Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts. This novel was short-listed for the Arthur C Clarke Award for Science Fiction novels last year, but it’s really more of a philosophical thriller and a commentary on the fall of Communism than out and out science fiction. It’s dark, thoughtful, thrilling and hilarious by turns and I loved Read More
Month: August 2010
Boring Postcards redux
One of my favourite artbooks is Boring Postcards by Martin Parr. It elevates the worst examples of the humble picture postcard to art. You can see my 2009 post about the book here where I gave it five stars it was that good. Another of the things I brought back from my Mum’s was her postcard collection. Two Read More
Boring Postcards is anything but!
Boring Postcards by Martin Parr This was a book I rescued from a local charity shop for just £1 and fell in love with instantly. Martin Parr is, I discover, an amazing photographer in his own right, specialising in capturing everyday life. In Boring Postcards, he has turned editor, selecting a bunch of vintage postcards Read More
In Praise of Good Old-Fashioned Autograph books
These days your average school leaver gets everyone to sign their shirt with marker pen on their last day as a souvenir of their time at school. Turn the clock back a few decades and you reach the time when people kept autograph books, and their friends wrote silly little poems, or drew pictures, or Read More
I’m going against the trend here …
Hector & the Search for Happiness by François Lelord About a week ago I’d just started reading this book when Simon at Savidge Reads (him again!) posted about it. Simon wasn’t keen, and it seems the majority of commenters weren’t either – finding it too cute and patronising, but I was rather enjoying it as did Rosy B Read More
Weekly Geeks – Reading from the decades.
Weekly Geeks is a bookish community site that posts weekly tasks for readers to participate in if they wish, and this week’s one is about examining a book (or books) which were published in your birth decade. Tell us about a book that came out in the decade you were born which you either loved Read More
A Cosy Mystery That Hits The Spot – Death of a Gossip by M.C. Beaton
M C Beaton, the pen-name of Marion Chesney, is a prolific author of cosy mysteries with two hit series to her name… You may be familiar with Agatha Raisin – a bossy urban sleuth who now lives in the Cotswolds and is delighted to stick her nose into things to keep busy. While I’ve read the Read More
Air-freighted asparagus? Never again!
How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything by Mike Berners-Lee. I love popular science books and programmes. As a trained scientist, who still does useful but not challenging science at work, (I’m a school lab technician), at best, these books are great at keeping the science bit of your brain ticking over while Read More
Click-through clarity
While I clearly state on my ‘Info & Stuff’ page above, and mention from time to time in posts, I haven’t been shouting from the rooftops that when you click through on a book title link (or films etc), you’ll get taken to Amazon where you can order said item (or anything else for that Read More
When motherhood all gets too much?
The Point of Rescue by Sophie Hannah. Sally and Nick have two young children and they both work hard. The year before, Sally was feeling the strain of juggling motherhood and her career, all the multi-tasking; she was desperate for a break from it all. When a business trip fell through, she didn’t tell her husband. Read More
For want of an old school tie?
Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris. They say that revenge is a dish best served cold. This is the tale of an obsession that goes very wrong, and brews plans for thirteen years before the revenger wreaks absolute havoc by opening a closet full of skeletons that brings a community to its knees. I’ll say at the outset that Read More
More from my Mum’s house … Cutlery!
Just back from a visit to my Mum’s house to do some serious sorting out. It took my sister-in-law and I all afternoon just to go through the cupboards in her tiny kitchen! We found some absolute wonders which I’ll share with you over the coming weeks when I haven’t prepared a bookish post. Today, firstly, Read More
Sophie Hannah Giveaway
See the post preceding this one for an account of my fab evening in the company of Sophie Hannah last night. I bought an extra copy of her latest paperback, A Room Swept White which she kindly signed to giveaway. (It’s not out in the shops until later next week.) Plus I have a spare Read More
An Evening with Sophie Hannah
Last night it was my great pleasure to go to a literary dinner in Abingdon hosted by that second home of mine(!) Mostly Books at a local hostelry – an Abingdon first I believe. The Mostly Booklovers club at the shop had been offered a list of authors who might be approached to give an Read More
Will they, won’t they?
Obstacles to Young Love by David Nobbs. Billed as a story of ‘faith, love and taxidermy’, this is the seventeeth novel from septuagenarian author David Nobbs, creator of the sublime (certainly in the hands of Leonard Rossiter) Reginald Iolanthe Perrin. This novel follows the lives of Timothy and Naomi over a period of thirty years, starting back Read More
How music can save your life …
The Mozart Question by Michael Morpurgo Previously included in a collection of autobiographical writings and short stories (Singing for Mrs Pettigrew: A Storymaker’s Journey), the The Mozart Question was later published separately as an edition lavishly illustrated by Michael Foreman’s hazy watercolours. The former Children’s Laureate, Morpurgo, tells a simple tale about an important subject… A young reporter gets Read More
Passing Trains – Girl Meets Boy
Just back from shopping and I picked up this great bookish greetings card at Waitrose. A classic cover from the New Yorker magazine by Adrian Tomine, and published in various forms by the The Cartoon Bank. I’m sure it’s all over the place, but this was the first time I’d seen it, it’s rather lovelyand I Read More
Book vs film: Too much Julie, not enough Julia?
Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell This was the July choice for our book group, which gave those who didn’t read the book time to watch the film instead. I managed to do both, and they are quite different animals… Julie Powell and husband Eric hail from Texas. They live in Read More
File under Noir, not Fantasy
The Dresden Files Books 1 and 2 by Jim Butcher A few weeks ago while talking about crime series to read, my good blog-friend LizF recommended these books to me. As is often the case with me and my TBR mountains, I’d spotted them myself some time ago and had already picked up the first Read More
What we did on our holiday
I went AWOL in Cornwall this week. I did take my laptop, and did plan to blog of an evening – but all that fresh air, and all the up and down steps and hills took it’s toll, and it was a case of collapsing in front of the telly.We stayed in Fowey (pronounced Foy to Read More
