The Windsor Knot by S. J. Bennett -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Windsor Knot by S. J. Bennett

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

It was an almost perfect spring day.

-- from The Windsor Knot by S. J. Bennett. Not a particularly gripping opening sentence, but I expect things will pick up. 

I've been organizing my TBR shelves and came across The Windsor Knot, a cozy-ish mystery set in 2016 in which the Queen of England is the sleuth. What an adorable idea! I'm going to read it with my ears because my library has the audiobook.  

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from The Windsor Knot:

“When I mentioned it to the Queen, she asked me to pass on her sincere condolences and when I did, Lady Hepburn invited her to tea and Her Majesty said yes."

Was this even possible?

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

It is the early spring of 2016 and Queen Elizabeth is at Windsor Castle in advance of her 90th birthday celebrations. But the preparations are interrupted by the shocking and untimely death of a guest in one of the Castle bedrooms. The scene leads some to think the young Russian pianist strangled himself, yet a badly tied knot leads MI5 to suspect foul play. When they begin to question the Household’s most loyal servants, Her Majesty knows they’re looking in the wrong place.

For the Queen has been living an extraordinary double life ever since her teenage years as “Lilibet.” Away from the public eye and unbeknownst to her closest friends and advisers, she has the most brilliant skill for solving crimes. With help from her Assistant Private Secretary, Rozie Oshodi, a British Nigerian officer recently appointed to the Royal Horse Artillery, the Queen discreetly begins making inquiries. As she carries out her royal duties with her usual aplomb, no one in the Royal Household, the government, or the public knows that the resolute Elizabeth won’t hesitate to use her keen eye, quick mind, and steady nerve to bring a murderer to justice.

June 2026 Monthly Wrap Up -- BOOK THOUGHTS

BOOK THOUGHTS

June 2026 Monthly Wrap Up

What book surprised you in June? For me, the answer is The Calamity Club, which completely pulled me in from the get go. See my earlier review post.

Here's the list of the book I read in June. See any favorites?

• Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie. I love AC but often forget to read her books. I'd like to read at least one a month but need to concentrate to make that work. This was an overly complicated but still fun Hercule Poirot case set in France.  

• Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling. Schoolboy stories are not my usual cup of tea. These are as good as they get, and I appreciate them as a classic, but didn't really engage with them.

• The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett. I got a review copy of this one from the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program. I was determined to get it read and reviewed, but was daunted by the page count -- it's a doorstop! So I switched to the audiobook from my library and was so happy i did. The two readers did an amazing job and really made the characters come alive. 

• The Bible of British Taste: Stories of Home, People and Place by Ruth Guilding. This coffee table book was fascinating. I expected glossy layouts of fancy houses. But it is more about how real people live in architecturally significant houses in whatever state those houses may be in. It is about preserving, not necessarily restoring or renovating. I was unfamiliar with Guilding's former blog of the same name, so this world was all new to me. 

• Simisola by Ruth Rendell is the 16th book in her Inspector Wexford series and explores issues of immigration, racism, and exploitation. It was a good one. 

• Curriculum Vitae: Autobiography by Muriel Spark. Spark is one of my favorite authors. Her autobiography covers her childhood in Edinburgh, disastrous first marriage to a mentally unstable man she followed to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), work for the British Secret Service during WWII, and early success as an author. It's fascinating to read her story in her own words. 

• The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading, Writing, and the World of Books by Robertson Davies. This was a delight from beginning to end. Davies is another favorite fiction writer of mine. This is a collection of speeches he gave later in life, mostly about reading and writing. I loved every page. 

• Diamond Solitaire by Peter Lovesey is the second mystery in his Peter Diamond series. I have most of the book in cool Soho Crime editions and am excited dive in. Diamond is the kind of schleppy, overweight, own-worse-enemy sort of crime solver I love, sort of an English version of Ian McEwan's John Rebus. 

• Slightly Foxed No. 87 (Summer 2025). This literary quarterly is so interesting it is worth the risk of overloading my TBR shelves. 

NOT PICTURED

• The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. This was my first Shafak book and might be my last. I read it for book club and we all agreed that the premise was good but the execution left us cold because she lectures a lot. A lot. 

• Road Rage by Ruth Rendell. This 20th Wexford mystery involves environmental activists protesting the construction of a new byway near "Kingsmarkham," Wexford's fictional town in Sussex.

• The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman. I love the Thursday Murder Club books and this new one, the fifth, lived up to me expectations. 

• Mona’s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser. This was another book club pick and I did not finish it. I don't include it on my book count for the year, but I include it here because I wrote about it here. 

The Kipling, Spark, and Davies books were from my TBR 26 in '26 stack, leaving me with nine to go.

The Singapore Grip by J. G. Farrell -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Singapore Grip by J. G. Farrell

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The city of Singapore was not built up gradually, the way most cities are, by a natural deposit of commerce on the banks of some river or at a traditional confluence of trade routes.

-- from The Singapore Grip by J. G. Farrell. This week, I’m diving in to The Singapore Grip, the final book in J. G. Farrell’s Empire Trilogy. The three books explore the decline of the British Empire, focusing on three key historical points in time: the Irish War of Independence (Troubles), the Indian Mutiny (The Siege of Krishnapur), and Japan’s 1942 invasion of Singapore (The Singapore Grip). All three are slyly funny, with a seemingly gentle satire that creeps up on you. Worth reading, especially back to back.

