Year End Review 6: It’s my BOOKS OF THE YEAR!

This year I’ve given up trying to shoehorn my selections into a set number, be it 10, 12 or a baker’s dozen. My list has as many categories as I felt I needed – which ended up as 18 this year. Without further ado, here they are: Best fictional biography: Murmur by Will Eaves – Read More

Year End Review 4: Non-Fiction

I managed to increase the amount of non-fiction I read this year once again – I seem to be going up by one or two NF books per year! So in 2019 I read 33 non-fiction books (up to 25 December), making 25.3% of the total this year. Thanks to taking part in the Wellcome Read More

Year End Review 3: In Translation

I’ve given books read in translation their own section over the past couple of years to keep up the pressure on myself to read more widely from other countries. This year, I failed to keep up with last year’s success at 25 books (18%), managing just 18 (14%) up to my cut-off day of 25 Read More

Year End Review 2: The Disappointments

The DNFs I still find it difficult, even after all my decades of reading, to stop reading a book. However, this year I was a little tougher on myself and I had more DNFs than previously.. Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien – (75/480 pages) – This was for book group, but Read More

Review of the Year 1: The Discoveries

I’m kicking off my review of my 2019 reading year by sharing a few of the authors I discovered for the first time and now want to read much more of – and poetry! Charlotte Bingham Bingham’s volume of memoir MI5 and Me (reviewed here) which covers her later teens in the late 1950s when Read More

Review Clear-out! James, Scarfe, Vaughn and Auster

In an effort to make room on my dining table where I work, so we can eat Christmas lunch on it, I’m clearing the pile of books yet to be reviewed, here’s my last batch for 2019: Somewhere Becoming Rain: Collected Writings on Philip Larkin by Clive James When James died a few weeks ago, Read More

Two Short Reviews: Rodriguez Fowler & Bourland

The Stubborn Archivist by Yara Rodriguez Fowler I was lucky enough to be on the Shadow Panel in 2017 for this fabulous award that celebrates works by young authors (18-35), having followed it before then, and ever since, naturally. This year’s Shadow Panel also had an interesting set of books to choose from: poetry, a Read More

A Beckettian comedy about er… death?

The Faculty of Indifference by Guy Ware I don’t often include a publisher’s blurb in my reviews, but felt the need with this novel – The following comes from the back of the paperback: Robert Exley works for the Faculty: he spends his life making sure that nothing ever happens. In counter-terrorism, that s your Read More

My Life in Books, 2019

I’ve done different versions of this in 2018, 2016, 2011 and 2009, but this new set of prompts came via Laura. Using only books you have read this year (2019), answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title.  (Links in the titles will take you to my reviews) In high school I was The Girl Before (J.P. Delaney) People might be surprised by The Lady in the Car Read More

Review catch-up – Pickett, Knox and Mackesy

As everyone who works in a school knows, the last few weeks of autumn term are simply manic! Normal lessons are interrupted for Nativity rehearsals, carol service rehearsals, trips, other Christmassy events, then the Nativity production itself which was sweet (as ever) and then this weekend we’ve had our staff outing back to back with Read More

Six Degrees of Separation: Sanditon

Hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest,  Six Degrees of Separation picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Links in the titles will take you to my reviews where they exist. This month – the starting book is: Sanditon by Jane Austen I’ve not read Austen’s last, unfinished novel, nor Read More