NetGalley

[Judy]

I have read the whole trilogy and thought it was brilliant - the TV adaptation starring Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson and Ronald Pickup is also very good.

[Roman Clodia]

Thanks Judy. I'd heard of this and The Levant Trilogy but had never seen them in bookshops - perhaps a reprint will renew interest?

[Judy]

Ooh yes, I read The Levant Trilogy as well - both brilliant. I'd forgotten there were 6 books altogether.

[Susan]

Love both, but the Balkan Trilogy in particular. Adore Olivia Manning - will be interested to hear your thoughts, RC. By the way, I have started a NetGalley book, Orlando King which you may like. It is by Isabel Colegate. I have read The Shooting Party by her. Not too far into Orlando King yet - but, apparently, it was originally a trilogy and has that whole, between the wars, vibe that I know we both enjoy.

[Roman Clodia]

My appetite is well and truly whetted! After Proust, though, which I may finish tomorrow I'm not ready for another trilogy yet - something short and packed with plot, so maybe a le Carre first.

I haven't read Colegate yet, have Shooting Party on my TBR, so thanks Susan will check out Orlando King.

[Judy]

I remember thinking The Shooting Party was great, and there was also a very good film of it.

[Susan]

Orlando King is interesting so far, but I preferred the Shooting Party. This is more meandering, which, sometimes is a good thing, but not always...

[Roman Clodia]

When I went to check out Orlando King I realised I'd read it... in part. As you say, it's meandering and not always written with as much clarity as I'd like.

Did you know it's a take on the Oedipus trilogy? (Orlando King = Oedipus Rex) The later parts where his daughter - Agatha? (a version of Antigone) - takes over got a bit skimpy and I started skimming... I'd still like to read The Shooting Party.

[Susan]

Yes, it isn't anywhere near as good as The Shooting Party (another future buddy read perhaps?).

[Susan]

Mr Wilder and Me is on NetGalley for anyone who wants to request it. I know Jonathan Coe has some fans on the group.

[Roman Clodia]

Hurrah, got it!

[Susan]

Looks interesting, RC. I got it too :)

[Roman Clodia]

So much for my resolution not to take any more ARCs till I've cleared some I have... Do you like Tana French? I'm so excited to have got her new book, The Searcher which popped up on NG today :))

[Nigeyb]

I've yet to read any Tana French but have only heard positive things about her work

[Susan]

I was sent the Tana French, RC. I've been so spoilt by publishers during this period. I just don't have time to read all these great books, but the temptation is too much...

I also have The Postscript Murders and Trio which I am anticipating with great pleasure.

[Susan]

The new Mick Herron is listed on NetGalley. I have requested - fingers crossed!

Slough House

Some details too:
Kill us? They've never needed to kill us,' said Lamb. 'I mean, look at us. What would be the point?'

A year after a calamitous blunder by the Russian secret service left a British citizen dead from novichok poisoning, Diana Taverner is on the warpath. What seems a gutless response from the government has pushed the Service's First Desk into mounting her own counter-offensive - but she's had to make a deal with the devil first. And given that the devil in question is arch-manipulator Peter Judd, she could be about to lose control of everything she's fought for.

Meanwhile, still reeling from recent losses, the slow horses are worried they've been pushed further into the cold. Slough House has been wiped from Service records, and fatal accidents keep happening. No wonder Jackson Lamb's crew are feeling paranoid. But have they actually been targeted?

With a new populist movement taking a grip on London's streets, and the old order ensuring that everything's for sale to the highest bidder, the world's an uncomfortable place for those deemed surplus to requirements. The wise move would be to find a safe place and wait for the troubles to pass.

But the slow horses aren't famed for making wise decisions.

'Irresistible writing ... ironclad storytelling and off-kilter humour' Financial Times

'Mick Herron's novels are a satirical chronicle of modern Britain . . . in their gleefully shocking way, his books reflect the trajectory of the nation' Economist

[Susan]

Also on NetGalley Hitler and Stalin: The Tyrants and the Second World War

The bestselling historian on the dramatic wartime relationship - and shocking similarities - between two tyrants

'Laurence Rees brilliantly combines powerful eye-witness testimony, vivid narrative and compelling analysis in this superb account of how two terrible dictators led their countries in the most destructive and inhumane war in history' Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, author of Hitler - Hubris and Hitler - Nemesis

This compelling book on Hitler and Stalin - the culmination of thirty years' work - examines the two tyrants during the Second World War, when Germany and the Soviet Union fought the biggest and bloodiest war in history. Yet despite the fact they were bitter opponents, Laurence Rees shows that Hitler and Stalin were, to a large extent, different sides of the same coin.

