Currently reading forum game

We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea
Arthur Ransome 1937 (Puffin 1969)



"In this latest adventure (following Pigeon Post, winner of the Carnegie Medal), the Walker family has come to Harwich to wait for Commander Walker's return. As usual, the children can't stay away from boats, and this time they meet young Jim Brading, skipper of the well-found sloop Goblin. But fun turns to high drama when the anchor drags, and the four young sailors find themselves drifting out to sea - sweeping across to Holland in the midst of a full gale! As in all of Ransome's books, the emphasis is on self-reliance, courage, and resourcefulness. We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea is a story to warm any mariner's heart. Full of nautical lore and adventure, it will appeal to young armchair sailors and season sailors alike." (from Goodreads)

It's good fun reading books that you read as a child. This is number seven of twelve in the Swallows and Amazons series and is quite an exciting tale with the life threatening jeopardy of a storm at sea. I could remember the bare outline of the story but all the details had been lost from memory.
Another series I'll be sad to finish.

The Whispering Land
Gerald Durrell 1961 (Penguin 1980)



"Gerald Durrell and his wife are the proud owners of a small zoo on the island of Jersey. But there's one thing that's better than a small zoo - a bigger one! So Durrell heads off to South America to collect more animals.
Along windswept Patagonian shores and in Argentine tropical forests, he encounters a range of animals from penguins to elephant seals. But as always, he is drawn to those rare and interesting creatures which he hopes will thrive and breed in captivity . . .
Told with enthusiasm and without sentimentality, Gerald Durrell's The Whispering Land is an often hilarious but always inspiring foray into the South American wilds." (from Blackwell's)

Durrell's sixth animal collecting travelogue. The exotic landscapes, fauna and people providng another relaxing, escapist read.

Hideaway
Dean Koontz 1992 (Headline 1992)



"Following a traffic accident that left him clinically dead for more than 80 minutes, a Southern California antique dealer named Hatch Harrison begins experiencing strange dreams and visions that connect him to a psychopathic killer who calls himself "Vassago". The killer believes that he is the human incarnation of one of the demon princes of Hell, and that if he murders enough innocent human beings and offers them up in sacrifice to his Master, he will be allowed to return to the afterlife and rule at Satan's right hand.
Meanwhile, the accident gives Hatch and his wife Lindsey, an artist, a new lease on life as they struggle to rebuild their marriage in the wake of their son's death from cancer five years before. As the couple set about trying to adopt a young girl named Regina, Hatch continues to be tormented by visions, in some cases even seeing through Vassago's eyes. Making matters worse, Vassago slowly gains information about Hatch and his family in the same fashion, putting both Lindsay and Regina in danger." (from wikipedia)

This is my first Koontz, acquired 30 years ago because it was nominated for the Stoker Award. The author churned out two or three novels a year for decades and quality control was apparently an issue with this one regarded by some as one of the weakest. I found it very readable and knocked it off in short order. The supernatural element is kind of pointless and the novel could easily have worked without it as a straight suspense thriller.
I've now read four of the five nominees for the 1992 Stoker award and the one I would most highly reccommend is Children of the Night by Dan Simmons who is one of my favourite writers.

George V
David Cannadine 2014 (Penguin 2018)



"For a man with such conventional tastes and views, George V had a revolutionary impact. Almost despite himself he marked a decisive break with his flamboyant predecessor Edward VII, inventing the modern monarchy, with its emphasis on frequent public appearances, family values and duty. George V was an effective war-leader and inventor of 'the House of Windsor'. In an era of ever greater media coverage--frequently filmed and initiating the British Empire Christmas broadcast--George became for 25 years a universally recognised figure. He was also the only British monarch to take his role as Emperor of India seriously. While his great rivals (Tsar Nicolas and Kaiser Wilhelm) ended their reigns in catastrophe, he plodded on.
David Cannadine's sparkling account of his reign could not be more enjoyable, a masterclass in how to write about Monarchy, that central--if peculiar--pillar of British life." (from Amazon)

George V was pretty dull even by the standards of 20th Century monarchs but the period through which he reigned was momentous for Britain and the world. The Lords v Commons constitutional crisis, The First World War, Ireland, The Russian Revolution, universal suffrage, the general strike, the rise of fascism, the great depression. Reading this was like revising for my O-Level history exam
Edward VII next and then back to the early ones in chronological order.

Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac
Richard Carpenter 1971 (Puffin 1976)



"Catweazle, the magician, escapes a Norman dungeon by traveling through time 900 years forward to modern England. Here Catweazle befriends a young student, Cedric. Cedric is obsessed with finding the lost treasure of Lord Alfred rumored to be hidden somewhere on his family's estate. Together, they embark on a quest to discover the thirteen signs of the Zodiac and give Catweazle the magic power to fly." (from goodreads)

They broadcast both series of Catweazle on Talking Pictures a couple of years ago and watching them gave me more pleasure than anything on tv since I saw the look of shock and dismay on David Dimbleby's face when he announced the Brexit result.
Richard Carpenter faithfully novelised his TV scripts in two books of which this is the second. For some reason they completely changed the cast (apart from the brilliant Geoffrey Bayldon as Catweazle) in the second series and some of the magic had gone. Catweazle is still a great character though. A cantankerous and malodorous old git, he can appreciate the technological wonders of the 20th century but prefers the primitive charms of the 11th. I know how he feels.

The First Battle of the Marne 1914
Ian Sumner 2010 (Osprey 2014)



"In 1914 the Germans launched an offensive that swept through Belgium and into France, threatening to crush French resistance in one fell swoop. However, through careful maneuvering and stubborn resistance, the French Army, aided by the BEF, blunted the assault, winning an important strategic victory that kept France in the war. This victory ensured that Germany would have to fight a two-front war, and the Western Front descended into the stalemate of trench warfare. One of the most important battles in the First World War, the First Battle of the Marne would be the last battle of maneuver to be seen on the Western Front for several years to come." (publisher's blurb)

The second of three Osprey Campaign series books on the opening battles on the Western theatre in WW1. The race to the sea and the First Battle of Ypres are covered by the final volume.
The cover depicts the famous Parisienne "taxis of the Marne" requisitioned to transport reinforcements to the front .

The Time Curve
Sam Moskowitz (ed), Roger Elwood (ed) 1968 (Tower 1968)



"Great collection of classic sci fi by a sterling batch of authors; not a clinker in the bunch. All of them (as the title suggests) incorporate some form of time travel, but there's a lot of variety in theme and a wide range of tones, from comedy to horror to dystopia. I particularly liked "Nice girl with 5 husbands" for its almost casual creation of a future where the extraordinary is ordinary, "Time wounds all heels" for its main character who talks like he was channeling Damon Runyon, and "Over the river & through the woods" for its ominous sense of darkness on the horizon. "Operation Peep" was clever and funny, foreshadowing our modern obsession with reality television, while "The great judge" reminded me very much of the old Twilight Zone episodes" (from goodreads)

I enjoyed this slim anthology of ten stories. Two or three were awful, pulp rubbish but the rest all had something going for them. Two of the tales involve dinosaurs. One involves trips to the Cretaceous where they are hunted as big game. In the other the beasts are brought to the present to make dinosaur pasties.
I bought it because it had Andre Norton's second published genre story, "The Gifts of Asti". Unfortunately this was one of the clunkers, her fantasy infused SF was still at an immature stage.

The Geordie Joke Book
Dick Irwin & Scott Dobson 1970 (Frank Graham 1970)



Geordie Beuk number five. Dick Irwin a "local humourist and actor" collaborated with Scott Dobson on some of the later entries in this series. The jokes are a bit lame but I just Like reading stuff in Geordie and particularly the lists of words and expressions at the back of each volume.

Mmm.. 1970 so that predates Ant & Dec, that's a bonus in itself.

Come on Boomer don't be embarrassed, we know this is on your shelf. Let's have a review.