Thursday, July 02, 2009

Summer reading

There's precious little sewing going one here lately - it's just too hot! I know: I have been complaining about summer being late, and here I am moaning about the heat... Well, there's no pleasing some people I guess ;-)
Well, I am enjoying these lovely warm days really! Luckily my office faces northeast, so it's nice and cool during the day, but the moment I step outside I feel as if I meet a great big wall of heat. Shopping on the walk home is reduced to a few important items: watermelon and ice cream, and there's nothing for it once I get home but a big glass of water before I head straight for the shower.
Evenings are pleasant though - cool drinks and light reading well into the night. It never gets really dark at this time of the year, so it's easy to forget about going to bed, but there's time for sleeping when King Winter throws his big icy mantle around us.
I have been stocking up on summer reading, and I've already realised that I need to visit the library to get some more before my holiday starts, as I'm halfway through this pile already!
Tell it to the Skies by Erica James was an intriguing story about a woman with a secret past. A chance meeting in her Venetian neighbourhood triggers a set of events that forces her to delve into her childhood memories growing up with strictly religious grandparents and the events leading up to her leaving for Italy - "the path not taken" and the chance to make things right makes for compelling reading.
The Villa in Italy by Elisabeth Edmondson was very different. A bit of a mystery, but without any murders. Four very different people have each been left a bequest from a woman they have never heard about and must meet in a villa in Italy to find out what it is. Great reading, and I think it's the first time I have woken up at six in the morning on a workday just to finish the last chapter of a book before I get up!
Fay Weldon's wry observations about human behaviour is next, and then there is Barbara Erskine and Joanna Trollope for a bit of Britain past and present. I have read several books by all these three so I expect some good reading there. And then it's off to the library. Now, what should I look for there?

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