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: Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld A book I’ve not read, Read More
Category: Authors W
20 Books of Summer – #16 & #17 & Wrap-up
The 20 Books of Summer challenge runs from the beginning of June to the end of August each year, hosted by Cathy at 746 Books. This is my fourth year of joining in, and my most successful yet, the best I’ve managed before being 15 out of my 20. I always aim to go for Read More
Some good reads from pre-blog days, and what I thought about them then… #13
Yet another plundering from my pre-blog capsule reviews on the trusty spreadsheet. Im not quite running out of meaningful reviews yet, so here is another mixed bag from 2007… What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn A gripping first novel about a group of outsiders. From the nine-year-old loner cub-detective Kate, to Kurt the insomniac security Read More
Crime Dot Com by Geoff White – Blog Tour & Extract
Written by investigative journalist Geoff White, and subtitled “From Viruses to Vote Rigging, How Hacking Went Global” this is another book that I wish I had time to read as I’m fascinated by cybersecurity and hacking (without ever wanting to do it, you understand!). Let me tell you a bit about the book and it’s Read More
Crime Panel event at Mostly Books
Last night, I went to my local indie bookshop, Mostly Books in Abingdon, for their latest Crime Panel event. We had not just one or two, but five crime authors talking about their work! Olivia Kiernan, CJ ‘Caz’ Tudor, Andrew Wilson, Mick Herron and Dominick Donald. It was such a treat, and thank you to Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Daisy Jones & The Six
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 – the starting book is: Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid How I loved Read More
A Beckettian comedy about er… death?
The Faculty of Indifference by Guy Ware I don’t often include a publisher’s blurb in my reviews, but felt the need with this novel – The following comes from the back of the paperback: Robert Exley works for the Faculty: he spends his life making sure that nothing ever happens. In counter-terrorism, that s your Read More
Some good reads from pre-blog days, and what I thought about them then… #8
I’m busy reading a fiction chunkster (no, not the Ellmann!), and several non-fiction titles, so full reviews will have to wait. Instead, here’s more of my notes from 2007 on some books I enjoyed back then… In the place of fallen leaves by Tim Pears Slow to get into, but growing more rewarding with each Read More
Some good reads from pre-blog days, and what I thought about them then… #3
Plundering my capsule reviews from my pre-blog days on my master spreadsheet – a selection from 2007 for you this time. Hullaballoo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai A funny, gentle and very jolly satire on fake holy men and the followers they attract; almost an Indian Life of Brian! Sampath’s family despair of Read More
British Book Award Shortlists
The British Book Awards run by The Bookseller are the publishing industry’s equivalent of the BAFTAs and are affectionately known as The Nibbies. They celebrate the best British writers, books, publishers and bookshops. The Books of the Year are split into the following categories with one overall winner being picked too: Fiction Debut Crime & Read More
More Poetry – Joe Dunthorne & Heidi Williamson
O Positive by Joe Dunthorne No sooner had I started reading my first novel by Joe Dunthorne, the rather fab The Adulterants (reviewed here), than I discovered he had a book of poetry coming out, and I was keen to see more. O Positive with its blood-red lettering on the front cover, is divided into four sections, one for Read More
A doctor’s life as a graphic novel
The Lady Doctor by Ian Williams I just couldn’t resist this graphic novel about Dr Lois Pritchard, a GP who splits her work between a health centre and the local genitourinary medicine clinic in Wales. It’s actually a follow-up to Williams’s debut The Bad Doctor, which Myriad published in 2014. The Bad Doctor followed one Read More
Review Catch-up #3 from 2018
Yet another pair of shorter reviews of books I read at the tail-end of 2018. Where Shall We Run To? by Alan Garner I shall be reviewing this book at length for Shiny but it warrants a short write-up here too. I am a big Alan Garner fan (see here), and I can think of Read More
Review Catch-up #2 from 2018
More shorter reviews of books I read towards the end of 2018… The Language of Kindness: A Nurse’s Story by Christie Watson There are so many books written by hospital doctors these days – of all types. Surgeon’s stories in the operating theatre; junior doctor’s comedic diaries; heart-breaking lives cut short by cancer – they fill shelves Read More
Year End Review #6: My Books of the Year!
