Murder by Candlelight - selected by Cecily Gayford

Why yes, I did actually buckle down and finally finishing a pile of half read books this weekend, and I'm continuing the good work into the week - it's a nice feeling to see the pile by my bed diminish to slightly more manageable proportions. 

I bought Murder by Candlelight, this year's Christmas crime collection from Profile in the Carlisle Waterstones when I had an hour to spare between my bus south from the Birders and the train further south. I don't know Carlisle at all well, but it's a good sort of place to have a bit of time between trains - the town centre is an easy walk, even with luggage, in pursuit of a hot coffee, decent sandwich, and emergency reading. This book turned out to be inspired choice for the journey.

There are three train stories in it and they all take place on the line that runs from Carlisle to Birmingham. I started reading with the Dorothy L. Sayers story as I left Carlisle to find that the characters were also on a train leaving Carlisle (they got off at Rugby, I only went as far as Birmingham). It's a better story than a lot of Sayers shorts I've read. By chance as I changed trains at New Street I picked Cyril Hare's It Takes Two - the denouement takes place in New Street. Further investigation revealed Freeman Wills Crofts The Mystery of the Sleeping-Car Express where bad things happen near Preston. The worst thing that has ever happened to me at Preston was a rail replacement bus service pre-lockdown. 

Fortunately, this last set of train journeys was entirely trouble free, everything ran on time, there was no problem getting seats and I had lots of reading time to enjoy a few murders in. Murder by Candlelight is the strongest collection I've read from Profile. there isn't a dud in it, and Cyril Hare's It Takes Two was a particular gem. Simon Brett's 'How's Your Mother' is another one - it runs close to humour until just before the end when it veers into something altogether more unsettling. I think it's from 1985s 'A Box of Tricks', and owes a good bit to Physcho. 

A really satisfactory collection of mysteries and an excellent stocking filler of a book. 

The Dead of Winter - Sarah Clegg

I have an advance review copy of this book with a cover I actually like more than the finished hardback which is saving me from buying the finished hardback - something I'm rarely tempted to do, but I loved this book so much that I'd make an exception for it. 

The Dead of Winter is a survey of the Demons, Witches, and Ghosts of Christmas and it is an absolute delight - another easy entry into my top ten books of the year list when the time comes to put that together. Sarah Clegg is a knowledgable, academically sound, and overall amusing guide to the darker side of Christmas and where it comes from. 

The answers may be surprising depending on what you already know, or think you know, about Christmas traditions. The short version is that some things - like carnival have roots going back to antiquity, and some traditions are only a few hundred years old. We had mostly moved away from the darker side of the festive season, but the growing popularity of wassailing, Krampus runs, mummers plays and the Mari Llwyd snapping horse heads suggest we need something to balance the jollines of Santa and the saccharine effects of the John Lewis Christmas advert. Or maybe that as Christmas has increasingly become about children, we're looking for some more adult traditions to embrace.

Whatever theories you favour there's plenty to think about here. Clegg never mocks the eccentricities she meets - which might have been tempting for the winter solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, she does invite us to laugh with her at how she manages to scare herself on a pre-dawn Year Walk in an attempt to discover who in the parish will die in the next year. She doesn't believe in the possibility, but on a cold Christmas eve morning well before sunrise having observed the whole ritual - well then it's hard not to believe just a little in anything at all. 

This isn't a particularly dark book and certainly not a how to guide for dark rituals, but very much a survey of recorded folklore and how it's evolved. Exactly the thing to settle down with on a dark night and make you wonder if it's worth leaving out an offering of food and an open window on the 13th of December in the hope of being taken up by Saint Lucy's wild hunt and riding across the winter sky with her. 

Nights Out At Home - Jay Rayner

I've always enjoyed Jay Rayner's restaurant reviews so was happy to accept a review copy of this book, expecting to enjoy it. I'm still surprised by how much I love it. It's an easy book to dip in and out of, though once you start reading it's even easier to just carry on. Rayner, I imagine, must be an engaging host or dinner companion; amusing and generous with his knowledge, serious about what he does but not taking himself too seriously here, and delightfully enthusiastic about the the food that has hit the spot. 

Nights Out at Home is a collection of 60 recipes and all sorts of stories from 25 years as a restaurant critic and perfect for any foodie that likes to try and recreate a good meal out back at home. Some of the dishes in here are complicated, but they'll make you a better cook (and so will having a good look at some of the carefully chosen restaurant menus) some are perfect in their simplicity, and one sets out to create a luxuriously home made version of the Gregg's steak bake - an endeavor that so strongly reminded me of someone I used to work with (an amazing cook) that I'll be sending him a copy of this. 

