Moon over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch This is the second novel in Aaronovitch’s ‘Rivers of London‘ series of humorous police procedurals involving magical crimes in contemporary London. If you’ve not read the first volume Rivers of London – head over here to find out about it – for you won’t understand much of what’s going on Read More
Search Results for: vampires
One man against a world of vampires …
This post was republished into my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson I am Legend was first published in 1954; it was Matheson’s third novel. His fourth would go on to make cinematic history – The Shrinking Man would become a huge film hit as The Incredible Shrinking Man in 1957. I remember adoring Read More
War & Peace – without much peace, but with added Vampires…
It’s that time of year again when I like to pepper my reading with a bit of blood and gore and undead creatures. I won’t be reading all vampires and zombies – the plan is to alternate roughly, so do come back later if the undead are not your thang! My first book in the Read More
More modern vampires
Fledgling by Octavia E Butler Fledgling was the last choice for the season of the ‘Not the TV Book Group’, and the lively discussion was hosted by Kim at Reading Matters. Published shortly before the author died, Fledgling is another different and slightly SF take on the vampire novel. Shori looks like a twelve year old black girl, but is actually Read More
Now I can see why teenage girls love vampires …
Although I have more of the same stacked up, (vampire novels aimed at teenagers that is), I think I’ve worked out why teenage girls love reading them… They have all the features of many traditional favourites:- set in schools pupilled with bullies, geeks, jocks, all the usual stereotypes are there; there’s good/bad, sympathetic/not teachers; an Read More
Index A-M
Books featured are indexed by author surname. The links will take you directly to the review or article associated with it. Key to Abbreviations: TopJump to authors’ surnames beginning with: A B C D E F G H I J K L M Authors A AARONOVITCH, Ben ABBOTT, Megan ABRAHAM, Thomas – Polio: The Odyssey of Eradication – RC NF (7/10) 2019 ABOULELA, Leila ACIOLI, Socorro – The Read More
#NordicFINDS – Norway Week – A feminist dark metal manifesto?
Girls Against God by Jenny Hval Translated by Marjam Idriss I was browsing the Verso books website (as you do when there’s an offer on!). I don’t think I’d read any of their publications before, but I knew they had some Scandi authors in their list. I was drawn to the cover of this one, Read More
20 Books of Summer 21 #13 – Russell Hoban
Yesterday I reviewed a SF-ish novel here by Jonathan Lethem. The next book I read from my 20 Books of Summer was another SF-ish novel. That is, a novel by a literary author who enjoys transcending genre and mixing things up in a SF way. Russell Hoban is another author who loved doing that from Read More
Vampire novels I have read – Ranked!
When I was writing my recent review of Vlad by Carlos Fuentes, a literary relocation of Dracula to modern Mexico, I was struck by the large number of vampire novels that I’ve read over the years, especially since I began blogging – probably more vampires than zombies, fallen angels, demons and perhaps even ghosts added Read More
Season of the Living Dead 2020
It’s October, the nights are drawing in, it’s raining and many of us will turn to reading choices to match that mood. I could sign up to the #RIPXV challenge, but instead I’m resurrecting my own banner from the dead to usher in my ‘Season of the Living Dead‘ 2020. (Search for that tag, or Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: The Turn of the Screw
My favourite monthly tag, hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, Six Degrees of Separation picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Links in the titles will take you to my reviews where they exist. This month our starting book is: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James I’ve Read More
12 Years of Blogging
My blog’s anniversary has seemed to come round very quickly this year – Twelve whole years – Eek! As always, a huge thank you to everyone who pops by, you are always very welcome. To celebrate, some thoughts on my favourite instances of the number 12… 12-based number and timekeeping systems Although dealing in tens Read More
My thoughts on… The 100 Most Popular Sci-Fi Books on Goodreads
I recently watched Eric’s vlog (here) on how he wants to read more SF, and that the Goodreads list (here) might be a good place to get some recommendations. I checked out the list and discovered I’ve read a good quantity of them, want to re-read some, always planned to read a few more, and Read More
Frankenstein’s Centre of Gravity!
I’ll explain what I mean by Frankenstein’s Centre of Gravity in a moment, first I want to talk about one of my favourite authors, Marcus Sedgwick. Although he has written books aimed at adult audiences (eg historical thriller Mister Memory, and Little Toller monograph Snow), and he’s written many books for middle grade children, he’s Read More
Grady Hendrix – a horror writer with style!
