Michael J. Ritchie's Blog, page 15

“The Wall” by John Lanchester (2019)

“It’s cold on the Wall.”

In 2016, so many momentous things occurred in the world that we thought it might be the busiest news year in our lifetimes. Little did we know what 2020 had in store. One of the things that changed much about the UK, in particular the nation’s psychology, was the Brexit vote. I’ve seen it written about in fiction very little since, partly out of avoidance, and partly because the news regarding it changed so frequently, any book on the subject would have gone out of date ...

“The Last Astronaut” by David Wellington (2019)

“It’s a grand old flag, it’s a high-flying flag…”

Escapism remains the key reason I read, and sometimes you’ve just got to head off the planet altogether.

In the 2030s, Sally Jansen was the darling of the new space race. Heading off into the blackness of space to be the first person on Mars, there was no one who didn’t know her name. But then something dreadful happened. The expedition went wrong, they never made it to the Red Planet, and after China got there first, interest in the planets bega...

“Cockerings” by Stevyn Colgan (2021)

“A warning bell began to clang.”

Lord knows the world needs more funny books these days. Stevyn Colgan is part of the cure, and he deserves far more plaudits than he gets. We return for the third time to South Herewardshire, where we’ve already solved a murder and uncovered a monster. This time, the circus has arrived.

Shapcott Bassett is a picture postcard of an English village, stuck in a time where the butcher has thick arms, the policeman is respected but incompetent, and the vicar is cluele...

“I Capture The Castle” by Dodie Smith (1949)

“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.”

There are various books considered classics that have entirely passed me by. While there’s still not much of a chance of me finally sitting down with Dickens or Thackery any time soon, I am more willing to dip into the slightly more recent ones. Thus, I’ve only gone back seventy years this week to read Dodie Smith’s bestseller I Capture the Castle, about which I knew nothing aside from the opening line.

In a crumbling castle in the Suffolk countryside,...

“The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig (2020)

“Nineteen years before she decided to die, Nora Seed sat in the warmth of the small library at Hazeldene School in the town of Bedford.”

Matt Haig’s work continues to dominate the book charts, and it’s easy to see why. His latest offering, The Midnight Library, is another instant modern classic.

Nora Seed is at her lowest ebb. Her cat has just died, she’s been fired, and her brother seems to be ignoring her. Hitting rock bottom, she decides to end it all and takes an overdose. Death, however, is...

“The Windsor Knot” by S. J. Bennett (2020)

“It was an almost perfect spring day.”

Fiction is littered with detectives, be they London gents with photographic memories, Belgian refugees, fussy old women in small villages, aristocrats just killing time, or schoolgirls with a taste for justice. There has never been one, however, like the detective presented in The Windsor Knot.

The morning after a party at Windsor Castle, everyone is recovering from the festivities over breakfast when the news breaks that the piano player from the previous ...

“Soupy Twists” by Jem Roberts (2018)

“AMERICA – Hollywood Boulevard, Tuesday 25 October 2016, 2:30pm PST.”

The comedy landscape is littered with duos. From the anarchic styles of Lee & Herring, to the classic comedy of Morecambe & Wise, via the sheer surrealism of Reeves & Mortimer, and the wackiness of French & Saunders, we love to see good friends teaming up to make us laugh. Fry & Laurie are a key part of the progression, even though they’ve not performed together for many years now. In his revealing biography, Jem Roberts gives...

“Some Must Watch” by Ethel Lina White (1933)

“Helen realized that she had walked too far just as daylight was beginning to fade.”

I know I keep saying it, but I need to stop reading creepy books. Anyway, here we are again.

Helen Capel has taken the position of lady-help in a remote country house inhabited by the Warren family. While they’re an unusual bunch, not least the short-tempered and bedridden matriarch Lady Warren, she is enjoying her work for the most part. When she learns that a murderer is on the loose, however, she be...

“Leave The World Behind” by Rumaan Alam (2020)

“Well, the sun was shining.”

Surely all of us, from time to time, wonder about how we’d react if the world ended. If the economy failed, industry collapsed, people died, zombies rose up, or nuclear war was unleashed, what exactly would we do? Curiously, last year we seemed to almost get a taste of the beginning of such a thing, and with the ongoing pandemic and the continued climate change related news stories, the concept all feels a little too close to home. Leave the World Behind is on...

“A Closed And Common Orbit” by Becky Chambers (2016)

“Lovelace had been in a body for twenty-eight minutes, and it still felt every bit as wrong as it had the second she woke up inside it.”

With things as bad as they are on Earth right now, it’s no wonder I chose to escape into space. I finally return to Becky Chambers Wayfarers series, and not a moment too soon. I’d been worried that, having been so long since the first one, I would have forgotten all that I needed to know and who everyone was, but it turns out that while the books are set...