‘How We Can All Choose a Better Life for Animals’ Gosh! This book made me think! It made me feel guilty: Firstly for enjoying eating meat. Although not written to discourage that, or promote vegetarianism at all, the author does strongly promote that we (those who can afford it) should eat better welfare meat – Read More
Category: Authors W
Shiny Linkiness
I’ve been very remiss, and forgetting to link to my various reviews over at Shiny New Books, here are my latest from this month and last: The Gift of a Radio by Justin Webb Webb’s memoir of his childhood and years up until he joined the BBC in 1984 is a candid, funny and touching Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Our Wives Under the Sea
First Saturday of the month, and it’s 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. Our Read More
Two short NF reviews
Recovery by Dr Gavin Francis I won this book in a giveaway hosted by Rebecca who reviewed it here – thank you! Published by Profile Books for the Wellcome Trust, this short non fiction book is all about how we recover from illness, and the road back to good health. Francis is a GP, and Read More
My Year in Irish Lit
It’s Week 2 of Reading Ireland Month, hosted by Cathy at 746 Books and Raging Fluff. The prompt for this week is ‘My Year in Irish Lit’, and it is a pleasure to go back through the year to last March and see how many books by Irish authors I read – I was pleasantly surprised by the Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: The End of the Affair
First Saturday of the month, and it’s 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. I’m Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Rules of Civility
I’m back to doing 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. Our starting book this month is: Read More
Catching up with Book Group reads
With our December zoom last week, another year of our Book Group came to an end – we did manage to have two in person meetings sitting in a pub beer garden, until that got too cold. We’ve retreated back to zoom for now, but fingers crossed for the spring. I’ve been going since 2004, Read More
#NovNov – Contemporary novellas from the archives…
To celebrate the start of Novellas in November month (hosted by Bookish Beck and Cathy at 746 Books), I am stealing this idea shamelessly from Susan. Here is a selection of novellas I’ve enjoyed in recent years, and to match the theme of the first week of #NovNov, they’re all ‘contemporary’. The Commitments by Roddy Read More
RIP XVI – The Spirit Engineer by A J West
I’m not the biggest reader of historical fiction, but a quote on the press release for The Spirit Engineer by Derren Brown (big, big fan) sold me instantly, and of course ’tis the season for spooky reads. What’s more this novel is a fictional account based on real events, in which science meets spiritualism head Read More
Lots of Shiny Linkiness
Time to catch up here with a bit of linkiness to my reviews published at Shiny New Books, there have been several over the past weeks I’ve not mentioned here. Star Turns by Tim Walker Journalist Tim Walker has worked at many publications, currently at the New European, where he resurrected the Mandrake diary column Read More
20 Books of Summer 21 #1 & #2
I’ve read my first two books – 18 to go, although I have three review books to read next before reading any others that count towards my 20. Here are my thoughts on the first two. #1 The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams When this book was published last year, there was so much love Read More
Reading the Decades #3: The 1930s
As a breather from Iain Banks, today, another of my Reading the Decades posts. Those who visit this blog regularly will know of my devotion to contemporary fiction, the shiny and the new. But I’m not really a one-trick pony in my reading. The metrics in my annual reading stats include the number of books Read More
Southern Cross Crime Month
Hermit by S R White It turns out that S R White is a Brit, however, since he moved to Australia years ago and Hermit is set there, I’ll claim it for my contribution to Southern Cross Crime Month, hosted by Kim at Reading Matters. The book begins very early one morning with Dana Russo Read More
BBC Mini Maestro: David Walliams’ writing course for children
I promise I’ll get back to some reviews soon, the pile is getting big again. Today, however, some information for you on the new (short) writing course for your children presented by none other than David Walliams. It’s aimed at ages 7-12, and over its twelve short lessons, looks at all the key aspects to Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret
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 it’s one of Judy Blume’s most enduring titles – Are you there God? Read More
Reviews catch-up: Harris, Murata, Daré & Wigglesworth
My pile of read but not yet reviewed books runneth over, so some shorter notes follow, plus some Shiny linkiness. The Book Lover’s Quiz Book – Novel Conundrums by Gary Wigglesworth My full review of this fun book is over at Shiny, but I’m writing about it here too as it’s an ideal Christmas present Read More
Nonfiction November – Book Pairings
Week 2 of #NonfictionNov is hosted by Julz Reads with the prompt: This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. It can be a “If you loved this book, read this!” or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Rodham
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
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