TBR Thursday 368…

Episode 368

Well, during my hiatus I didn’t do a lot of reading but I also didn’t do a lot of book acquiring. So over the course of the five weeks or so since I last reported. the TBR has fallen – by 6 to 169! I think I’ve got the hang of this at last!

Here’s a few more that should jump off my list soon… 

Winner of the People’s Choice

Mystery at Lynden Sands by JJ Connington

I missed the People’s Choice poll for May, so decided to use the runner up in the April poll. It’s also one of the books for my Murder, Mystery, Mayhem challenge…

The Blurb says: In the fourth Sir Clinton Driffield mystery, the detective finds himself up against a missing heir, an accidental bigamist, a series of secret marriages and impersonations and an ingenious scientific murder. Aided by his wit and powers of reasoning, as well as Wendover, his very own Watson, Sir Clinton once again succeeds in piecing together a solution as the novel reaches its thrilling climax.

Political Memoirs

My Life, Our Times by Gordon Brown

It’s terribly unfashionable in the UK today to admit to being a Brownite or a Blairite, but happily I’ve never been ruled by fashion. I admired Gordon Brown greatly as Chancellor, and have never doubted him as a man of principle and integrity, one of very few in recent political life. A pragmatist, he actually achieved things – something some of those currently on the Momentum wing of Labour could learn from, if they weren’t already so erroneously convinced of their own moral and intellectual superiority… *smiles sweetly*

The Blurb says: Former Prime Minister and the country’s longest-serving Chancellor, Gordon Brown has been a guiding force for Britain and the world over three decades. This is his candid, poignant and deeply relevant story.

In describing his upbringing in Scotland as the son of a minister, the near loss of his eyesight as a student and the death of his daughter within days of her birth, he shares the passionately-held principles that have shaped and driven him, reminding us that politics can and should be a calling to serve. Reflecting on the personal and ideological tensions within Labour and its successes and failures in power, he describes how to meet the challenge of pursuing a radical agenda within a credible party of government.

He explains how as Chancellor he equipped Britain for a globalised economy while swimming against the neoliberal tide and shows what more must be done to halt rising inequality. In his behind-the-scenes account of the financial crisis and his leading role in saving the world economy from collapse, he addresses the question of who was to blame for the crash and why its causes and consequences still beset us.

From the invasion of Iraq to the tragedy of Afghanistan, from the coalition negotiations of 2010 to the referendums on Scottish independence and Europe, Gordon Brown draws on his unique experiences to explain Britain’s current fractured condition. And by showing us what progressive politics has achieved in recent decades, he inspires us with a vision of what it might yet achieve today.

Riveting, expert and highly personal, this historic memoir is an invaluable insight into our times.

* * * * *

Fiction

The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru

One for my Looking Forward challenge. I’ve loved a couple of Kunzru’s later novels, so am looking forward (!) to back-tracking to this earlier one. It sounds extremely odd but then his books often are…

The Blurb says: This is the extraordinary story of a child conceived in a wild monsoon night, a boy destined to be an outsider, a man with many names and no name.

Born into luxury but disinherited and cast out onto the streets of Agra, Pran Nath must become a chameleon. Chasing his fortune, he will travel from the red light district of Bombay to the green lawns of England to the unmapped African wilderness. He will play many different roles — a young prize in a brothel, the adopted son of Scottish missionaries, the impeccably educated young Englishman headed for Oxford — in order to find the role that will finally fit.

Daring and riotously inventive, The Impressionist is an odyssey of self-discovery: a tale of the many lives one man can live and of the universal search for true identity.

* * * * *

Crime

The Cry by Helen Fitzgerald

This is currently the oldest crime novel on my TBR, having been on there since 2014! When it came out, it was one of those that everyone seemed to be talking about, so it’s long past time I finally found out if it lives up to the hype…

The Blurb says: When a baby goes missing on a lonely roadside in Australia, it sets off a police investigation that will become a media sensation and dinner-table talk across the world.

Lies, rumours and guilt snowball, causing the parents, Joanna and Alistair, to slowly turn against each other.

Finally Joanna starts thinking the unthinkable: could the truth be even more terrible than she suspected? And what will it take to make things right?

The Cry is a dark psychological thriller with a gripping moral dilemma at its heart and characters who will keep you guessing on every page.

* * * * *

Reading Ireland on Audio

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy read by Brid Brennan

I had a NetGalley copy of this when it came out, but it was so badly formatted I decided not to read it. I still wanted to, though, so picked up the audiobook and hope to listen to it in time to review it this month for Cathy’s Reading Ireland event. But I’m so slow at audiobooks, so it may slip into April…

The Blurb says: Set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a shattering novel about a young woman caught between allegiance to community and a dangerous passion.

Amid daily reports of violence, Cushla lives a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Belfast. By day she teaches at a parochial school; at night she fills in at her family’s pub. There she meets Michael Agnew, a barrister who’s made a name for himself defending IRA members. Against her better judgment – Michael is not only Protestant but older, and married – Cushla lets herself get drawn in by him and his sophisticated world, and an affair ignites. Then the father of a student is savagely beaten, setting in motion a chain reaction that will threaten everything, and everyone, Cushla most wants to protect.

As tender as it is unflinching, Trespasses is a heart-pounding, heart-rending drama of thwarted love and irreconcilable loyalties, in a place what you come from seems to count more than what you do, or whom you cherish.

* * * * *

NB All blurbs and covers taken from Goodreads, Amazon UK or Audible UK.

* * * * *

So…what do you think? Are you tempted?