In the absence of any exciting original blog content, we bring you yet another report on what I read, this time in February 2025. Bit of an eclectic bunch this time, to say the least.
The Avengers from the Penguin Classics Marvel Collection. I’d put this on my Christmas list mainly because I absolutely loved the idea of Penguin Classics doing a Marvel collection. During lockdown, we watched every single bloody MCU film in order, so I was keen to have a proper look at the source material, having somehow missed out on that sort of thing when I was a kid. And it was a lot of fun, even if some of it was – inevitably – hilariously dated.
Octavia, Daughter of God – The Story of a Female Messiah and her Followers by Jane Shaw. A few years back I was amazed to discover that the town that I’d grown up in, Bedford, had been host to a full-on bonkers religious cult. (If you’re not familiar with the Panacea Society, I strongly recommend taking a look at this excellent documentary, by the way.) This book is a comprehensive history of the whole shebang, written by a proper religious academic. It’s very respectfully done – as is probably the only way to deal with something like this – although you can definitely detect an authorial raised eyebrow at times. An absolutely fascinating read.
Six Stories by Stefan Zweig. I’d wanted to read some Zweig ever since I saw The Grand Budapest Hotel, so when I saw this on the shelves in the secondhand book shop at Hestercombe Gardens, I snapped it up. I’m very pleased I did, because they are absolutely excellent. I was particularly taken with the very first story in the book, The Invisible Collection, which is almost Borgesian – apart from, ironically, it being a story about blindness that probably only a sighted author would think of writing.
Origin by Dan Brown. From the sublime to the utterly preposterous. The recent publicity surrounding the publication of a new Dan Brown novel (called, God help me, The Secret of Secrets) reminded me that there was one I hadn’t got round to reading. I guess Dan Brown is the nearest thing I get to a guilty pleasure (something I don’t really believe in – a thing’s either a pleasure or it isn’t). The combination of action and wild conspiracies can be quite intoxicating, even if the writing is… not great. However, in Origin, the action peters out literally 150 pages before the end of the book, and all we’re left with is a massive swathe of explanation of an underlying conceit that is depressingly underwhelming. Ah well, that’ll teach me.
Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers. I started reading the Lord Peter Wimsey series from the start a while back and found the first two a little disappointing. However, this book was in a different league – a genuine page-turning mystery, along with some pithy social comment (including – I should warn you – some spectacular and unvarnished racism from one or two of the characters). I’ll definitely be reading more of these.