This is the first of these book sized magazines to be published.

Overall not a bad read, the magazine contains some reviews of recent Holmes product by Kim Newman who's always entertaining and quite a good article on the film versions of the Hound of the Baskervilles.

As to the fiction it was good to read Conan Doyle's Gloria Scot again, but it did go to prove that the new Holmes tale by Carole Bugge was but a pale imitation of the master's work.

Of the non Holmes fiction I really enjoyed the sting in the tail Lost and Found by Jean Paiva and the news anchorwoman solving a case while on air On the Heir by Hal Charles, unfortunately the other stories by Ron Goulet, Edmund D Hoch and Marc Bilgrey were all a bit murder by numbers for my liking

I have just finished my second reading of the first two books in a Trilogy by the South African writer, Dalene Mathee - now sadly deceased. (1938-2005). The second visit only underlined what a fine author she was of well-researched historical novels, set in mid- to late 19th century S.Africa, especially the southern-most part of Knysna and the immediate hinterland Forest. Her characters are so well-crafted and true to the period, locality and culture, that they come close to being historically authentic; one gets the feel that behind these characters lie 'real people'.
It may not be easy to get copies of the books locally, but a good on-line Bookstore...might give the link to second-hand copies. I would suggest starting with 'Circles in the Forest', the tramslation (by Dalene, herslf) of  'Kringe in the Bos', naturally written originally in Afrikaans.
I can do no better than to quote from a comment on the front cover by the celebrated S.African writer, Andre Brink: 'As rich and deep and dark and luminous and wise as the forest world she so generously evokes.'
Then, hold your breath for the second in the Trilogy, 'Fiela's Child', also translated by Dalene from her original in Afrikaans. The issues reflected in this novel are ubiquitous and timeless. For your delectation.

On the face of it this book looked really interesting. an alternative Victorian London with steam carriages, airships and clockwork robots, a mysterious plague, an airship crash, mysterious murders down in Whitechapel and a new detective duo.

Only the writing was boring, I wanted to like this book but I could not engage with the one dimensional characters and often found myself nodding off as I followed the ultimately predictable plot. And while I'm willing to suspend the rules of science to a certain extent when reading a steam punk fantasy Mann clearly does not understand the principles of lighter than air flight when describing the the airships. Many of the ideas used in the plot are sadly a bit derivative with borrowings from George Romero and Tom Peters amongst others.

On the plus side it has a great cover and I got it as part of a three for the price of two deal ..

I came across this in the library the other day, and realised that, although I know what it is about, I had never read it. Soon remedied!

I found that I had to keep reminding myself that this was written by a 13/14/15 year old girl (as the years passed) and that it wasn't 'just' a badly written book. Yes, she wrote poorly, but she was a child, going thru puberty, experiencing all the throes of hormones and periods and boys. I can remember what I was like at her age, and I wouldn't even have bothered with a diary, let alone for such a long time!

There were a couple of things that hit me about the book.

I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me.

She truly believed, and I guess she would have had to, that she would have a life after the war. She looked to the future, even though, day in, day out, she was in those rooms, with no light at the end of the tunnel.

I can assure you I'm not all that keen on a narrow, cramped existence like Mummy and Margot [her sister]. I'd adore to go to Paris for a year and London for a year to learn the languages and study the history of art. Compare that with Margot who wants to be a midwife in Palestine! I always long to see beautiful dresses and interesting people.

Quotes like the above show just how immature she really was, and how being stuck in the Secret Annexe severaly cramped her growth and maturity. I should have loved to have read a diary kept by Margot, who comes across during the whole book as being a much more interesting person!

The most shocking thing, however, was how, day after day, Anne got into the habit of writing about their life, and the reader gets into the habit of reading about the daily life. And then ... it stops. One day, she is talking about how she sees herself, and how misunderstood she is (a huge theme throughout the whole diary) and the next ... nothing. The Gestapo have arrived and swept them off, first to Westerbork in Holland, then to Auschwitz and ultimately for Anne and Margot - Bergen-Belsen, where they meet their end (February 1945), mere months before the end of the war.

One has to keep reminding oneself that this is a true account. I think that we are desensitised to this sort of thing, thru the extensive literature we have on the subjects of wars and the individuals involved. Books like "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and "Memoirs of a Geisha" are so well written that one becomes enmeshed in the story, forgetting they are based on fact, and then when the fact comes along, the opposite occurs - we forget it is true, that we are reading the words of someone who was actually there ... and they lose their impact.

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. Part of me thinks she is a silly little girl, and that there is no literature here. Another part thinks that her being a silly little girl is what makes this so poignant, and such a important work.

Undecided.
Thoughts?

This is the second part of Luyanyenko's Night Watch trilogy and this time we move over to the other side as the sagents of the Day Watch attempt to maintain the balance between light and dark.

First off is the story of Alice a Day watch agent sent to a youth camp in the Ukraine to recuperate from an encounter with the Night Watch in Moscow, unfortunately she falls in love with Igor, a Night Watch agent and the consequences aren't good. Then on to a an amnesiac magician traveling to Moscow with a holdall full of money, who is he and what is he up to? Then we join Day Watch Agent Edgar as he goes to Prague for a hearing with the Inquisition.

I didn't enjoy this as much as The Day Watch, possibly as its written in the third person so I didn't feel as involved with the characters as I did with Anton in the Night Watch, but then I enjoyed Night Watch a hell of lot. What I did enjoy was the exploration of Day Watch head Zabulon's character and finding out a bit more about what makes the guy tick together with the unfurling of a little more of the mythology that underpins the stories.

Worth a read I'd say

Its summer 1864 and Alfred Lord Tennyson is resident in the Isle of Wight, checking his sons for madness and hoping the Queen will drop in for plum cake and a recitation. His neighbour, the photographer Julia Cameron is busy having the red roses whitewashed for visual effect.

The summer idly is thrown into confusion by the arrival of elderly painter GF Watts and his 16 year old bride - the actress Ellen Terry, the outrageous American phrenologist Lorenzo Fowler and his precocious eight year old daughter Jessie and Alice in Wonderland's creator - the Reverend Charles Dodgeson.

There are some laugh out load moments as everyone tries to suck up to the poet, Tennyson's long suffering wife attempts to shield the over sensitive bard from bad reviews, Terry cross-dresses to go to the phrenologist's show only to become an object of lust to Cameron's maid, Lorenzo's advice goes badly wrong and the true nature of Tennyson's Gift is revealed.

Sheri Tepper is one of my all time favorite writers. I have never read anything of hers that I could put down, and they always leave me thinking.

My husband, howeer, hates her work, so I think it is maybe somethng the women would prefer. She is a rather feminist writer, always writing from the woman's point of view, with untapped woman-power at the core of her work.

The Margarets starts with Margaret (surprise) as a lone child on Mars. She invents imaginary friends, to ease her loneliness. Upon moving back to Earth, she forgets about her 'friends' and lives as a relatively normal child. However, events conspire to give her seeral very important life choices. As she makes each choise, one of her 'friends' splits off from her, and goes to another planet to live the life she hasn't chosen. She stays on Earth to live the life she has.

Ultimately, there are seven 'Margarets' living around the galaxy, and then the reason for this 'splitting off' is explained, and all the Margarets have to come together to save humanity.

Gripping read, very well thought out, so well written one can suspend disbelief in the 'splitting off' stuff, and certainly gives you food for thought!

The first in the Shopaholic series. Becky Bloomwood can't help herself, she is up to her eyes in debt and but cannot resist the temptations in the shops and just keeps buying more and more stuff that she doesnt need. Hilarious, I couldnt put it down.