Urgent Matters by Paula Rodriguez – Blog tour

Translated by Sarah Moses I’ve been reading a bit more Latin American literature in translation this year. All in translation from Spanish, but from a range of countries: Cuba, Colombia, Mexico and Argentina, to be precise. Most of these novels have also been noirish or had a psychological thriller feel, but all have been unashamedly Read More

Utopia by Heidi Sopinka

I’ve been mostly alternating my reading this summer between books from my TBR piles and new review copies, which has been a rather nice way to read. Getting to read my own choices between copies from my review pile has been good, but also, I’ve enjoyed the review copies more too, and have been lucky Read More

Under the Blue by Oana Aristide #20BooksofSummer

When I read Rebecca’s review of this novel last year in her 20 Books of Summer for 2021, I immediately had to get a copy for myself, but didn’t get around to reading it until now when it fitted into my 20 Books of Summer! As Rebecca says, if you’re a Station Eleven fan (and Read More

Seamus Heaney – Book Group Jubilee Read & #20BooksofSummer22

Seamus Heaney – Death of a Naturalist My 7th book of 20 Books of Summer, but reviewed out of order because I wanted to wait until after Book Group. Last month, we started on our journey through some of the BigJubilee Reads, one from each decade of the Queen’s reign from all around the Commonwealth. Read More

Catching up with Book Group reads

With our December zoom last week, another year of our Book Group came to an end – we did manage to have two in person meetings sitting in a pub beer garden, until that got too cold. We’ve retreated back to zoom for now, but fingers crossed for the spring. I’ve been going since 2004, Read More

Review Catch-up – Tadjo, Fuller and Benson

My review pile runneth over and there are a couple of books that I would have reviewed for Shiny, but I don’t feel I can write a long piece on, so I will cover them here in my review round-up. In the Company of Men by Véronique Tadjo Back in 2014, the world awoke to Read More

Two recent reads – one prose, one poetry

A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale This was our book group read for August, which we discussed earlier this week – and we scored yet another hit! I certainly loved this novel, and although not all in the group quite shared my enthusiasm for it, everyone seemed to enjoy it. Often, when we all Read More

Blogtour – Under the Rock by Benjamin Myers

Ever since Rebecca reviewed this book in hardback for Shiny (see here), I’ve wanted to read it, (and Myers’s prize-winning novel Gallows Pole which I already had on my shelf). Now out in paperback, in Under the Rock, subtitled ‘Stories carved from the land’, Myers boldly combines nature writing with history, psycho-geography, photography and poetry Read More

A kind of surgical history

Under the Knife by Arnold Van de Laar Translated by Andy Brown I love reading books about medicine in all of its many disciplines, and books about surgery are often amongst the most fascinating. Subtitled “The History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations”, this book promised a interesting take on the subject. In the introduction, Read More

An artist’s memoir of childhood in London and Hollywood …

Unaccompanied Minor by Alexander Newley My review of this memoir by the son of Joan Collins and Anthony Newley is my first of the year for Shiny New Books. Newley is an artist and frequent self-portraitist, and this account of growing up in this dysfunctional story was illustrated and enriched by many of his pictures Read More

Two Shorter YA reviews

Silence is Goldfish by Annabel Pitcher This is the third novel by Pitcher, the first I’ve read, although I own a copy of her prizewinning debut My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece. It also fills in the box on my BookBingo Card ‘by an author who shares your first name’… The story is narrated by Tess, a fifteen Read More

Two Mental Health Issue-led YA novels…

Today, I have two slightly shorter reviews for you of YA novels that explore similar themes: Under Rose-Tainted Skies by Louise Gornall The pink cover (available in three shades actually, going from medium to full-on shocking pink) does this novel no favours at all. Concentrate instead on the gilded cage and the heart that doesn’t Read More

Three Slightly Shorter Reviews

I’ve got a series of posts lined up for the week in between Christmas and New Year with my hits, misses, finds and stats, so it’s time to catch up with my review pile backlog and some shorter reviews… The Undertaker’s Daughter by Kate Mayfield For anyone who loved the TV series Six Feet Under, Read More

A nasty piece of work is Oliver…

Apologies for not getting any posts up for a few days – it’s been a bit hectic – what with a first aid training course, back to school and all that entails, plus of course a wonderful quick trip down to London on Wednesday to have tea at the Wolseley Restaurant on Piccadilly with my Read More

An unusual friendship

The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence Alex Woods is an unique young boy. It’s not that he is prime material for bullying because his single mum is a clairvoyant white witch who runs a new-age shop in Glastonbury, he has a much more bizarre claim to fame that has come to dominate his Read More

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Republished back into my blog’s timeline from my old blog., combined  2012 posts from author event and book review… World Book Night 2012 in Abingdon with Rachel Joyce I spent the evening of World Book Night at Abingdon Library in the company of Rachel Joyce – the bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. I Read More

“I would walk 500 miles” – well 627 actually…

The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce This is a road novel, but with a difference.  Harold Fry used to rep for the brewery, but he’s now retired.  He has nothing to do but get in his wife Maureen’s way.  He’s in a rut, they’re in a rut, basically ever since their son Read More

It’s. Bill Shatner’s. Autobiography. Yes. Captain Kirk…

Up Till Now: The Autobiography by William Shatner with David Fisher I can’t remember if I’ve confessed up to it since I’ve been blogging, but I used to be a full-blown Trekker – a Star Trek fan.  I managed to stop just short of buying a uniform, but had all the videos of all the Read More