Terms & Conditionsby Robert Glancy Frank has been in a car accident – it turns out it was a bad one, and he’s lost his memory*. He can’t remember people, but can remember his job**. He works for the family firm, chaired by his older brother Oscar♦. As he begins to remember things, he realises Read More
Author: AnnaBookBel
John Buchan meets Umberto Eco via Dan Brown
The Pendragon Legend by Antal Szerb, translated by Len Rix OK – so I put Dan Brown into the title of this post to grab your attention! While I totally agree with the rest of the world that the Da Vinci Code is not great literature, there is no denying that however silly the whole Read More
Wise words about books
A few quotations from the Folio book A Booklover’s Companion for you to ponder today and discuss(!)… They are Landmarks and guides in our journey through life. Wiliam Hazlitt, On Reading Old Books (1921) Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous Read More
After the war is over …
The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook The aftermath of war can be just as hard to get through as the war itself – for both ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. Rhidian Brook’s novel gives us a portrait of the British zone in Hamburg after WWII, a city largely destroyed by Operation Gomorrah in 1943. It is now 1946, 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
Rebecca covered…
I blame Simon – he started this off last week with posts on bad book covers for classic novels – Wuthering Heights after seeing this post on bad Jane Eyre ones. I thought I’d have a go too – and rather than choose a Victorian novel, I came a little back up the timeline and Read More
The clue is in the title …
The Echo by James Smythe When I read The Explorer last year, Smythe’s novel of a failed deep space mission, I had no idea he planned a sequel, let alone making it part of a quartet. I disengaged my reality check and went along for the claustrophobic ride with the mis-matched crew who were mysteriously picked Read More
Where is your North?
Soonchild by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Alexis Deacon This was the last book that Russell Hoban finished before his death in 2011. It was published posthumously by Walker Books as an illustrated short novel for a teen audience, and it is dedicated to Hoban’s grandchildren who are probably the perfect age to read this modern folktale Read More
Book Group Report – A new SF classic?
The Explorer by James Smythe Our book group does read the occasional full-blown SF novel, or novels with some SF concepts in like Slaughterhouse-5 which we read last autumn. I chose this book, selling it to the others as like the film Moon but even more messing with your head. It being a year since I Read More
Anachronism or not? … and a potted history of plastics!
You know how it is, you’re reading a book when something – often just a single word or phrase – spooks you. Makes you look again and go ‘what?’ (or words to that effect). More often than not, it’s probably due to a piece of poor editing, a word or phrase repeated too many times Read More
The blackest of boozy pre-war comedies …
This post was republished into my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive. Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton Starting in the dying days of 1938, George Harvey Bone, a tall and ungainly young man is spending Christmas with his aunt in Hunstanton hoping she’ll give him some money to keep him and his ‘friends’ going. Read More
Mix Douglas Adams with Jewish Mysticism, Marco Polo, a dash of the X-Men and time travel for weird fun!
A Highly Unlikely Scenario : Or, a Neetsa Pizza Employee’s Guide to Saving the World by Rachel Cantor If I said that a wacky speculative fiction novel about a 21st century world governed by the philosophies adopted by fast food chains was actually great fun to read, you might begin to doubt my sanity. I Read More
A May to December romance with strings…
Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa Translated by Stephen Snyder Only reading from my TBR, I searched my shelves for books so that I could join in with January in Japan hosted by Tony’s Reading List. I could have chosen Murakami – but have had both good and bad experiences with him. It ended up being a choice Read More
Stephen King’s Dark Tower #7
The Dark Tower Book 7: The Dark Tower by Stephen King I reached the Dark Tower! It’s been a long time a-coming, but I have finally reached the end of Stephen King’s epic fantasy series The Dark Tower. I began reading the books back in May 2011 in a readalong with Teresa and Jenny at ShelfLove. It was to Read More
In this novel, meat IS murder …
Season to Taste by Natalie Young This is the strangest premise for a novel that I’ve read in a while, and I do enjoy a high quirk factor in a book. Season to Taste is the tale of a marriage gone wrong, and it starts off with a murder… One day Lizzie Prain snaps and Read More
A charming adventure inside fairy tales …
