2016 Antiguan holiday shelfie

These are the books that we have read over the course of our holiday. The two books on the left are Mr hazelh's choices, and mine are on the right. Mr hazelh also read some PG Wodehouse on his iPad, and made a start on Robinson Crusoe.

I rank my choices as follows:

1. The luminaries by Eleanor Catton - I haven't quite finished this yet, but I love it. The story is a great yarn set in gold rush New Zealand and written in a style that reminds me of the great European novelists of the nineteenth century. When you are not actively reading this book you can't help wondering what the characters are up to. I recommend it heartily.

2. The lost Tudor princess by Alison Weir - This book is about Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, who was related to everyone of political significance in Britain in the sixteenth century, and close to the top of various iterations of the line of succession in both England and Scotland during the turbulant period of Elizabeth I (her cousin) and Mary Queen of Scots (her niece and daughter-in-law). I love this kind of book, but I recognise that it's not everybody's cup of tea. (You do have to concentrate hard to follow all the detail - not easy when there is the distraction of chatting with other guests at the poolside.)

3. H is for hawk by Helen Macdonald was not what I expected, but I loved the combination of natural history and biography captured within the pages. I'm going to pass this on to my father because I think he'll appreciate the natural history element of it.

4. Where or when by Anita Shreve, which I read immediately after The lost Tudor princess as 'light relief'. I have mixed feelings about this book, largely because I found the characters rather unsympathetic and the story of teenage sweethearts reunited in middle age a little far-fetched, yet love Shreve's written style. I much prefer her other work.

5. The book collector by Alice Thompson was (thankfully) a quick read. I found the narrative flat, the plot (about making leather from the skin of murdered women) silly, and supposed historic detail out of kilter with the period in which the action was meant to be set.

Reading today: continued The luminaries by Eleanor Catton.

Scrabble today: I beat Mr hazelh 407 to 284, then he beat me 429 t0 321. These were the last two games of the holiday series so Mr hazelh won it overall with his six wins to my three.

This is the last of my backblipped Antiguan holiday blips. The full set is as follows:

Day 1: Antigua!
Day 2: Crane in flight
Day 3: Bedroom ambush
Day 4: Pool lizard (upright)
Day 5: Caribbean rainbow panorama
Day 6: Pool lizard (recumbent)
Day 7: Fringed sunset
Day 8: 2016 Antiguan holiday shelfie