BBC Sci-Fi Sound Effects (Vintage Beeb) Having built up a few reviews on Amazon, a couple of years ago I was lucky enough to be invited to be a reviewer for Amazon Vine. I get to pick items from lists they send out of all sorts of things. Usually I stick to books, but just Read More
Author: AnnaBookBel
Hollywood Noir down Mexico Way
Bitter Drink by FG Haghenbeck, translated from the Spanish by Tanya Huntingdon. Whenever I read some noir, I know I should read lots more, for I love it, but I get distracted onto other things – I think it’s a dead cert that’ll happen this time too. Meanwhile, although this slim novel is no masterpiece, Read More
Reading Thomas Keneally for Australian Literature Month
April is Australian Literature Month at Reading Matters. Kim is also generously donating 50p for each linked review to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation which gives books to families in remote parts of Australia, which is a fab incentive to participate! A swift perusal of my shelves came up with several authors to consider, including Kate Read More
What price progress for the peasant farmer?
Harvest by Jim Crace Harvest should mark a time to celebrate a year’s bounty, but right from the start of Crace’s atmospheric new novel, there’s a hint of underlying darkness to come. When strangers come to the village, announcing their arrival by a smoking fire, normal life is upset. When the Master’s dovecote is Read More
Stieg Larsson meets Forrest Gump but way better …
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson Translated by Rod Bradbury You might think he could have made up his mind earlier, and been man enough to tell the others of his decision. But Allan Karlsson had never been given to pondering things too long.So the idea had Read More
When mothers fail their daughters …
Magda by Meike Ziervogel The past couple of weeks have seen the publication of not one, but two novels featuring the ‘First Woman of the Third Reich’ Magda Goebbels. The first was Black Roses by Jane Thynne – A spy story set in 1933 Berlin. I loved it and you can read my review here. Read More
Love in a toun of gangsters
Stonemouth by Iain Banks Clarity.That would have been good.Instead, a cold clinging mist. Not even mist; just a chill haze, drifting up the estuary. I’m standing fifty metres above the Firth of Stoun, in the middle of the road bridge, at the summit of the long, shallow trajectory it describes above the waters. A man Read More
A novel in reverse…
Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick This is a rather different kind of YA novel. The cover of the hardback, would have you believe it’s full of blood, and possibly vampires. Blood, yes – and there is a part with a vampire, but in reality the paperback’s cover with hares leaping around the red moon (below), gives Read More
Who’s your Doctor?
Doctor Who: Dreams of Empire by Justin Richards We will get to the book eventually, but first I want to talk about Doctor Who a bit. Things are hotting up for the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, and the memorabilia stakes are high. The Royal Mail have issued a set of eleven stamps with the Read More
BanksRead – Celebrating the novels of Iain Banks
Twitter went mad this morning, and with good cause. We were all shocked and saddened to hear that Iain Banks has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He published a personal statement (which you can read here), before going off on honeymoon with his now wife Adele. I wish them every happiness in the time left, Read More
Rewarding YA reading for Grown-ups! Let me persuade you…
I’m in my early fifties prime (!) and I’m not afraid to say that I love reading modern YA books now and then … but only good ones, naturally. By using the term ‘YA’ here, I’m distinguishing them from those books we usually call ‘children’s classics’ (which still appeal to readers young and old alike). I’m Read More
Penguin Bloggers Night
It was pleasure and privilege to be invited once again to Penguin’s Bloggers Night held in the third floor gallery at Foyles. Thank you to Penguin, and especially Lija there who arranged the evening. It is always especially pleasurable to meet up with blogging friends old and new. It always amazes me that we all Read More
A Tale of Two Women in 1930s Berlin
Black Roses by Jane Thynne Remembering Jane Thynne’s columns and reviews in the Daily Telegraph, and having read that she is married to thriller writer Philip Kerr, I had high hopes of her new novel, set in Berlin during the years preceding WWII. I wasn’t disappointed, for Black Roses is a brilliant historical thriller based Read More
A tale of motherhood across generations…
The Confidantby Hélène Grémillon, translated by Alison Anderson I got a letter one day, a long letter that wasn’t signed. This was quite an event, because I’ve never received much mail in my life. My letter box had never done anything more than inform me that the-sea-was-warm or that the-snow-was-good, so I didn’t open it Read More
An absolute pleasure to dip into …
The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield I’m so glad I finally decided to give this book a go, as it has been a real pleasure to dip into over the past couple of weeks. As I already reported here, I was smitten by this book from its opening pages. Having obtained an Read More
A book that wants to be a family saga
When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman A proof copy of this book has languished on my shelves since its publication in 2011. I generally prefer not to read books that are getting all the hype during the hype, so, during the final days of my TBR pledge for this year, it was finally Read More
It’s what’s between the covers that counts …
No doubt you can point me to countless book covers that use the same photographs – there are several that use a Victorian gent by some railings that I’ve seen commented upon, but yesterday I spotted a pair for myself… The first is Black Roses by Jane Thynne, which is set in 1930s Berlin. A Read More
Finding one’s inner animal?
