I usually have four or five books on the go at any one time. I've been reading lots of non-fiction titles about art, as my WIP is set in the art colony of Saint Ives, Cornwall. Eric Hebborn's
Confessions of a Master Forger is disarmingly honest and giving me useful ideas about the arrogance of painters who forge masterpieces. The other art book appraises the life and work of painter Elizabeth Forbes, who was eclipsed by her more famous husband Stanhope Forbes, though I prefer her work.
School is Out, by Elizabeth Forbes
For entertainment, I'm trying to get my head around explanations of how to do tricks, from instructions in David Ovason's
The Book of Magic. One of the detectives in my WIP is socially inept and is learning magic to meet women! I love short stories, and am working my way through a a 1982 collection called
Fevertree, written by Ruth Rendell, and blurbed on the cover as
'Eleven miniature masterpieces'—they're not, but they are entertaining soporifics that help me drift to sleep.
Lastly, I'm in awe of
Kent Haruf's
Benediction. I've read three other titles by him, and he's a master of sparsely worded fiction which carries a tremendous emotional punch.