It’s finally time for me to share my favourite books of the year with you. It’s always a difficult decision and, as so often happens, the last two books I finished, but have yet to review, both pushed their way onto the list! I read 122 books this year, of which I awarded 10/10 to Read More
Month: December 2024
Review of the Year #2 – 2024, It’s Bookstats Time!
I always say this, but this post really is my favourite of the year! The master spreadsheet is still going strong. I love playing with all the data, mining it for nuggets of information that will tell me if my reading habits have changed. In truth, they bobble along generally, but there are some general Read More
Review of the Year #1 – 2024, A Year of Reading and Blogging
As always, I’m saving my books of the year for the 31st, and you’ll get my book stats (my favourite post) on the 29th, but today as in previous years I’m sharing my blogging highlights, including all those reading weeks, months and challenges I took part in over the year. You’ll also find a book Read More
My Life in Books Read: 2024
It’s Boxing Day, and to cheer up your post-Christmas Day lethargy, I’m going to start this off on its rounds again… I’ve done different versions of this in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2016, 2011 and 2009. The questions vary sometimes, but I’m staying with last year’s set. Where it originally came from is lost in the mists of time. Using only books Read More
Dear Orson Welles (and other essays) by Mark Cousins
When this thick hardback arrived out of the blue from Irish publisher, The Irish Pages Press, with the most polite review request, I was flattered to be included in this mailing. I’ve been dipping into it over the past few months and enjoying it very much indeed. I do love reading about film in general, Read More
Review catch-up: Susanna Clarke, Amy Lord, Daniel Klein
In an effort to clear the decks a little so I can concentrate on my year-end posts, here a three shorter reviews for you today. The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke This is a short story published as a single little hardback, fully illustrated by Victoria Sawdon. The story itself is about 50 pages, Read More
Book Group Report: White Ivy by Susie Yang
Our book group met last week for our traditional December meeting Book Group Christmas Curry, and in between popadoms and mains we managed to discuss this month’s book. White Ivy is the debut novel of Chinese-American author Yang, and she surely uses her own history of being born in China and moving to the USA Read More
Renard Press Christmas Card Classics
I’ll be back with reviews during the week – it’s been a bit hectic – and I’m doing the finishing touches for our school mag still. For now, I’d like to highlight the Renard Press’s Christmas card classics. From 2020 onwards they have produced a lovely little Christmas book, sendable as a large letter, containing Read More
The Making of Brio McPride by R.A. Ruegg
Pitched as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time meets Life of Pi and coming with a pledge that 30% of the royalties from the book would go to UK mental health charities, this debut novel by a ghost and copy writer, was worth a punt. I gather it will become a film Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Sandwich by Catherine Newman
First Saturday of the month and 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 chosen. This Read More
Five Feat . . . Duos
In my irregular themed look at old posts (previous posts here), this time I’ve picked Duos as the link. Like the musical duos Simon & Garfunkel and Althea & Donna, all the titles in this list feature two names in the title. However, they aren’t all couples, there are friends and colleagues too in this Read More