A Man in the Zoo & Lady into Fox by David Garnett Until I encountered the blogosphere, I had only ever encountered David Garnett (1892-1981) as the author of a novel that Andrew Lloyd-Webber based his musical Aspects of Love on. Garnett was part of the Bloomsbury Group. He was lover of Duncan Grant, and his second wife Read More
A master class in the art of stand-up
Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin In the 1970s, Steve Martin was one of the US’s top comedians, playing sell-out tours to huge audiences, and regularly appearing on Saturday Night Live and the Johnny Carson Show. After eighteen years, worn out by it, and noticing the first empty seats in an audiences Read More
The power of a descending bassline …
I don’t usually do ‘Song for Sunday’ type posts, but felt inspired today. I was listening to Broadcasting House, the Sunday morning magazine programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning, and there was a feature on why Baby by Justin Bieber is a classic pop song. It has all the hallmarks – being written in Read More
Ramble on …
This is my 800th post – Gosh! That means that in my four and a half years of blogging I’ve posted around 177 times per year. It also works out that I’ve averaged a post every other day – which frankly astounds me! Anyway it is entirely appropriate that my 800th post should be a Read More
Midweek Musings …
Dear Readers, I am smitten! No, not a new man in my life, but a book. Finally, inspired by Simon’s Guest post on Vulpes Libris, I dug out my copy of The Diary of a Provincial Lady, by E.M. Delafield. By page two, I was lapping it up, and I shall be dipping into this Read More
Non-fiction and me …
I have shelves full of proper non-fiction books all awaiting my attention. Books historical, geographical, biographical, scientific, and so on – you get the picture. I love the idea of reading them, but in practice they make up less than ten percent of my reading. The majority of those I do read are memoirs and Read More
Back-Blogging – Five old posts about …
As I’m currently: only 88 pages into my current 470 page read, going out twice this week, and busy at work too, so it could be a few days before I have a book to review… so I thought I’d have a quick delve into my archives. To make it more fun, I’ve chosen a linking subject Read More
Nick loves Amy, Amy loves Nick, don’t they?
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn This book is our book group choice for discussion this month – I would normally wait until after we’ve met to put down some thoughts about our reading, but after devouring this novel in two sittings, (I started at bedtime last night, and finished it when I woke up this morning Read More
To infinity …
The Explorer by James Smythe This brilliant novel’s beginning happens near the end of the story… Cormac Easton is the only remaining living astronaut on the spaceship Ishiguro. Cormac is not even a proper astronaut – he’s a journalist; his part in the team is to observe and document the voyage, to blog and film and send Read More
Scoring books, some musings on the subject
There are two definite camps in the book blogosphere: those who give/find useful star ratings, and those who don’t. I’ve always been in the former camp, but I do recognise that ratings are no more than a highly personal snapshot of opinion at time of publication. I started out giving whole stars out of five, Read More
C'est fun, but c'est n'est pas Les Mis…
Illumination by Matthew Plampin Given the love for all things French and 19th century at the moment thanks to the film I still haven’t seen that is Les Misérables, it was a good time to read a revolutionary novel. Illumination is set later than Hugo’s masterpiece, during the Siege of Paris of 1870-71 in the Franco-Prussian Read More
A little London loving – 1960s style…
Georgy Girl by Margaret Forster Margaret Forster is somehow one of those familiar authors, although I’ve read any of her books. Over the last fifteen years or so, I’ve seen several of her books in shops; The Memory Box is a title that stuck in my mind. Although I’ve no idea how old she is, Read More
The 'The Weird Attraction of Book Titles' Formula
I was musing about book titles this afternoon during the adverts in a certain TV quiz show to which I’ve become strangely addicted (OK, I’ll tell you, it’s The Chase). Enough of that, back to book titles. It struck me that I’ve read loads of, and own many more, books whose titles follow a formula Read More
