“O tempora, o mores” as Cicero said. Can you believe the state that a certain orange person and his sidekicks have gotten us into? I’m not going to get into politics here though. My reading has also suffered. I twisted my knee in early Feb, it didn’t feel a bad one, but after a month Read More
Author: AnnaBookBel
Six Degrees of Separation: Knife
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. The starter Read More
Reading Ireland Month – Louise O’Neill and Gerald Lynch
I planned to read two or more books for Reading Ireland Month, as ever hosted by Cathy, and have so far managed one really good read, plus a DNF – but which was which? Well, let me get the DNF out of the way first… Troutstream by Gerald Lynch Originally published in 1995, this is Read More
Luminous by Silvia Park – blog tour
I am absolutely delighted to be leading off the blog tour for this fabulous novel on its UK publication day. I do love SF, although I read little of it these days. However, waft a spec fiction novel under my nose and I will grab it. I love the familiarity of a world I know, Read More
Mrs Matisse by Sophie Haydock – blog tour
A novel about art, Paris and the South of France – and I’m sold! Mrs Matisse is Haydock’ second novel, after her first The Flames, (which I now have to read) took the lives of Austrian artist Egon Schiele’s women as its subject. As you might guess, Mrs Matisse is a novel about the French Read More
Mrs Jekyll by Emma Glass – Dylan Thomas Prize Longlist Celebration
One of my favourite prizes of the year is the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, which is open to writers in English under the age of 39 (Thomas’ age at his death). It always throws up an eclectic mix of books covering all the bases. Once again, I am delighted to take part in the Read More
Watchlist: Jan into March
Time to catch up with a little of what I’ve been watching lately… The year began well with the first series that got our staff room talking after each episode – I’m talking about the third season of Traitors of course! They managed to up the stakes and find some memorable characters in Linda, Minah, Read More
Pagans by James Alistair Henry
Now this was fun! Imagine that the Norman Conquest never happened in 1066. Great Britain continued to be an island divided by all the historic tribes you may have learnt about in your history lessons, dominated by the Saxons in the east and the Celts in the west, Scotland has gone its own way with Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Prophet Song
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. The Read More
Runaway Horses by Carlo Fruttero & Franco Lucentini – blog tour
Translated by Gregory Dowling The late Italian writing partners, Fruttero and Lucentini, worked together for decades, along the way writing five novels. Last year, Bitter Lemon Press published the first English translation of The Lover of No Fixed Abode. First published in Italy in 1986, it is a mystery and a romance, but it turned Read More
Black Woods Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey – blog tour
I’m delighted to one of those leading off the blog tour for Eowyn Ivey’s new novel. She isn’t the most prolific of authors, with just three novels now in 13 years. However, I fell in love with her 2012 debut, The Snow Child, set in 1920s Alaska about a childless couple who find a little Read More
The Knowing by Madeleine Ryan
Published the week before Valentine’s Day in the UK, not being one to celebrate I’ve delayed my review a bit! The Knowing is set over the course of one Valentine’s Day, and it follows a Day in the Life and a Life in a Day of Camille, who works in the kind of establishment where Read More
Review catch-up – Sophie Hannah and Jonathan Coe
After my week and a bit immersed in Paul Auster, time to get back to normal, with a pair of reviews for you . The Killings at Kingfisher Hill by Sophie Hannah This was our book group choice for Jan into Feb which we discussed last week. We were up to ‘K’ in our ‘flora Read More
The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster – #AusterRW25
My original plans were to read this book and Oracle Night this week alongside Baumgartner, which would have left only Sunset Park of Auster’s novels unread, but I was enjoying his 2002 novel The Book of Illusions so much, I took it a little more slowly to savour the text. Now I have the hard Read More
Baumgartner by Paul Auster – #AusterRW25
I chose Auster’s last novel as the buddy read for Paul Auster Reading Week. Published in 2023, a slim novel at just over 200 pages, it didn’t disappoint and revisits many of his favourite themes. The first chapter sets a comic scene.: Baumgartner is sitting at his desk in the second-floor room he variously refers Read More
Welcome to Paul Auster Reading Week 2025
Paul Auster is my absolute favourite author. Five years ago I hosted my first Paul Auster Reading Week, and since his death last year, I decided to host another. However, timing it to coincide with his birthday which is today, Feb 3rd rather than the anniversary of his death in April; he would have been Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Les Liaisons Dangereuses