And finally, in my review of my reading year, it’s my Books of the Year. I always save this post for last, in case there’s a late entry. I’ve given up trying to keep the list to a dozen and have ended up instead with a baker’s dozen, plus some runners up. All of these Read More
The Last 10 Books Tag…
I got this via Simon (see his answers here) but it originated with Rick at Another Book Vlog. I couldn’t resist… The last book I gave up on There are a few books that I never really got started with, like Iris Murdoch’s The Nice and the Good, but the last one I read a decent chunk of Read More
The Sunday Times PFD Young Writer of the Year 2018 Bloggers Event
Last year I was privileged to be on the official Shadow Judges Panel for this super award – you can read about my experiences here. One of the key events in the awards calendar each year is the Bloggers Event which is held at the Groucho Club in London, and I was delighted to be Read More
Winterson’s powerful debut novel
Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson I don’t know how I’ve managed to escape reading Winterson’s debut – I’ve read (and loved) her autobiography Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, (reviewed here), and I very much enjoyed the TV adaptation of this book with Geraldine McEwan playing the fearsome mother. Read More
Review Catch-up…
Life is rather busy, and I’m terribly behind on my reviews. So here is a batch of reviews and links for you… Educated by Tara Westover This memoir of growing up in an unconventional setting and how the author escaped to discover the world outside was absolutely compelling reading, Westover grew up off-grid in Idaho, Read More
Wellcome Book Prize Blog Tour
Today, it’s mine and Paul’s (Halfman, Halfbook) turn on the Wellcome Book Prize Blog Tour. Each day two bloggers are covering one of the books on the shortlist for this prize which will be announced on Monday. One will review, the other will host an extract, so head over to Paul’s blog (Halfman, Halfbook) to read a Read More
The Power of Fairy Tales: Marina Warner & Sally Gardner
Once Upon a Time by Marina Warner Subtitled ‘A short history of fairy tale’, Warner’s compact volume belies its small size. It’s a tiny hardback, but within its 200 or so pages, the author recounts the rich history behind the beloved fairy tales we all know from their most common (often arguably via Disney film Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: The Beauty Myth
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. Click on the titles to go to my reviews. Our starting book this month is the feminist classic: The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf Wolf’s bestselling Read More
Get ‘Educated’ in Abingdon
Coming soon – an evening with Tara Westover The next book I’ll be reading will be Educated by Tara Westover (right). Published this week, Tara’s memoir is of growing up off-grid in the hills of Idaho sounds fascinating. Her father spent his time preparing for the end of the world, her mother worked as an unqualified Read More
The Beautiful Young Things behaved so badly…
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh This was our book group choice this month. Unfortunately we ended up not meeting to discuss it, but the emails swapped afterwards confirmed one thing – none of us loved it, and most found it a perplexing bore. This is strange for I’ve read several other Waughs over the Read More
Ranking Persephones…
While I haven’t managed to read a Persephone book so far during the Persephone Readathon hosted by Dwell in Possibility blog, I have been inspired by Simon’s recent post in which he ranks the Persephone books he has read, which is an amazing 57! At the end of his post he says ” I’d love it if Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Lincoln in the Bardo
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. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders …is our starting point this month. Lots of ways to go from here – US Presidents obviously, and having looked Read More
The Joy of Found Bookmarks
We’re reading Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh for Book Group this month. I got this Green Penguin Modern Classics edition from a charity shop. I opened it up to find a read luggage tag with this written on it (in capitals): NOTE REAR TYRES WORN DOWN TO 2. MM LEGAL LIMIT IS 1.6 MM. ? Read More
Back in the Panhandle…
Why Stuff Matters by Jen Waldo I loved Jen Waldo’s first novel, Old Buildings in North Texas which I reviewed for Shiny New Books here (with a Q&A with Jen here). In it, Olivia, a wise-cracking cocaine addict, is sent back home to Caprock in the Texas panhandle, under her mother’s control as rehab. Read More
Review catch-up!
I’ve rather a large pile of unreviewed books I read in 2017 to catch up on, so today I have some shorter reviews for you… When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi I love medical memoirs, especially surgeon’s tales, but occasionally a book will come along that will knock you sideways. When Breath Becomes Air Read More
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
The Ecco Book of Christmas Stories In the run up to Christmas, I’ve been reading short stories from this Canadian anthology, selected and introduced by Alberto Manguel. I thought I’d quote from some of them for Christmas Day, however, be warned – most of these Christmas stories only have fleeting happy moments (which has Read More