One of the books sold to me by Helena’s Curiosity Shop. I’ve done really well with recommendations from bookshop workers. Out of all the recommendations I’ve had in the past three years there’s only been one I’ve been unhappy with. I’m told it’s a good book, but I just can’t ...

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This is one of the books I bought at Helena’s Curiosity Shop in Bentleigh. She helped me choose three books, but this one I picked up by myself because I like the author. It’s one of the book in The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. This series seems to ...

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I have a lot of books in my house. Times like now illustrate this perfectly. I’ve had The Fifth Elephant on my shelves for some time. I can’t tell you how long it’s been here for but I suspect I probably bought it at a second hand bookshop at some ...

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I picked up this book at Continuum in 2019. It was great fun being at a convention for writers or lovers of writing. If you want to attend at some time in the future here’s their website. I did lots of fangirling and squeeing over books. The Saint has been ...

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This is the sequel to the article I wrote on book one a couple of years ago. I’m not sure I can write as well as I did that day, but I’ll give it a go. I read The Girl Who Played with Fire closely followed by The Girl Who ...

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Published in June 1968 this book is nicely aged. There are a few issues with the corners but the stories are still as new as they were back in 1968. Not that I remember 1968, but the book does and that’s more important. I’m sure you know by now how ...

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I’ve read so much over the last few months and blogged so little I have a huge pile of books to write about. Four of those books are by the same author so it makes sense to write something about the writing in general, or the author…but who knows what ...

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A Lord Peter Wimsey mystery! And so mysterious there were quite a few bits I didn’t understand. That could possibly be because I know precious little about bell ringing. The one thing I know about bell ringing didn’t turn up until fairly late in the piece, and I’m not going ...

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Another solid detective novel, set in Sydney and this time tied up with the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We get to see a little bit of history of the construction of the Bridge and that gives us a date for the setting of this book. We’re told this book is set ...

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Ngaio Marsh was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. She is one of the Queens of Crime along with other wonderful writers such as Agatha Christie. She was supposedly born in 1895 but as her father didn’t register her birth until 1900 that is uncertain. This was a common occurrence for ...

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I read this book many years ago. I didn’t actually remember reading it until I was a little way in. And I wasn’t sure about this until the murderer was revealed. That is how long ago it was. I bought this book from a friend who was moving and I ...

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You may have heard of the series of TV movies with Rowan Atkinson in the starring role of Maigret. This book is one of the series of books written by Georges Simenon with Chief-Inspector Maigret as our protagonist. They have been translated from the French, this title was translated by ...

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One of those books I picked up, without the song, at Continuum last year. I also used it for the Dymocks Reading Challenge 2020 for the Book with a colour in the title category. ‘Continuum is Melbourne’s annual fan run speculative fiction and pop culture convention’, I reckon it’s aimed ...

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Picked this from my TBR Pile for the Dymocks Reading Challenge 2020 for the ‘A Book of Short Stories’ category. I knew it wouldn’t disappoint. I’ve been reading Peter Haining for much longer than I care to remember, he is the best when it comes to collections of short stories. ...

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