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. The Read More
Into Thin Air by Ørjan Karlsson – blogtour
Translated by Ian Giles The start of a new series of Scandi-crime novels written by a seasoned hand augurs well. Norwegian, Ørjan Karlsson, has written a host of other crime novels and thrillers and obviously decided it was time for a change for his 16th novel. Karlsson grew up in the town of Bødo, which Read More
The Bookshop Woman by Nanako Hanada – #JanuaryInJapan
Translated by Cat Anderson Normally it’s rare for me to manage to fit in a Japanese book for #JanuaryInJapan hosted by Tony’s Reading List, but not having totally focused on Nordic fare this Jan (although I do have one to come before the month ends), I did it! And I shall try to read one Read More
One Billion Years to the End of the World by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
Translated by Antonina W. Bouis I managed to fit in a post for #VintageSciFiMonth this January in my third encounter with the Strugatsky brothers, after the completely lovable and madcap Monday starts on Saturday from 1964, and philosophical questing of Roadside Picnic from 1972. Also known as Definitely Maybe in the USA, thei novella One Read More
The Less Unkind by Rosaria Giorgi
I am delighted to be leading off the blog tour for Rosaria Giorgi’s debut novel – a thriller set in Italy in Denmark involving art theft! Italy and art are two of my favourite things, and I love thrillers, so I sat down to read the book with great anticipation, especially having received a lovely Read More
The Axeman’s Carnival by Catherine Chidgey – blogtour.
The genus corvus, which includes rooks, crows, ravens, jays, jackdaws, choughs and magpies in its ranks is commonly believed to have the most intelligent of birds, and this is a novel about one such, a magpie, named Tama, who narrates the whole story. ‘Narrated by a bird!?’ I hear you ask. Couldn’t that be a Read More
An Ethical Guide to Murder by Jenny Morris – blogtour
It’s my turn today on the Random Things blog tour for this intriguing crime novel. But first, I’m sending very best wishes to Anne of Random Things who I know is very unwell at the moment, I hope you get better soon, xx. Now to the book. It begins with a premonition… I have an Read More
Shakespeare: The Man who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench
With Brendan O’Hea What a treat this book was from first page to last. I finished reading it on Boxing Day, and it went straight into my 2024 Books of the Year list. It is written with Brendan O’Hea, who is an actor/director friend of Dench, and is Associate Artistic Director at the Globe Theatre Read More
Echoes of Eco II: Foucault’s Pendulum – Parts 2 & 3
For my introductory thoughts as I began re-reading Foucault’s Pendulum, click here. We ended the short first part of the novel with Casuabon hiding in the periscope chamber, waiting for a mysterious event to happen in the museum. HERE BE SPOILERS… Hokhmah – the second Sephirot – embodying wisdom from nothingness! In part two ‘Hokhmah’, Read More
Nightingale & Co by Charlotte Printz
Translated by Marina Sofia I am delighted to be leading off Corylus Books‘ latest blog tour for their first German novel in translation, and Marina Sofia’s first published translation from that language too, (full disclosure, Marina and I have never met but have been blog friends for years). It is 1961 and we’re in Berlin. Read More
Two reviews – Complete Opposites – Nunez and Miller
The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez I’m so glad to have fitted this novel in at the end of the year as it elbowed its way into my best of list. Written in much the same vein as The Friend and What Are You Going Through, Nunez’s narrator gives us another mixture of life and often flyaway musings on friendship, Read More
Human Being: Reclaim 12 Vital Skills We’re Losing to Technology by Graham Lee
This is one of the ones that got away in my 2024 reviewing. I read this book ages ago, but never got around to reviewing it for some reason which is shocking, for it is fascinating. Each of the twelve chapters takes one skill from its historical peak, then charts how we’ve let it go, Read More
Echoes of Eco II: Foucault’s Pendulum – Introductory thoughts
My original plan for this readalong was to polish the book off in about 3 chunks in January. But, having started it this morning, having read the first short section of just 18 pages (in my old Picador edition), my mind is already reeling, so I think I’m going to extend into February, having a Read More
Talking Header Images
One last fun post before School starts; I do have book reviews scheduled – honest! I was looking at my header images on the blog, and wondering if I should update them… Obviously, they’re cut down from larger photos to fit. I have six current ones, which are randomised to appear with each refresh of Read More
