Emma Types Stuff

Waiting for Ted (Marieke Bigg) has a cover that reaches out and grabs you by the throat. A 1950s, pie-holding Stepford Wife with two giant red holes where her eyes should be, like a domesticated version of The Fly. You know at once that whatever it's about, it's going to be messed up. I had some reservations because it's a literary novel. I don't read much in the way of (contemporary) literary fiction. Having never studied literature at anything beyond a high-school level, it usually leaves me feeling stupid and like a faker. I'm the person at the posh-people party who doesn't know which forks to use and who doesn't know how to ski. I almost didn't write this review, because I was quite sure that I'd make some extremely obvious blunder and reveal how much I don't understand. Still, this feeling of living a lie gives me something in common with the characters. Waiting for Ted focuses on Rose. She's an upper-class woman (' shooting on the e

I always found it a shame that Agatha Christie wrote fewer Marple books than Poirot ones. It's understandable - Christie was chained to her Belgian detective in the same way Conan Doyle was to his Baker Street one. It's also much easier for an internationally famous detective to stumble upon mystery and murder (and the glamourous settings that come with them) than an elderly spinster - however well-connected she might be.   Christie's Miss. Marple books are by no means ignored, but you'd struggle to find anyone calling them her finest. There are no rule-breaking Roger Akroyd writing techniques, nor the exotic suspect list of the Orient Express . The series is instead celebrated for its deceptively simple concepts - the bewilderment of finding a body you don't recognise in your own house, the thrill at seeing a murder happen in a passing train window. The stories themselves, and the sleuth who solves them, seem to matter less.    But Miss. Marple has plenty to offer

To call my reading slump a 'slump' is to grossly understate the situation. After a decade of dutifully reading fifty-two books a year (a constant struggle) I probably read no more than fifteen books total during 2020/2021. It was like being in a fog - my brain simply could not process the amount of effort required to choose a book and then actually read it. I tried - I tried often. I'd start a book, read maybe ten pages, and a month later I'd still have read ten pages. Cut to June this year. I'd read precisely six books. Two in the first days of January and a few 'easy' reads I tried to tempt myself with, with little success. I gloomily picked up another short book to try again. And this time it worked! As if by magic, my reading mojo was back. I wasn't just content to read, I was consumed by it. I hadn't read so hungrily since my early teens, which was before I had internet access. Over the last six months I have read sixty-one books, achieving more

It's not often I start a book that I know absolutely nothing about. I hadn't heard any buzz, it didn't appear on any book lists and I hadn't seen a single copy in a bookshop. The only thing it had going for it was that it appeared in the Audible Plus catalogue under 'horror' at the exact moment I was looking for a free horror audiobook. Mike Bockoven's FantasticLand is the story of a theme park roughly the same size as Disney World . Like Disney, it's a family institution with distinct themed 'lands' ( Pirate Cove, Fairy Prairie, Circus World , etc). The story begins with a record-breaking hurricane that takes out several states. Things begin well, with FantasticLand almost over-prepared . The park is quickly evacuated, leaving only three-hundred volunteers to stay in the bunkers and secure the park in the aftermath - for a significant pay bonus.  After poor management and a blackout leads to the first (seemingly) accidental fatalities, the now s

" If only I could experience that for the first time again ." It's one of the most human emotions in the world, one we feel about everything from Star Wars to seeing the ocean. Some experiences can never be re-lived and some might only be re-experienced with new perspective and older eyes.    But The Decagon House Murders (by Yukito Ayatsuji, translated by Ho-Ling Wong) is that rarest of things - one that allows you to re-experience a classic all over again. It's a Japanese mystery novel, published in 1987 and released for English audiences in 2020. It became a cult classic in Japan, reinvigorating the literary appetite for puzzle-based mysteries.   The book revolves around members of a mystery book club at a Japanese university. They are fans of the 'golden age of detective novels', discussing the books, writing stories of their own, and going on trips together. Luckily for Western readers, and for readers who struggle with large casts, they only refer to e