Stay with Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ Adébáyọ̀’s novel is the one fiction selection on this year’s Wellcome Prize shortlist. Although it has much to say about the patriarchal society of Nigeria in the 1980s, it surprised me with how much it does meet the prize criteria of a book that celebrates, ” the many ways Read More
The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris This is the second of my reviews of books shortlisted for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize, read as part of the shadow panel. Lindsey Fitzharris is an American with a doctorate from Oxford in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology, and a post-doc Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust Read More
Sometimes, a book is just falling apart so much, and you have no need to keep it despite it having some sentimental value, that the best thing is to recycle it. This is the case with my Puffin Songbook. First published in 1956, mine is the second reprint from 1963. The cover is by Ronald Read More
This post was edited and republished from my lost posts archive on my old blog The Flood by David Maine When I originally wrote the two posts I’ve combined into one here back in early April 2014 – the film Noah was just about to hit the big screens. I wrote a post about why Read More
The Red House Mystery by A A Milne It’s thanks to my friend Simon that I’m aware that A A Milne was a author and playwright of wide reknown before he wrote Winnie the Pooh; I’m not sure if the rest of our book group knew this before I introduced this book as a possible for our Read More
To Be a Machine by Mark O’Connell The second book in my shadow reading from the Wellcome Book Prize shortlist, (the first was The Vaccine Race which I’ll be reviewing for the official blog tour in a couple of week’s time). I loved this book from the front cover to the back, starting with its Read More
Hosted each month by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, Six Degrees of Separation picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Click on the titles to go to my reviews where they exist. Our starting book this month is the bestselling: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden I read Read More
This year the Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – are celebrating 100 years of independence with new translations of Baltic Books coming to the UK for the first time and a series of cultural events happening across the UK. The Baltics are also being honoured as the Market Focus at London Book Fair Read More
This year the Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – are celebrating 100 years of independence with new translations of Baltic Books coming to the UK for the first time and a series of cultural events happening across the UK. The Baltics are also being honoured as the Market Focus at London Book Fair Read More
The other day, daughter and I went to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to catch the last day of the Michelangelo drawings, and the first week of the new “America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keeffe to Hopper” exhibitions, using our new Art Fund cards to get half price entry. Michelangelo Drawings A single room full of drawings, Read More
It may be the Easter hols, but I’m still very busy on the termly school magazine for a day or two. So I have a link to my latest Shiny review for you to fill the gap. Almost Love by Louise O’Neill I was a big fan of O’Neill’s first two novels which were hard-hitting Read More
Once Upon a Time by Marina Warner Subtitled ‘A short history of fairy tale’, Warner’s compact volume belies its small size. It’s a tiny hardback, but within its 200 or so pages, the author recounts the rich history behind the beloved fairy tales we all know from their most common (often arguably via Disney film Read More
March is Reading Ireland Month, as always hosted by Cathy at 746 books and Niall at The Fluff is Raging. I forgot that Tana French in my previous post is Irish, so I’ve actually read two books by Irish authors this month (plus another coming up for Shiny next week). Here’s the second… From a Low Read More
In the Woods by Tana French Every time Eleanor of Elle Thinks mentions Tana French (the latest being here), I say ‘I must read one of her books’. Tana French is one of Eleanor’s go-to comfort reads, and she is always recommending her. Well, now I have read French’s first novel, and I can see Read More
The Goodbye Kiss by Massimo Carlotto Translated by Lawrence Venuti There’s dark, and then there’s dark! You know what I mean, we’re talking the super-noir of Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me or Simenon’s Dirty Snow here… Lean and mean novels with an amoral anti-hero at their hearts. This is the case for the protagonist Read More
The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon I bought this novel when it was published back in 2009, and it’s been in my bedside bookcase for some time. I’d moved it there because one of the boxes on my BookBingo of the time was read a book with an author that shares your name and Read More
Back in 2011, I published a post back on my old blog about this subject. Now my habits have changed again, so I thought it was a good time to edit and republish an updated version… I’ve always loved comics and magazines. As a child in the 1960s, I remember looking forward to getting rolls Read More
At the moment, our book group chooses books by picking a key word for members to make pitches based on – we’re currently working our way through some colours. For ‘green’ we had a varied group of suggestions: Plot 29 by Allan Jenkins – a memoir about two brothers rescued from care in the Read More
Lullaby by Leïla Slimani Translated by Sam Taylor The baby is dead. It took only a few seconds. This French bestseller has such a killer first line – they put it on the front cover. You’re left with no doubt that ‘The Perfect Nanny‘ (as this book has been titled in the Read More
Hosted each month by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, the Six Degrees of Separation meme picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Click on the titles to go to my reviews. Our starting book this month is the feminist classic: The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf Wolf’s bestselling Read More