This is a streamlined novel; no side plots, no broad cast of characters, no twists of fantasy for the sheer joy of it. While the concept does fly high, it also flies straight. For those readers who might be put off by speculative fiction, The Midnight Library is a charming way into the genre. This is the first in a new historical crime series from Vaseem Khan, author of the excellent Baby Ganesh Agency novels. Opening on 31 December 1949 in Bombay, it follows Insp Persis Wadia, India’s first female police detective, as she fights both to prove herself (her appointment is greeted with hysteria, with newspapers claiming that “in temperament, intelligence and moral fibre, the female of the species is, and always will be, inferior to the male”) and to solve the murder of the English diplomat Sir James Herriot. Persis, a wonderful creation, keeps a clipping of the damning newspaper report on her desk, dismissing critics with ease. “For millennia, we have been told what our role must be: wife, mother, daughter. We are all those things, but we are so much more. Men like you think you can stop us. Go ahead and try. Have you ever tried to stop the monsoon?” With the spirit of Narnia, but a heart of its own. The Midnight Guardians is totally enchanting . I gobbled up every word.” Aisha Bushby

Midnight Mass: a truly great show I never want to watch again Midnight Mass: a truly great show I never want to watch again

The Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy, published by the European Commission in December 2020, calls for a major shift in passengers to rail, including night trains. Spectacular . A story of real and rare power - The Midnight Guardians is one of the best books I've read in years." Kiran Millwood Hargrave The characters just weren't that memorable and the plot overall felt underwhelming. In the end, I don't have many thoughts to say about this book because I just found it okay. . . The best discovery for me in 2021, a year that I desperately needed a smile and laughter, was the haunted house sitcom Ghosts. I found it on BBC iPlayer and I was completely charmed and amused. I watched both series one and two and gleefully discovered a third series in the autumn. I watch it over and over and it feels like an old friend. Katie Tunnicliffe, 61, Sheffield A House Through Time (BBC Two)Brilliant! The Midnight Guardians is the perfect blend of humour, adventure and emotion. Simply beautiful." Lisa Thompson

Midnight review - The Guardian Six Minutes to Midnight review - The Guardian

He and his family moved to Brighton – a place “where no one really fits in, so almost everyone fits in”, Haig says – in 2015. He and Semple home-school their children, 13-year-old Lucas and 12-year-old Pearl. They had been at school in York, but weren’t particularly enjoying it, and their experiences reminded Haig of his own problems at secondary school in Newark in Nottinghamshire, where as a sensitive teenager he felt isolated and directionless in a tough, sporty environment. The Midnight Series begins before Harry's third year, following the cannon with twists and turns along the way. Even though the stories parallel the original series, it is recommended to begin with Midnight Guardian and continue through the series. The other tip was from a friend called Amos, a man all too familiar with midnight pasta. While the spaghetti is boiling in well-salted water, add a ladleful of cooking liquid and a proper pinch of salt to the garlic oil, swirling and sloshing it with a spoon before you tip in the spaghetti, then swish it around again. These two steps mean the oil is seasoned and the starch from the pasta and oil comes together into a cream-like consistency, which means the spaghetti, slippy and glistening, almost winds itself around the fork. Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino – midnight spaghettiAt the moment there is no alternative for medium-distance travel [other] than flights or a bad night train. And the only way we can rival planes is to reinvent the train experience. BONUS SHORT: Siren’s Call, a Midnight Guardian short story, is included in some editions of Shadows Rising and available as a free read on Wattpad. But could it be that all liaisons such as theirs are coloured by the thought that romantic love will always be conditional and compromised, compared with the feeling for those children that it brings into being? For me, the most quietly moving scene was the first: Jesse saying goodbye to Hank at the airport, returning to Chicago after a brief vacation with them all in Greece. No emotional demonstrations, just some hearty-grumpy advice about keeping up with music and team sports. Poignantly, Jesse asks Hank: "What's the first thing you're gonna do, when you get home?" Hank gives the question a baffled shrug. It made my eyes fill with tears, and I didn't realise why until hours after the movie: when I used to phone home during my first term away at university, my dad wistfully asked me the same sort of thing: what are you going to do, once you've hung up the phone?