 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from The Singapore Grip:

Walter had been almost overpowered on the occasion of his first visit to Akron, Ohio, by this sensation of the right thing being done at high intensity all around him, and not only in the production of male babies but in that of motor tyres and rims, too. Perhaps it was just as well that he and Firestone were on opposite ends of the rubber business.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Singapore, 1939: life on the eve of World War II just isn't what it used to be for Walter Blackett, head of British Singapore's oldest and most powerful firm. No matter how forcefully the police break one strike, the natives go on strike somewhere else. His daughter keeps entangling herself with the most unsuitable beaus, while her intended match, the son of Blackett's partner, is an idealistic sympathizer with the League of Nations and a vegetarian. Business may be booming—what with the war in Europe, the Allies are desperate for rubber and helpless to resist Blackett's price-fixing and market manipulation—but something is wrong. No one suspects that the world of the British Empire, of fixed boundaries between classes and nations, is about to come to a terrible end.

A love story and a war story, a tragicomic tale of a city under siege and a dying way of life, The Singapore Grip completes the “Empire Trilogy” that began with Troubles and the Booker prize-winning Siege of Krishnapur.

Encounters with Animals -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Encounters with Animals by Gerald Durrell

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

I am constantly being surprised by the number of people, in different parts of the world, who seem to be quite oblivious to the animal life around them.

 -- from Encounters with Animals by Gerald Durrell. 

I only recently discovered Gerald Durrell's animal books. I've read several novels written by his brother Lawrence Durrell, but it was only when I watched the wonderful Durrell's of Corfu that I learned about Gerald and his lifelong love of animals. So far, I've only read one of his books, Menagerie Manor, about starting a private zoo on the Channel Island of Jersey. But I have several others on my TBR shelf, including this one. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Encounters with Animals:

I sat on that sandbank for two hours, watching these great roly-poly creatures churning up the water and sand as they duelled in the shallows. As far as I could see, the old male was getting the worst of it, and I felt sorry for him. 

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Gerald Durrell's accounts of the animals he encountered on his travels were some of the first widely shared descriptions of the world's most extraordinary animals. Moving from the West Coast of Africa to the northern tip of South America - and elsewhere - Durrell observes the courtships, wars and characters of a variety of creatures, from birds of paradise, to ants and anteaters, among others.

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

Well, if you came by last week or the week before for Book Beginnings, MY APOLOGIES! Apparently retirement and hosting duties don't mix, because I keep forgetting to post. I've now added a weekly reminder to my calendar so I hope I will be more responsible.  

If you are still hanging around, thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Later, not a single person will recall seeing the lady board the flight at Hobart Airport. 

-- from Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty, her most recent novel. I love Moriarty's books and have read most of them. This one is not as suspenseful as Big Little Lies or some of the other ones, but it is good entertainment, like all of them. 

Are you a Liane Moriarty fan? What's your favorite? 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Here One Moment:

Paula stares for a dull stupefied moment at the document the Scottish man is trying to hand her. She squints to read it, as if it’s a contract or a file she needs to act on, but she really doesn’t have the bandwidth for this right now.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Suddenly a woman traveling alone stands. She walks down the aisle making predictions about how and when passengers will die. Some dismiss her, they don’t believe in psychics. Some are delighted with her prophecies! Their lives will supposedly be long. Others are appalled.

Then: a few months later, the first prediction comes true.

Intricately plotted, with the wonderful wit Liane Moriarty has become famous for, Here One Moment brilliantly looks at friends, lovers, and family and how we manage to hold onto them in our harried modern lives.

5 Great American Novels -- FAVE FIVE BOOK THOUGHTS

 

5 Great American Novels

FAVE FIVE BOOK THOUGHTS

The word of the month is semiquincentennial! On this Independence Day weekend, in honor of America's 250th anniversary, I picked five of my favorite American novels. I think these are all "great American novels" even if I don't know I would pick one of them for the Great American Novel, which is an elusive critter. 

Instead of trying to pick the most American novel I could think of (Huckleberry Finn? To Kill a Mocking Bird?), I picked these because I love them and I think they all have a particularly American spirit to them. 

• Postcards by E. Annie Proulx. Her debut novel, this overlooked gem follows the tragic hero from a hardscrabble farm in upstate New York across America and across the decades from 1940 to 1980. An unforgettable story of rural American life in the mid 20th century.

• My Ántonia by Willa Cather. My favorite Cather book and the best novel about immigrant pioneer life on the Great Plains.

• Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels by John Updike (Rabbit, Run, Rabbit Redoux, Rabbit is Rich, and Rabbit at Rest). No matter your feelings about Rabbit, no fiction better captures the zeitgeist of the Silent Generation’s era. From basketball stardom in 1950s high school, to a rocky marriage in the turbulent '60s, commercial success in the '70s, and retirement in Florida in the '80s, Rabbit lived through it all. Updike won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for Rabbit is Rich and 1991 for Rabbit at Rest.

• The Road Home by Jim Harrison. Like My Ántonia, this intergenerational family saga is set in Nebraska, but deals more directly with the tragic conflict between pioneers and Native Americans. At the same time, it is a great yarn with Harrison's typical wry humor, big characters, astute sense of place, and forgiving heart.

• All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren. Louisiana is like nowhere else in the United States, but could only happen in the United States, making this fictional story of Huey Long a quintessential American political novel. It won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize.

Have you rea any of these? What do you think? What book would you nominate for the Great American Novel? 

FIVE FAVES

There are times when a full-sized book list is just too much; when the Top 100, a Big Read, or all the Prize winners seem like too daunting an effort. That's when a short little list of books (or authors) grouped by theme may be just the ticket.

Inspired by Nancy Pearl's "Companion Reads" chapter in Book Lust – themed clusters of books on subjects as diverse as Bigfoot and Vietnam – I decided to start occasionally posting lists of five books grouped by topic or theme. I call these posts my Five Faves.

Feel free to grab the button and play along. Use today's theme or come up with your own. If you post about it, please link back to here and leave the link to your post in a comment. If you want to participate but don't have a blog or don't feel like posting, please share your list in a comment.