Hitler's charismatic leadership may contrast with Stalin's regimented rule by fear; and his intransigence later in the war may contrast with Stalin's change in behaviour in response to events. But at a macro level, both were prepared to create undreamt-of suffering, destroy individual liberty and twist facts in order to build the utopias they wanted, and while Hitler's creation of the Holocaust remains a singular crime, Rees shows why we must not forget that Stalin committed a series of atrocities at the same time.

Using previously unpublished, startling eyewitness testimony from soldiers of the Red Army and Wehrmacht, civilians who suffered during the conflict and those who knew both men personally, bestselling historian Laurence Rees - probably the only person alive who has met Germans who worked for Hitler and Russians who worked for Stalin - challenges long-held popular misconceptions about two of the most important figures in history. This is a master work from one of our finest historians.

[Joy D]

I can recommend this book I obtained from NetGalley, which is due to be published in Jan 2021:
Through the Waters and the Wild by Greg Fields - 4 stars - My Review

[Roman Clodia]

A book about Elizabeth Bowen is on NetGalley at the moment: www.netgalley.co.uk/catalog/book/210991

The Shadowy Third: Love, Letters, and Elizabeth Bowen - I think, Susan, you mentioned it when browsing on Amazon?

"A sudden death in the family delivers Julia a box of love letters. Dusty with age, they tell the story of an illicit affair between the brilliant twentieth-century novelist, Elizabeth Bowen, and a young academic called Humphry House – Julia’s grandfather.

Using fascinating unpublished correspondence, The Shadowy Third exposes the affair and its impact by following the overlapping lives of three very different characters through some of the most dramatic decades of the twentieth century; from the rarefied air of Oxford in the 1930s, to the Anglo-Irish Big House, to the last days of Empire in India and on into the Second World War. The story is spiced with social history and a celebrated supporting cast that includes Isaiah Berlin and Virginia Woolf.

In the style of Bowen, a novelist obsessed by sense of place, Julia travels to all the locations written about in the letters, retracing the physical and emotional songlines from Kolkata to Cambridge, Ireland to Texas. With present day story telling that acts as a colourful counterpoint to the historical narrative, this is an unparalleled debut work of personal and familial investigation."

Sounds delicious!

[Susan]

Thanks, RC. I will go and investigate. I actually have so many NetGalley books at the moment, I haven't been looking, as I didn't want to be tempted, but certainly Bowen is probably too tempting to ignore...

[Roman Clodia]

Ah, I'd been very restrained recently but have just been approved for three audiobooks today Piranesi, The Survivors, and The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company - but can't resist this on Bowen.

[Susan]

I do love NetGalley - it's just too tempting. I actually started a book which has been lurking unread for a while (out in Feb) called Hitler's Horses: The Incredible True Story of the Detective who Infiltrated the Nazi Underworld

I sort of put it off as I didn't fancy reading it, but thought I would give it a try and am totally gripped. Such a good read so far and an excellent translation.

Glad you got some good listening material, RC :)

[Roman Clodia]

I'm missing my commute time for audiobooks at the moment... but did get in a couple of chapters this evening while cleaning the fridge!

[Susan]

I am going in by car at the moment, but, yes, do miss my reading time on the train...

[Susan]

There is a new Anthony Quinn on NetGalley London, Burning

London, Burning is a novel about the end of the 1970s, and the end of an era. It concerns a nation divided against itself, a government trembling on the verge of collapse, a city fearful of what is to come, and a people bitterly suspicious of one another. In other words, it is also a novel about now.

Vicky Tress is a young policewoman on the rise who becomes involved in a corruption imbroglio with CID. Hannah Strode is an ambitious young reporter with a speciality for skewering the rich and powerful. Callum Conlan is a struggling Irish academic and writer who falls in with the wrong people. While Freddie Selves is a hugely successful theatre impresario stuck deep in a personal and political mire of his own making. These four characters, strangers at the start, happen to meet and affect the course of each other's lives profoundly.

The story plots an unpredictable path through a city choked by strikes and cowed by bomb warnings. It reverberates to the sound of alarm and protest, of police sirens, punk rock, street demos, of breaking glass and breaking hearts in dusty pubs. As the clock ticks down towards a general election old alliances totter and the new broom of capitalist enterprise threatens to sweep all before it. It is funny and dark, violent but also moving.

[Nigeyb]

Susan wrote: "There is a new Anthony Quinn on NetGalley London, Burning"


Ooh yes please

Love AQ

And the era is right up my street too

Off to request now

Thanks Susan

[Susan]

Fingers crossed!

