In my teens, around the time of the wonderful BBC adaptation of War & Peace with Anthony Hopkins as Pierre, and ITV’s Anna Karenina with Nicola Pagett as the doomed heroine, I went through a real Russian phase in my reading. We had copies of most of the Russian greats already in the house as Read More
John Saturnall’s Feast by Lawrence Norfolk Our Book Group is reading by category this year. When choosing our ‘Food’ book two months ago, we narrowed it down to three books initially and then picked one out of the hat. The three were: The Vegetarian by Han Kang – prize-winning Korean novel John Saturnall’s Feast by Read More
The Joys of Re-reading I don’t do much re-reading. I have too many unread books to get through, both new shiny ones and more of those which have been languishing on the shelves for far too long. Once in a blue moon though, I will re-read a book – just a couple a year usually. It Read More
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn This was our book group’s choice for April into May. Ella Minnow Pea was my suggestion – I read it ages ago, then it popped into my mind after a blog post discussed it a month or two ago (sorry I can’t remember whose blog to credit it). After last Read More
It’s the end of the second month of the Tolkien LOTR Readlong (see more here) and after starting with The Hobbit (my post here) we’re onto the main event and I’ve now finished LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring. This month Clare at The Literary Omnivore is hosting, if you want to check others’ progress, Read More
The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien Now – considering that I last read The Hobbit, aged around twelve, many, many years ago – before starting to re-read the book, ask me what I remember of it apart from Bilbo and Gandalf? I would answer, “Gollum and the ring, and Smaug the dragon, but particularly Read More