#20BooksofSummer – the last four – Melo, Steinberg, Warner, Royle

Hurrah! I finished my 20 Books of Summer (hosted by Cathy) with ten days to spare, and will continue to alternate my own books with review copies as much as I can. In an effort to keep reading more of my own books, I am not going overboard on requesting ARCs etc at the moment, Read More

#TDiRS22 – The Dark is Rising Sequence Book 1: Over Sea, Under Stone

It’s finally time for my write-up of the first novel in Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising Sequence, and what a perfect summer read Over Sea, Under Stone (OS,US, 1965) made. In my introductory post to the readalong, I posted a few questions to consider while reading the book, and I’ll reflect on those below, Read More

The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid – blogtour

Ii’m delighted to be one of the stops today on the blog tour for Mohsin Hamid’s new novel. If only The Last White Man wasn’t so thought-provoking to get some really coherent thoughts together, my head is buzzing with it still! I love novels that really make me think, like the previous ones by Hamid 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

Whisper of the Seals by Roxanne Bouchard Blog tour

Translated by David Warriner Today it’s my turn on the blog tour for the French-Canadian author’s latest crime thriller, set around Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula, and the third to feature DS Joaquin Moralès. While I would love to now read the first two, there was not too much backstory to Moralès, so this novel stood up Read More

Two for #WITMonth – Yoshimoto & Oskamp

Two shorter reviews for #WITMonth which are both also part of my 20 Books of Summer. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto Translated by Megan Backus Yoshimoto is one of those Japanese authors by whom I’ve felt slightly intimidated; I include Mishima in this bracket and much of Haruki Murakami. Yoshimoto’s adoption of the name Banana (from Read More

Two shorter reviews for #20BooksofSummer

I’m doing well with my 20 Books of Summer 22, hosted by Cathy at 746 Books, reaching 17/20 so I have every hope of completing my 20 Books I acquired before 2022 from my TBR. Two slightly shorter reviews for you today – a small town America psychological drama and that the book set in 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

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G Summers

There is a school of writing deriving from post-war USA, known as ‘confessional writing’, a whole sub-set of ‘autofiction’. There are also acres of true crime confessions of serial killers. I only mention this because I was trying to find some other examples of fictional confessions of murderers in prison – but couldn’t get past Read More

Six Degrees of Separation: The Book of Form and Emptiness

First Saturday of the month, and it’s time for the super monthly tag Six Degrees of Separation, which is hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest,  Six Degrees of Separation #6degrees picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Links to my reviews are in the titles of the books. Our 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