[Nigeyb]

Susan wrote: "There is a new Anthony Quinn on NetGalley London, Burning"

I got approved Susan

Hurrah!

[Susan]

Hurrah! Good to hear, Nigeyb. Me too - although with my NetGalley backlog, I am feeling more over-whelmed that delighted :)

[Lady Clementina]

There's a bio of Barbara Pym on offer which sounds quite interesting
https://www.netgalley.co.uk/catalog/b...

[Tania]

Thanks for that Lady C. I have been given it.

[Lady Clementina]

Tania wrote: "Thanks for that Lady C. I have been given it."

Glad to know, I got approved as well. Really looking forward to reading it.

[Susan]

I had an email today about a data breach on NetGalley. It doesn't seem to be a scam as NetGalley's main page also has a message and a prompt to change your password. If you have a NetGalley account, then do change your password as quickly as possible. I know it is closing the door after the horse has bolted, but it is best to do so I suppose.

[Ruth]

Susan wrote: "I had an email today about a data breach on NetGalley. It doesn't seem to be a scam as NetGalley's main page also has a message and a prompt to change your password. If you have a NetGalley account..."

Thanks Susan. Do you think there are any serious implications to the fact that our Kindle email addresses were also visible?

[Susan]

Not sure, Ruth. Hope not, but I have changed my password - which is all we can do, I suppose.

[Nigeyb]

In the unlikely event you use the same password for your email account as you use on NetGalley then you should change that one too

[Susan]

I don't, but good point - thanks, Nigeyb.

[Ruth]

Thanks Susan and Nigeyb - we'll just have to keep our eye on any strange messages etc. Good point about passwords - a reminder never to use the same password for different accounts!

[Roman Clodia]

The 'love letters' between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West has just appeared on NetGalley:

www.netgalley.co.uk/catalog/book/210436

There's no GR listing at the moment. I'm delighted as I got an email from Penguin yesterday than highlighted it and was tempted to buy it only held back as I have so many owned books to read.

I just had a quick look inside and it includes diary entries as well as letters from both women.

[Roman Clodia]

Should We Stay or Should We Go, the new novel by Lionel Shriver is now on NetGalley:

Both healthy and vital medical professionals in their early fifties, Kay and her husband Cyril have seen too many of their elderly NHS patients in similar states of decay. Determined to die with dignity, Cyril makes a modest proposal: they should agree to commit suicide together once they’ve both turned eighty. When their deal is sealed in 1991, the spouses are blithely looking forward to another three decades together.

But then they turn eighty.

By turns hilarious and touching, playful and grave, Should We Stay or Should We Go portrays twelve parallel universes, each exploring a possible future for Kay and Cyril, from a purgatorial Cuckoo’s-Nest-style retirement home to the discovery of a cure for ageing, from cryogenic preservation to the unexpected pleasures of dementia.

Weaving in a host of contemporary issues – Brexit, mass migration, the coronavirus – Lionel Shriver has pulled off a rollicking page-turner in which we never have to mourn deceased characters, because they’ll be alive and kicking in the very next chapter.

[Margaret]

Thanks for the heads up, RC. I've requested it, looks right up my alley.

[Lady Clementina]

I just requested and got approved for The Prince of the Skies historical fiction based on the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Should be of interest to others here as well

[Nigeyb]

Thanks Lady Clem - looks good

[Roman Clodia]

The new Colm Toibin, The Magician, about Thomas Mann is now on NetGalley - looks excellent. And reminded me that I still have his The Master, about Henry James, to read.

[Susan]

Ooh, thanks, RC. Have snapped it up! I have a LOT of NetGalley books at the moment.

[Susan]

Mind you, I haven't been approved for the Anthony Horowitz (sob!).

[Roman Clodia]

I've been quite restrained on NG recently but couldn't resist this and also have the new Richard Powers Bewilderment, and the new Katie Kitamura Intimacies.

I've been meaning to get to more Mann after our fab buddy read of Magic Mountain, and know pretty much nothing of his life so excited for this one :)

[Susan]

Yes, looks really good, RC. Thanks for pointing it out.

[Judy]

I thought The Master was great as I recall, so a novel about Mann by Toibin sounds intriguing.

[Hugh]

I read The Master without knowing anything or having read anything by Henry James - I enjoyed it but felt I was missing a lot. I have read three Manns (all big ones - Magic Mountain, Dr Faustus and Buddenbrooks) so I am looking forward to this one, though I may wait for the paperback. I think I have read all of Toibin's previous novels, some of them a long time ago.