February 2024 in review
Books, poems, short stories and a terrible Salmon Rushdie joke
Dear Reader,
Happy March! Spring is always hopeful: a new season, new books, new goals, warmer weather, longer days. It’s still chilly in my neck of the woods, but at least flowers are blooming everywhere I look.
So, what did I read in February?
In February, I continued to pore over The Book Lover’s Almanac, written by Alex Johnson and published by the British Library. As a child, a restaurant my family frequented had sheets of tidbits sitting around for customers to peruse. I pored over every word. I think the sheet was simply titled ‘Tidbits’ and I learned a lot of useless, but interesting and fun, trivia. This book brings back that memory.
An interesting tidbit from The Book Lover’s Almanac:
14 February 1989: Novelist and travel writer Bruce Chatwin’s memorial service (he died on 18 January) is held in the Greek cathedral of Saint Sophia in Moscow Road, London. Two hours before it begins, a fatwa on Salmon Rushdie is announced on Radio Tehran by Ayatollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of Iran. Rushdie is present at the service and sitting in the pew behind him is Paul Theroux, who leans forward and jokes: ‘I suppose we’ll be here for you next week.’
No idea what Mr. Rushdie’s reaction was…
I reread Belgravia by Julian Fellowes. I read it years ago when it was initially published. I enjoyed the re-read just as much as the first time I read it. It’s the story of two families intertwined due to an unforeseen event. I can’t give away the event as it’s a spoiler. But the story begins at the Battle of Waterloo where something so momentous happens that it changes the destiny of the two families. The secret isn’t discovered until decades later, which is where Chapter Two picks up. The story is set mostly in Belgrave Square, part of a newly built neighbourhood for the wealthy. For me, the location was just as much a character in the book as the actual characters. The story also depicts a serious dose of upstairs/downstairs drama, which I enjoyed immensely.
The Victorian Detective by Alan Moss and Keith Skinner is a booklet on the history of how and why the British police detective force was created. It gives an overview of the development of basic forensic tests, such as fingerprinting, and covers famous murders such as the Jack the Ripper murders. Fun fact, detectives were referred to as ‘shadows’ during the Victorian era. Another fun fact is that real-life detective, Jonathan Whicher, was the inspiration for the detective in Wilkie Collins’s novel The Moonstone.
And a few honourable mentions.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
“The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Waste Land and Other Poems by T.S. Eliot
Did you read anything interesting last month?
As always, thank you so much for reading Books & Victorians. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Lovely to see what you’ve been reading. I’m half way through Oliver Twist at the moment and hoping to dig deeper into Wilkie Collins this year. Perhaps I should get The Victorian Detective as a companion read!
Some people are very snobby about Julian Fellowes, but I think he's a genius. They put Belgravia on TV and it was great. And I completely adore The Gilded Age, and not only for the costumes! Meanwhile my reading the last 2 weeks has been very disappointing. I treated myself to two 'new' bestsellers, In Memoriam and The Cloisters, and thought they were both massively overrated. Its back to Whipple and Priestley for me!