There is nothing more satisfying than reading a book while sipping a hot cup of tea.
1961 is the year chosen by Kaggsy @ Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings and Simon @ Stuck in a Book for their first Reading Club of 2026. Here are short notes on some of the crime reads of the year. The Ballad of the Running Man by Shelley Smith RAF veteran, Rex, now a moderately successful writer … Continue reading #1961Club #ClassicsClub: Crime Reads
Anthony Gilbert aka Lucy Beatrice Malleson is one of my favourite authors. Besides, Anthony Gilbert, Malleson also wrote under a couple of other pseudonymns. One of them was Anne Meredith, under which she wrote both mainstream and mystery novels. The novel, The Beautiful miss Burroughes can be classified as a mainstream novel with a mystery … Continue reading #ClassicsClub: The Beautiful Miss Burroughes by Anne Meredith (1945)
This post contains major SPOILERS, especially for Uncle Silas, so please do not read unless you have read the books. Like #ReadingWales that I finally participated in this year, # ReadingIreland, hosted by 746Books, had long been on my reading radar. This year, I am happy to have read Sheridan Le Fanu's Uncle Silas for … Continue reading #ReadingIrelandMonth26 #ClassicsClub: The House by the Churchyard (1863) and Uncle Silas (1864) by Sheridan Le Fanu
The unnamed narrator is staying at a small guest-house in the French Riviera and gets on well with the other guests of various nationalities. However, one day, a French lady, Madame Henriette, staying there, elopes with a man she had (presumably) known only for a couple of days. She leaves behind a distraught husband and … Continue reading #ClassicsClub: Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman by Stefan Zweig (1927)
The subtitle of Sober Truth, compiled by Margaret Barton and Osbert Sitwell reads: A Collection of 19th Century Episodes, Fantastic, Grotesque and Mysterious. Indeed, right at the beginning of the preface, Sitwell confesses that the aim of the compilers (was) more propagandist than literary. True to the professed aim, the first chapter had the description … Continue reading #ClassicsClub #FFB: Sober Truth (ed.) Margaret Barton and Osbert Sitwell (1930)
This mammoth anthology is divided into two main parts with further subdivisions. The first Detection and Mystery starts with Biblical mysteries: The History of Bel (considered to be the first locked-room mystery) where Daniel reveals that the food offered to Bel is actually eaten by the priests. Daniel plays detective again in The History of … Continue reading #ClassicsClub: The Omnibus of Crime (ed.) by Dorothy L. Sayers (1929)
It's the day when we nominate our dream reprint of the year i.e. a mystery that we read last year and feel it ought to be reprinted. For more details on this, please check out this post @ CrossexaminingCrime. My nomination is Mail Train which was first published in 1946 and about which I have … Continue reading #Dream Reprint #Classic Mystery: Mail Train by Kenneth Austin Dobson (1946)
When I announced #HYH25, one of the books recommended was Willa Cather's The Professor's House. I had never read Cather and was keen to read her. So I tweaked my ClassicsClub list and finally almost at the end of the year, I finished the book. When the novel opened with the idea of shifting to … Continue reading #HYH25 #ClassicsClub: The Professor’s House by Willa Cather
War Veteran Richard Haldman, is down and almost out. He has survived the war but is finding it difficult to get a job in London. His country estate, which he hoped to manage, is lost due to debts and certain dubious investments of his father. His study of the law had been interrupted by the … Continue reading #HYH25 #1925Club #ClassicsClub: The Threshold of Fear by Arthur J. Rees
Edith Wharton hailed it as "the great American novel". Marylin Monroe immortalized the central character Lorelei Lee on the big screen. It was a publishing sensation. When serialised in Harper's Bazaar, the magazine's sales quadrupled. When published in book form, it was an instant hit. A second edition of 60,000 copies was also quickly picked … Continue reading #HYH25 #1925ReadingClub #ClassicsClub: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
a hot cup of pleasure 