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
Category: Authors C
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
Six Degrees of Separation: Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
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… Trains
The second in an occasional series that gives me an opportunity to recycle posts on a theme, (the first was geographical – Surrey). This time the five books I’ve chosen all feature a rail journey, three by French authors, two American. I had enough to pick from a couple of times over, so this one Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: After Story
First Saturday of the month, 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 month Read More
Two Fab Thrillers – Jordan Harper & Steve Cavanagh
Two superb thrillers for you today, one from last year and in my #20booksofsummer and one brand new out. Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper I love the tag line of this novel, ‘In Hollywood, nobody talks, but everybody whispers.’ It immediately drew me in, and simultaneously got me humming Leonard Cohen’s wonderful song that shares Read More
The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable
Historical novels have long taken characters from real life as their inspiration, whether it be for an imagined narrative or a retelling of a life, which can be well-known, or little-known. The Instrumentalist does the latter. Anna Maria della Pietà was abandoned as a baby and grew up in the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: The Museum of Modern Love
First Saturday of the month, 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 month Read More
Watchlist: May & June
Mostly binge-worthy TV Now I can watch Netflix whenever I want again. The basic package has recently gone down in price, but now contains a few ads which aren’t too obtrusive. However, the big plus in a bonus second screen so my daughter and I can both watch now. I’ll be able to catch-up with Read More
Lost & Found by Helen Chandler-Wilde – blogtour
I’m delighted to be one of those leading off this blogtour for such an fascinating book. Subtitled “…from someone who lost everything”, Lost & Found drew me like a magnet. I can remember that when we moved to where we now live, we had three months in a furnished rental first with all of our Read More
Watchlist: Jan-March
Time was, I kept a running list of all the thing I’d seen that I wanted to mention on my watchlist posts, but I’ve lost the scrap of paper I was writing them on. I’ll start a new ‘note’ for next time, so this post will be heavy on the past few weeks and less Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
First Saturday of the month and new year too, 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 Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: the last book you read
First Saturday of the month and new year too, 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 Read More
Shiny Linkiness: Argylle by Elly Conway
My review of the book Argylle, by Elly Conway is over at Shiny New Books today – you can read it HERE. I usually catch up with my Shiny links some time after they are published, but I have a little more to say about this book – well, more about the book and the Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Kitchen Confidential
First Saturday of the month, time for the super monthly tag Six Degrees of Separation, which is hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, I’ve been so busy, I’ve missed the past couple of months, but I’m back to joining in today! Six Degrees of Separation #6degrees picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them Read More
Two for #GermanLitMonth #NovNov23 – von Chamisso & Dürrenmatt
Just squeaking in at the end of the month, here are two shorter reviews of novellas (hence qualifying for Novellas in November also) originally published in German, however, neither are by German-born authors. Adelbert von Chamisso was French, becoming naturalised German, Friederic Dürrenmatt was Swiss. Peter Schlemihl by Adelbert von Chamisso Translated by Leopold von Read More
Unnatural Death by Patricia Cornwell – blogtour
It’s hard to believe that we’ve now reached the 27th Kay Scarpetta thriller from Patricia Cornwell! I remember discovering them back in the early 1990s, reading the first two, Post Mortem and Body of Evidence, back to back and then devouring each one as they were published up until about 2000. I’m pretty sure that Read More
What is a Novella? #NovNov23 Week 2
I’ll admit, I was a bit cheeky last week, I included several books in my tally of novellas that aren’t really novellas. Novellas are accepted as being between 10k and 40k words, and up to 200 pages, although the more usual bottom limit is 17.5k words. Novelettes – a term not often used – are Read More
Meat by Dane Cobain for RIP XVIII
Back in 2017, I had the pleasure of being on the Shadow Judges Panel for the PFD Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year with Dane. (More here and here). Dane’s own website can be found here. He writes mainly in horror/thriller/mystery genres, but has written non-fiction, poetry and is a musician too. He kindly Read More
Reading the Decades: #6 The 1980s
I am more often than not devoted to contemporary fiction, the shiny and the new. But I do read some older books too as my stats will attest. This series picks out some of those old books that I’ve read, sorted by publishing date, not reading dates which can be any time. You can read Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Wifedom
First Saturday of the month, 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 month Read More
Two in Spanish for #WITMonth – Piñeiro & Posadas
Today, two more from my #20booksofsummer23 for #WITMonth too, both novels written in Spanish for you – both by South American authors – one from Argentina, the other from Uruguay; I loved one, and nearly DNF’d the other! A Little Luck by Claudia Pineiro Translated by Frances Riddle I discovered Argentinian author Claudia Piñeiro last Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Romantic Comedy
First Saturday of the month, 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 month Read More
NF catch-up
The Kon-Tiki Expedition by Thor Heyerdahl Translated by F H Lyon This was our book group choice for this month, with a sea theme linking from last month’s read, The Old Man & the Sea – yes, we’re playing word association football with our titles at the moment. It was a hit with everyone. We Read More
The Translator by Harriet Crawley – blogtour
Anyone who visits my blog regularly will know that spies and secret agents populate my favourite thrillers, and there are plenty in Harriet Crawley’s splendid new novel The Translator. Crawley, fluent in Russian, lived and worked in Moscow for twenty years – but in the energy sector. Who knows if she knew anyone from Moscow Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
First Saturday of the month, 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 month Read More
Reading the Decades #5: The 1950s
I haven’t done one of these posts for a while now. I am more often than not devoted to contemporary fiction, the shiny and the new. But I do read some older books too. The metrics in my annual reading stats include the number of books I’ve read published before I was born in 1960 Read More
Two shortish reviews: Dusapin and Clare
The Pachinko Parlour by Elisa Shua Dusapin Translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins Dusapin is a Franco-Korean author who won the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Lit for her first novel Winter in Sokcho, which followed the life of a young woman working at a hotel at the town near the Korean Read More
Catching up with Shiny linkiness…
I’ve had several reviews posted at Shiny New Books lately, so I shall take the opportunity to plug them here as well. Bournville by Jonathan Coe I’ve read nearly everything that Coe has published and reviewed four of them for Shiny (see here). He has favoured themes: many of his most-celebrated novels are concerned with deciphering Read More
Review of the Year #3: 2022, Books of the Year!
I still award a score to all the books I read – recorded on my Reading List page. I score out of 10, including half points (so out of 20 really!). Those scores are only snapshots of course, and some books fade from your memory as others, which maybe scored lower initially, stay or grow. Read More
