Chatty bookish catch up 📚 Come book shopping with me in St Albans✨ Reading vlog & book haul

Come with me to my favourite book shop 📚 A bookish catch up featuring my husband Ben, Sybil and our new kitten Freyja, baking, and book shopping at Books on the Hill in St. Albans! Keep watching for a book haul and a lil review of Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These ✨ Timestamps ⬇️
0:00 introduction
2:23 Meet the cats!
4:01 Currently reading and recent reads with Ben
11:14 Ben's Warhammer chat!
14:16 Chaotic baking segment
17:49 Visiting St Albans
18:51 Book shopping at Books on the Hill
21:13 Blind date with a book!
21:57 Book and homeware haul
28:30 Reading wrap up: Small Things Like These
29:54 Cosy evening and kittens
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#bookshopping #readingvlog #booktube

[@Claire_Fenby]

If you want to say hello in the comments please leave a 📚 emoji!

[@Steamforger]

Ben is a national treasure - please have him on more videos Claire!

[@Claire_Fenby]

Ahaha you’ve made Ben’s day!

[@bipolar_kitty]

Ben we love your interests! Passion is always lovely to see

[@Claire_Fenby]

Couldn’t agree more!

[@janethocevar3760]

I love this video. The two of you are so sweet together. I always look forward to your videos. They make me smile.

[@Claire_Fenby]

Thank you Janet! Hoping to film with Ben again soon

[@thekylederek]

CUTIE KITTIES!

[@SaraEFR74]

📖 📕 📚 Happy Birthday!

[@BookishTexan]

Great bookstore! I read Small Things Like These and really loved it.

[@sarahlucas1999]

I recently read that same Claire Keegan book too and it was also my first read from her. I thought it was a very interesting read and I'm looking forward to reading more books by her now.

[@roseschrier3770]

Just happened upon ur channel - cozy + enjoyed it!📚🤗 adorable cats( ❤ cats myself) of course 📚 stores, and blogs of just hanging out☺

[@Claire_Fenby]

Hello Rose 👋 I hope you enjoy my videos! 🥰

[@badfaith4u]

I love trips to bookstores and reading vlogs. I love your cats. 🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛ I have two cats as well.

[@angelajones129]

If you enjoyed Small Things Like These, I think you would enjoy Foster by her as well. That one is a little more heart-wrenching, I think. Both are beautifully written books. Small, but mighty!

[@elenareadsbooks88]

So lovely to see you both and I couldn’t believe it when I saw St Albans my home town! We only moved away a few years ago and loved that bookshop too. X

[@Claire_Fenby]

It’s such a gem and the perfect respite from London when we need it!

[@franciscajavierafernandeza8709]

Frenchman's Creek was my first Du Maurier and it was an instant favourite , pirates and historical romance, an amazing combination ❤

[@Victoria-kl7su]

This was my second. My first was ‘Jamaica Inn’ which I loved. And third - ‘My cousin Rachel’ also loved. Am yet to read Rebecca

[@DeborahCarrAuthor]

I love this, your adorable cats, Ben's incredibly detailed painting, the baking, your haul, and that bookshop! What a lovely idea to pay it forward with your favourite book.🥰

[@Claire_Fenby]

Thank you Debs! Lovely to see you here too 💕

[@Alliappalachian]

Loved this so much!!

[@angiemcdermid4845]

When I couldn’t remember which Agatha Christies I had read, I undertook the project to read them all in order of publication. This was a great comfort to me when I was nursing my mother and after she died because I remember them on our bookshelves as a child. 📚

[@ameliabarlowbooks]

great to see you both! hope you enjoy Cleo and Frank, I thought it was a wonderful book 🌞💖

[@suzannegagne8692]

What a beautiful bookshop!

[@WhatVictoriaRead]

So lovely to see you! 💛

[@Claire_Fenby]

❤️❤️

[@paureads8141]

I’m a fan of you Claire! Been following you for two and a half years now! 📚

[@Claire_Fenby]

Thank you!

[@jantelleking9711]

Hi Claire, I thought this was a really charming video to watch. 📚 A relaxed and natural snapshot of yr lives together. Thankyou. Xx

[@Claire_Fenby]

Thank you for watching! Hoping to film with Ben again soon 🥰

[@ChrisDailyReading]

I love this talkative reading vlog 🥰

[@Claire_Fenby]

Thank you for watching!

[@christineansorge5519]

The Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters.

[@Jessica-pp8ks]

Love your videos Clairee!!

[@Claire_Fenby]

Thank you so much!!

[@pamelatarajcak5634]

Dorothy L. Sayers does excellent detective fiction. Dangerous Liaisons is such a good book. I love the Close/Malkovich film.

[@58angieb]

Read the Claire Keegan, fabulous read! Presently reading 'Antarctica' by Claire Keegan: a short story collection. Sixteen, Contemplative little gems.

[@Claire_Fenby]

I might pick up Antarctica!

