adjunct professors or tenure, for one!), but overall it's a good story. Tensions and resolutions are well balanced, and it's a delightful tale of both the light and dark sides of the fairy folk.

[45. Chapter headings have dates]

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T Kingfisher [audiobook]

Another audiobook selected by my daughter. Mona, a young wizard with a gift for dealing with dough, discovers a dead body in her aunt's bakery early one morning. In order to prove her innocence and protect the kingdom against the evil forces working to abolish wizardry, no matter the cost, she has to face all kinds of peril and team up with some unlikely companions.

I enjoyed this and found myself drawn into Mona's world and her worries. Definitely recommended!

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

A fun cosy fantasy story; Viv, an orc, has decided she's had enough of being a barbarian and decides to set up a coffee shop in a small town. There are a few problem along the way - the inhabitants' total unfamiliarity with the gnomish drink of coffee, the local mafia, and someone from her past with a grudge, to name but a few. However, as with all good cosy stories, Viv discovers that somehow along the way she's made some friends, and she's been changed by her new life just as much as her new shop has made an impact on others.

This was another recommendation from my daughter, and I think it might well be the best so far.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

I started reading this back in 2019, then got distracted and forgot about it. Having remembered it and been able to locate it (no mean feat as we've moved house twice since I originally started it), I then read it in a day.

Despite reading quite a bit of WW2 fiction over the years, what I knew about the occupation of the Channel Islands could have been written on the back of, well, maybe a postcard rather than a postage stamp, but it certainly wasn't much. It feels wrong to say I enjoyed learning about some of the horrors that took place, but I certainly did enjoy meeting the members of the Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and getting to know them and their stories. This is a book about community and the value of friendship and society in good times and bad, as much as it is about the war and the events thereof.

[33. An abrupt ending]

The Dinner Lady Detectives by Hannah Hendy

This was a quick purchase from a charity bookstall in Burford, and was definitely worth its 50p! The main characters are generally likeable, and the implausibility of some of their adventures was enjoyable rather than distracting. By no means the best crime I've read this year, it was still perfectly readable; I won't be searching out other books by the author, but they're definitely not on the Avoid list.

Notes from an Island by Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietila     

This was an impulse buy after the Rebel reader's unofficial meet-up in Oxford. I hadn't been planning on buying any more books (hah!) but saw this one and just couldn't resist it. It's a selection of diary entries from Tove Jansson and the Brunstrm, the builder who helped them with their island cabin, describing the build process and the subsequent summers that Tove and Tuulikki ('Tooti') spent there over the next few decades. Reading this, and the essay titled 'The Island' which is included at the end of the book, it became startlingly clear just how much of Tove herself is in Moominpapa and his longing for solitude and island life, as well as his need for other people and his love of his family.

Throughout the book, Tuulikki's watercolours are included which help to paint a vivid picture of the desolation and solitude of the island, as well as its peace and beauty.

[30. Picked without reading the blurb]