We don't sell as many cookbooks as I'd like in Leicester, and Amazons ratings have this at number 10 in women's biographies which is impressive but confusing. My overall feeling though is that it's not quite getting the attention it deserves. As a practical cookbook it wouldn't be my first choice, but as a really enjoyable read with insight into the role of a restaurant critic, professional kitchens, and the people who run and work in them it's a treat. 

It would make an excellent Christmas present, not least because it's going to be perfect reading both in anticipation of Christmas lunch or dinner, and then on a full stomach whilst it all digests. I've had a thoroughly lovely weekend reading it in between pottering around cooking a little more elaborately than I have in a while - bad weather blew out our plans for a good country walk followed by a pub lunch so we went all out at home. Which is another thing to like about this book - its enthusiasm for other cooks and their work is inspiring me to pull down a couple of so far underused books and give them more attention too. 

Murder under the Mistletoe - The Reverend Richard Coles

I started reading Richard Coles first murder mystery (Murder Before Evensong) in proof form just before it first came out, but only read the first few chapters before getting distracted by other books. Since then he had joined the list of things people keep telling me I would love to the point that I stubbornly refuse to read them. Yesterday I got a copy of 'Murder Under the Mistletoe' read it in a sitting and have to concede that everybody who told me I'd love him was on the money. 

This is the beauty of a short book (around 140 pages in this instance with an excellent recipe for bread sauce thrown in). It's not a big thing to invest the time in it, and as 'Murder Under the Mistletoe' charmed on a number of levels I will be going back and starting from the beginning. 

I liked it as a murder mystery, it's clever with a great ending which I can't discuss without spoilers but I thought it was satisfyingly nuanced. I like the Clements, Canon Daniel Clement is thoughtful, human, clever, and compassionate - there's a satisfying scene where he immediately stops some mild bullying. His mother Audrey is a splendid creation and so is brother Theo. The de Floures family from the big house are well drawn too, and Mrs March is a masterpiece.

I really liked the attention to food and drink, and the obvious knowledge behind it - I wonder if the Reverend would appreciate that I'm writing this with an excellent glass of 2011 Côte-Rôtie to hand (I'm certainly appreciating it) or that he inspired me to cook venison tonight... 

More than anything though I love how this reminds me of E M Delafield's Provincial Lady. Coles has set his books in the late 1980s - a nice touch. For anyone middle aged now it's long enough go for a touch of nostalgia, but not so far back as to need much explaining, I dated it from David and Ruth Archer's wedding. It's another smart touch from a smart writer. Mobile phones and the the internet are not conducive to convincing cosy crime, the 80s still feel familiar to many of us, there's no need to over-explain anything but there are a few plot details that wouldn't work in a contemporary setting, including perhaps some of the social nuance.

The Clements are solidly middle class, Audrey, Daniels mothers, attempts to impress the local gentry are treated with humour and sympathy - there's a lovely passage where Daniel worries if the de Floures, who have invited themselves for Christmas dinner will be stilton scoop or knife people. I do not like stilton, but I do have a scoop, and have given a few as presents*. The nuance is continued through wine choices - German Sekt rather than Champagne - not as popular as it was, croft original sherry, a white Burgandy bought as a gift from the big house that will be nice, but isn't the best, at a time when the best was more affordable. There are dozens of moments like this and they're as sharp and delightful as I could hope for. 

*A benefit of living in the home county of Stilton is that if you do like it and are sensible enough to go to the market here you get excellent Stilton for about a third of the price of supermarkets or cheesemongers. Having a whole wheel of it on the table is a question of having enough people to eat it, not needing a bank loan to buy it and scooping os very much an option. 

The Wood at Midwinter - Susanna Clarke

This is a very pretty book but it has - not exactly annoyed me, but it's not to my mind pretty enough to warrant the £9.99 price tag, and there isn't enough story to justify it either. It is not a good sign when an explanation of what you've just read takes almost as long as the story it explains, non of which is a reflection on Clarke's writing which is as perfectly crafted as ever. 

Victoria Sawdon's illustrations are charming enough but you'd have to like them a lot more than I do to buy the book for them (my copy is a review one from Bloomsbury, which I'll pass on to a hopefully more enthusiastic colleague). I liked 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' but (ironically given how short this is) thought it was over long - The Woods at Midwinter is imagined in the same world, it is very much for fans of both Clarke and 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell'. 