[@rowenaroberta5244]

📚📚📚

[@Clara-nm9im]

That bookshop looks like a dream! Full of beautiful details. In my city we only have two tiny bookshops and there isn't much variety but whenever I go to a different place the first thing I want to do is look for the bookshops and get lost in them. I hope one day I can visit England and do the same there! Anyways, I also love Agatha Christie, I'm curious to know what you think of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd when you read it, I loved it. Yesterday I finished reading Magpie Murders, by Anthony Horowitz, I think it's a wonderful read if you are into mysteries, it captures the feel of the golden age of detective fiction really well. Enjoy your reads!!!

[@Claire_Fenby]

Thank you for watching 💕 I really enjoyed The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (my favourite Poirot so far) and have just picked up Magpie Murders thanks to your recommendation!

[@Clara-nm9im]

Hope you enjoy it!!! ❤️

[@charlesbarrowbooks]

I've just discovered Josephine Tey, a contemporary of Agatha Christie, and she wrote crime novels too. Much lauded in her own day, I'd suggest she's not so well known now. She had her own recurring detective, Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, and her novel The Daughter of Time was named the greatest crime novel of all time by The Crime Writers' Association. Now there's a recommendation from people who know about these things. Enjoyed your video. Thanks.

[@Claire_Fenby]

I LOVE the sound of The Daughter of Time so thank you for the rec!

[@jacquelinemcgowan8164]

This was so lovely to watch all round I thoroughly enjoyed it all, thank you to both of you, please can you tell me what the cats slept on the scratch pad where can you get them from thank you xxxxxx

[@oliviac712]

Happy New Year Claire! So glad you're enjoying Agatha Christie, she's my absolute favourite author (actually reading her main autobiography at the moment and loving it!). Personally I like some of the British Library Crime Classics. They're not all brilliant but there are definitely some fun ones, like The Poisoned Chocolates Case and The Mystery in White and the covers are just beautiful. I would also recommend some of the Georgette Heyer murder mysteries. She also does some romance books which you might like too! One book I would really recommend, which is of a similar era to Agatha Christie (but not crime) is Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day by Winifred Watson. It's just so much fun and it's scandalous and it's so refreshing to read about a middle-aged female protagonist 😊I definitely want to check out the Marie Antoinette book! x

[@Claire_Fenby]

Thank you for your recommendations! I’ll definitely check them out as I’m always popping in to The British Library.

[@gillwoolley6515]

Lovely vlog thank you. I read and loved the Claire Keegan at christmas.Also a big fan of Agatha Christie. Miss Marple is my favorite. I first read Frenchman's Creek many years ago,when I lived very close to The Helford River and the Creek itself. Fabulous book. Also if you get to visit South Devon, visit Greenway.It's the home of Agatha Christie. Well worth a visit. Xx🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛

[@Claire_Fenby]

So glad you enjoyed the video! I have been to Agatha Christie’s house but only as a child so I’m now desperate to go again. One day when we have a car we’ll go on a little road trip down South ❤️

[@janedraycott5919]

Since you're getting into Agatha Christie and want more book recommendations, you should try the podcast Shedunnit. It's all about Golden Age crime novels written by women, and it also looks at the real crimes that inspired the books, and other aspects of society in that period. It would combine your interest in true crime podcasts with your reading! 📚

[@Claire_Fenby]

Thank you for this rec! I’m now obsessed

[@areadersalmanacwithceleste1366]

Reading Frenchman’s Creek is like gliding through a misty river on a phantom barge in a dream. Enjoy!

[@Claire_Fenby]

What an incredible description!

[@roseschrier3770]

P.s. mystery fan myself📚

[@SeleneFlorio]

📚 hi! I’ve just bought that Antonia Fraser book about Marie Antoinette, I’ve been meaning to read it for so long! Great to hear you are liking it

[@Claire_Fenby]

It’s a great one! I hope you enjoy

I love your jumper (the yellow one), where is it from? Also that bookstore is in my list of bookshops to visit soon!

[@Claire_Fenby]

Thank you! It’s one of my favourites too. I got it in a charity shop but the label is M&S 🥰

@@Claire_Fenby thank you!!

[@jeanchampollin9906]

It's interesting when books/items get passed down from one generation to another. I wonder will Tolkien get passed down again? Warhammer livestream coming soon, happy new year.

[@mentatphilosopher]

If you are looking for inter war mysteries, there are many woman authors. Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Margaret Allingham, and many others who wrote under genderless names. The British Library Mystery series is also a good place to look. Elizabeth Daly whose “detective” is a bookseller. Indeed, there is a whole genre of mysteries called bibliomysteries which revolve around books. And, of course, the locked room mysteries. Also if you want to read mysteries which are embedded in the memes of the 1930s (Chess, Relativity, Egyptology, Post- Impressionists, Figure Skating) read the S S Van Dine novels. They out sold Christie in the US. Sadly except for the major writers like Sayers, Christie, Marsh, and Allingham, there is a lot really good stuff that is available only in badly proofread paperbacks or badly proofread e-books.

[@Theduck19]

Great . I liked 40K ages ago

[@ursulaclarke6066]

But Sean Bean always dies, sadly

[@Claire_Fenby]

He lives on in our hearts