Most of you will know Ian Beck’s work without even realising it. He is an illustrator of renown and amongst many other things designed the cover of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John. In the early 1980s, he started to write and illustrate picture books for young children, and later moved into writing children’s novels. Read More
Growing Old Disgracefully …
The Little Old Lady Who Broke All The Rules by Catharine Ingelman-Sundberg Translated by Rod Bradbury Let’s get it out of the way. If you enjoyed The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson as I did, (my review here), I’m certain that you will enjoy this novel. This Read More
Look what I won! …
Before Christmas I entered a competition run by The Omnivore online magazine to win an entire set of the Costa Book Prize 2013 shortlisted books – and heavens to Betsy, I got an email the other day saying I’d won. Today a big box of all the books arrived. THANK YOU! As the individual category winners Read More
Wendy takes the lead …
Wendy & Peter Pan by Ella Hickson, RSC at the RST, Stratford What a treat! Juliet and I went to the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon on Saturday night to see their new family production Wendy & Peter Pan. Yes, you read it right – Wendy comes first in Ella Hickson’s re-telling of J M Read More
My first encounter with Richard Brautigan …
This post was republished into my blog’s original timeline from my lost post archive. It was last summer when Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings was participating in the Beats of Summer fortnight of reading from the Beat Generation, that I resolved to read a book by Richard Brautigan. As I am not a fan of On the Road or The Naked Lunch (bored Read More
My first encounter with Richard Brautigan …
It was last summer when Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings was participating in the Beats of Summer fortnight of reading from the Beat Generation, that I resolved to read a book by Richard Brautigan. As I am not a fan of On the Road or The Naked Lunch (bored by the former, weirded out by Read More
A sad beginning and a happy ending cut oh so short by tragedy …
This post was edited and republished into my blog’s original timeline from my lost posts archive. It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini While I was doing some research into age appropriate novels for younger teens for a post on the topic back in November, I kept coming across books for older teens Read More
Lost in a good map …
Call of the Undertow by Linda Cracknell Variety in reading is usually my watchword, I try not to read books of a similar vein too close together, yet between Christmas and New Year I managed to read two about women running away from their existing life after life-changing events to sort themselves out. The first Read More
What the new Hoffmann addict read on Christmas Day …
The Nutcracker & The Strange Child by E.T.A. Hoffmann Translated by Anthea Bell My mum was a huge ballet fan, and it was a much-anticipated Christmas treat to be taken to London to the ballet to see The Nutcracker, preferably at the Royal Opera House for a grander experience and better tree (see below). It Read More
The stages of a widow’s grief
The Widow’s Tale by Mick Jackson A recently widowed woman in her early sixties flees her London home and well-meaning but irritating friends. She rents a cottage in a North Norfolk village, telling no-one where she’s gone. There, she gradually works her grief out – all the classic stages of denial, anger, what ifs, depression Read More
The Art of the Comb-over & American Hustle
American Hustle (15) It is a brave film that spends its opening minutes with its overweight paunchy, balding superstar acting lead perfecting his comb-over. Christian Bale put on 40 lbs to play Irving Rosenfeld, a small-time Bronx hustler who gets caught by the feds and offered immunity if he helps them in a big scam Read More
A novel of ‘The Troubles’
Harry’s Game by Gerald Seymour I was amazed to find that this thriller from 1975 was Gerald Seymour’s début novel. Because of its setting, it is the kind of book that my late mother would never have read, and we read a lot of thrillers betweeen us in our household back then. She was born and Read More
Book Stats 2013 and Reading Resolutions for 2014
Following hard on the heels of my Books of the Year – it’s time for bookstats. Many of you may know that I keep a spreadsheet of everything I read so I can analyse my reading at the end of each year. Don’t groan – it’s not that bad! I had a really good year Read More
My Books of the Year 2013
I’ve had a great reading year in 2013. I’ve managed to read more books than the past few years, topping the hundred mark, and at the time of review thirteen of those scored ten out of ten. Not all of those will make my list below though, as the score is just a snapshot – Read More
A Trio of Short Reviews
I thought I’d sneak a couple of short book reviews into that week between Christmas and New Year. Too bloated with turkey, booze and chocolate to concentrate on reading, I often find I’m scouring the web at this time for stuff to read and do! The Last Kings of Sark by Rosa Rankin-Gee This is Read More