This would have worked beautifully as an add on in an exclusive edition, and as it stands will probably find itself in any number of Christmas stockings (or equivalent, we're a stocking family for this kind of thing), there will be people who love it, are entranced by the images, and feel very happy with their purchase, but I'm in a full on Scrooge mood with this one to the point that I've deleted several mean spirited sentences, but in the end I can't even bring myself to really be down on the publisher for producing it. What I do know is that it's bothered me enough to write this to get it off my chest.

The Kings's Bride - E.T.A. Hoffmann

How do you catagorise E.T.A Hoffman? Romantic, surreal, magical realism, gothic, horror? I'm not really sure, I think he's mostly files under fiction which tells the reader nothing. Perhaps influential is the word that really sums him up - a writer who's work and imagination still permeates popular culture but there's a good chance you've never heard of (I think anyone reading this will have heard of him, but we're a select group).

The King's Bride is at the lighter end of Hoffmann's output - mostly a comedy with some excellent jokes and only a few horrifying moments. Anna is happily engaged to her neighbours son, Amandus, currently at university and fancying himself a poet whilst she remains at home and concerns herself with the kitchen garden. Her father, something of a philosopher, astronomist, and astrologer, spends his days studying the sciences from the comfort of his tower. 

One day Anna discovers a gold ring on a carrot in her garden, puts it on and finds herself engaged to Corduanspitz - a gnome, or possibly the king of carrots, which is a much worse thing to be than a gnome. Anna is at first horrified, and then reconciled as she's led to believe she will reign over the finest vegetable garden in the world, and then horrified again as she realises she's being changed into something more like her prospective husband. Will Amandus forget his poetry for long enough to save the day and his true love? Will her father maybe manage it instead? Or will Corduanspitz win out and carry Anna away, and what of his feud with the radishes?

In the spirit of any romance worth the name there's a happy outcome for Anna, and plenty of amusement for the reader - the portrait of Amandus as an undergraduate over confident in his own abilities as a poet is an absolute treat, and there's more than enough unease behind the comedy to make things interesting. 

This translation is part of Alma Classics 101 page classics series - a genius concept. It's not so much that my concentration is shot for long books (it is slightly) but that middle age has tired me out. I don't currently have the energy to read as much as I'd like to, or the time (because I fall asleep). Novellas are satisfying, they're also a fabulous way to test the waters before investing in a major work by a classic novelist, or as the season closes in on us, a really good small gift for Christmas.

The Great Tapestry of Scotland

I've been in Scotland for a couple of days seeing family which has been lovely, something we did on Tuesday was go and see The Great Tapestry of Scotland in Galasheils. I remember this project in progress (vaguely) and just as vaguely remembered that it had ended up in the Borders but had never thought to go and see it. My stepmother and father had tried a couple of times but it had always been closed - it's currently not open on Sundays or Mondays - which feels a bit odd, but very Borders - there's a few visitor attractions not open on weekends - but if ever a thing had Sunday trip out written all over it, it's surely this. The moral of this story is definitely to check opening times before setting off, which I did.

Entry is £10.50 each for adults, or £25 for a season ticket. The day ticket is for the whole day and you can come and go as much as you please in that time. Both the woman at the ticket desk and the attendant in the gallery recommended taking a break for coffee and a walk - it's good advice because there's an overwhelming amount of detail to pick through and one visit isn't enough. Taking a break and going back for a last look before car parking ran out revealed lots of things I'd missed first time around. 

The tapestry itself is a remarkable thing - about 143 metres of panels illustrating episodes from Scottish history and culture. It was finished in 2013 at the height of the referendum debate and definitely captures something of the mood and pride in that moment. The original idea came from Alexander McCall Smith,  Alistair Moffat formed the narrative it would take, and  Andrew Crummy designed the panels. Over a 1000 people were involved in the embroidering in groups the length and breadth of the country - mostly women. Each panel took around 500 hours to create. 

It's an incredible project. There are things which would not look the same if it was designed now - at least I hope the panels that touch on colonialism would be different, and that the interpretive material that goes with them would be very different, but as a reflection of how we thought even 12 years ago it's a fair representation. 

What is remarkable, and the thing I found most powerful about the tapestry was the sense of time, craft, and effort that went into making it. The makers could choose the stitches they used and there's space on each panel for personalisation. All the makers are named under each panel. It's an awe inspiring achievement, stunning bit of craft and collaboration, and a really impressive bit of art. I found it genuinely moving and at times almost overwhelmingly emotional to look at.

The Borders railway stops very close to the gallery, so it's easily accessible from Edinburgh even without a car. There's also good cheap parking. I love that this is in Galashiels where it's a centerpiece to the town and reflects back something of the area's textile history, and not just another thing to see in Edinburgh or Glasgow too. Definitely make time for this if you're anywhere in the area.