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires Firstly, my review of his newest book is up at Shiny New Books. Don’t you just love the cover above! Click HERE to read it. This one is set in the same milieu as his book My Best Friend’s Exorcism (which I reviewed here, cover to your Read More
Book Group report: The All Souls Trilogy: volume 1
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness I have a confession to make. When this book was first published in 2011, I was sent a proof copy. I think that back then, I was a bit ‘vamped’ out, so I put it on the shelf – and forgot about it – until we managed to Read More
My new Desert Island Library – 100 Books
I’ve had a tab entitled ‘Desert Island LIbrary‘ on this blog for ages, in which I imagined if I were stranded on a desert island, which books I’d like washed up onto the shore in a waterproof trunk! I started off writing short takes on the books to go into this trunk – but it Read More
PFD Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year shortlist – Sara Taylor
The Lauras by Sara Taylor I do love a road-trip novel, as long as it’s not On the Road, which I dutifully read and yawned through in my twenties. I feel like I’ve read a lot of American road-trip novels – but it appears the majority were pre-blog including Lolita, Fear and Loathing in Las Read More
The Six Degrees of Separation Meme: Wild Swans
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. This month’s starting point is Jung Chang’s wonderful memoir of three generations of women in her family, Wild Swans. I remember loving this when it first Read More
The Six Degrees of Separation Meme: Shopgirl
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. This month’s starting point was suggested by me! Shopgirl by Steve Martin I read this book and saw the film last year – read my full review Read More
The Six Degrees of Separation Meme: Revolutionary Road
Hosted each month by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, this meme picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six steps. (Here’s my one for last month – Never Let Me Go to Electricity by Ray Robinson). This month the starting book is Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. Now this is a Read More
Desert Island Library
Updated Jan 2022: These are my current desert island books. They are the ones I’d like washed up onto the shore in a large waterproof trunk! And you could probably fit 100 paperbacks into a large trunk. I’ll update this list as the mood and new books read take me, but it’ll stay at 100 Read More
Annabel’s Shelves: C
This post was republished into my blog’s original timeline from my lost post archive. We’re up to the letter ‘C’ on my Annabel’s Shelves Project – and it was a case of if at first you don’t succeed, try again…. C is NOT for: Italo Calvino – DNF Oh dear, I tried and tried to Read More
Going over to the darker half
Republished into my blog’s original timeline from the lost post archive! Half Wild by Sally Green A year ago, the first volume in a new YA supernatural trilogy was published. Many described Half Bad by Sally Green as Harry Potter for teenagers, but that’s doing it a disservice. If you read the blurb, which mentions witches a Read More
5-4-3-2-1…
The bulk of this post is just a bit of fun for the start of the silly season – but the theme happens to coincide with the title of one of classic UK R&B band Manfred Mann’s greatest hits. The Manfreds as they are now known, are still going strong – still with Paul Jones Read More
Gaskella Archive: State of the TBR – 2011-2014
Back in 2011 running through to 2014, I came up with a fun wheeze – to get readers to help choose which books to keep, which to cull. I’ve compiled the series of posts into one… You know your TBR’s got out of hand when … This year, I resolved to try to get to grips Read More
Ten Books that Represent Great Britain
A couple of days ago, Simon at Savidge Reads and Thomas at My Porch created a new meme (Yes Simon, I know you didn’t want to call it a meme, but it is one – a nice one!). The challenge is to pick ten books that sum up your own country geographically but authors from that Read More
Telling it from the monster’s side …
Sad Monsters: Growling on the Outside, Crying on the Insideby Frank Lesser. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been having a chuckle dipping into this book of humorous short pieces, which are written from monsters’ points of view. Almost any monster you can think of puts in an appearance – let me give you a Read More
Lighten up Anita
Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K Hamilton I am profoundly aware that I often read books in the wrong order. I’m not referring to books in a series here though – I always prefer to start from the beginning with them; instead I’m talking about influence. This means for instance that it was forty years before I Read More
Come dine on – oops – with me…
The Savages by Matt Whyman Not since I read the wonderful book, The Radleys by Matt Haig, (reviewed here), have I found a YA novel such fun. Just look at the cover – you know it’s going to be hilarious. You can sense that the Savages are a close family – like The Munsters or The Read More
