As always, I’m saving my books of the year for the 31st, and you’ll get my book stats (my favourite post) on the 29th, but today as in previous years I’m sharing my blogging highlights, including all those reading weeks, months and challenges I took part in over the year. You’ll also find a book Read More
Category: Reading Weeks, Months & Readalongs
A plan for Jan – Echoes of Eco II – Re-reading Foucault’s Pendulum
Inspired by a recent read which mentioned the Knights Templar in passing, I’ve decided to set myself a little project for January, and you’re all welcome to join in. Back in January 2019, I launched a project to re-read Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose over the month (here’s the final post in the series Read More
A #NovNov24 read for Norway in November: Doppler by Erlend Loe.
Translated by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw Alerted belatedly to Dolce Bellezza’s Norway in November reading month, I was able to find a novella to fit in, thus fitting #NovNov24 too. Back in 2014, I read Loe’s Lazy Days, a novel about a family on holiday, although Bror is meant to be writing. Instead he Read More
2 more novellas for #NovNov24: A ‘Maigret’ by Simenon and a ‘Parker’ by Stark
The Madman of Bergerac by Georges Simenon (No 15) Translated by Ros Schwartz Inspector Maigret is embarking on a holiday, going to the Dordogne to see an old friend and colleague, with a small job to do in Bordeaux on the side, while Madame Maigret is visiting her sister in Alsace. In his sleeper compartment, Read More
Nonfiction November Week 3 – Book Pairings
Week 3 of Nonfiction November is the always intriguing Book Pairings topic, hosted by Liz at Adventures in reading, running and working from home. Nothing had occurred to me as suitable pairings this year, until it did. Not once, but twice! Again, I’m taking the opportunity to combine this with #NovNov24 by pairing two short Read More
#NovNov24 – an assortment of Novellas – Morpurgo, Magariel, Schenkel
Book Group Report – War Horse by Michael Morpurgo Just occasionally in our book group, we’ll read a children’s book – usually a classic – and War Horse will surely become a modern one. It begins: My earliest memories are a confusion of hilly fields and dark, damp stables, and rats that scampered along the Read More
Nonfiction November – My Year in NF
Nonfiction November runs for 5 weeks from today! As always, week 1 is ‘My Year in NF’, and is hosted by Heather. I’ve participated since 2017! My best ever NF year was 2019 when I read 33 books, making up 25% of my total. This year, I’ve read the fewest non-fiction books for ages, 11 Read More
#RIPXIX Reprieve by James Han Mattson
I had no idea that ‘extreme haunts’ were a thing until I read this novel in which a team takes on the most extreme escape room of them all – Quigley House in Nebraska – a full-contact, (fake) blood-soaked, series of 5 cells with ‘actors’ in which contestants must find the hidden envelopes to progress Read More
Simenon & a Maigret for the #1970club
It’s time for another reading week hosted by Simon and Kaggsy – this time books published in 1970. Looking at the Wikipedia page for 1970 in Literature I’ve read loads through the years, including classic SF&F from Larry Niven and Roger Zelazny, schmalz from Erich Segal with Love Story, inexplicably Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, and I Read More
20 Books of Summer – final reviews part 1 – Orwell + books #21-22 by Barrett & deWitt
Now the first week of being back at School is over, I shall revert to some shorter reviews for the remaining books I read which, Orwell excepted, were extras to my twenty! So I don’t feel guilty about reviewing them late. Animal Farm by George Orwell This was a book group choice – we’re on Read More
#20booksofsummer24 – Round-up!
I’ve signed up to Cathy’s annual ‘20 Books of Summer‘ challenge every year since 2016. Although you can pick your level of 10, 15 or 20 books – I’ve always aimed for the full 20, but only achieved it three times – in 2022, 2021 and this year. This year I even reached twenty books Read More
Shiny Linkiness – Walsh and Towles for 20 Books of Summer
I’ve had two recent reviews published at Shiny New Books recently, both read as part of my #20booksofsummer24 reading. Kala by Colin Walsh A superb slowburn literary dual time-lined thriller, Irish author Walsh’s debut was a huge hit last year in hardback. I was sent a proof, but didn’t get the time to read it Read More
Two contemporary French novels – De Vigan and Mehdi – for #WITMonth #20booksofsummer24
From my pile of unread novels by French women authors from Europa Editions for both WIT Month and 20 Books of Summer – two reviews for you. Both contemporary stories with dark themes (you have been warned) – I found both of this pair to be provocative, thought-provoking, intense and moving. Kids Run the Show Read More
#20booksofsummer24, No. 10, A Luminous Republic by Andrés Barba
Translated by Lisa Dillman I read this book in July, intending to review it sooner for Stu’s Spanish & Portuguese Reading Month, so I’m a bit late – but had good intentions. Back in 2017, I read Such Small Hands by Barba, a dark and disquieting portrait of childhood bullying among young girls in which Read More
Rememberings by Sinéad O’Connor
Yesterday, it was a year since Sinéad O’Connor was found dead in her South London home. I hadn’t realised that when I picked her memoir out of the TBR piles a couple of weeks ago, but realised once I heard the trails for an Archive on 4 programme hosted by Jo Whiley to celebrate her Read More
The Winter War by Philip Teir and Joe Country by Mick Herron, #20booksofsummer24 7 & 8
Two reviews for you today from the TBR, continuing my 20 books of summer… The Winter War by Philip Teir Translated from the Swedish by Tiina Nunnally I remember acquiring this novel shortly after Victoria reviewed it for Shiny New Books here, back in 2015 when it was published in English translation. Teir is Finnish, Read More
Boxes by Pascal Garnier – #ReadingtheMeow2024 #20booksofsummer24
Translated by Melanie Florence It’s a while since I read any Pascal Garnier novellas. Gallic Books have published translations of twelve of his dark tales told with an even darker sense of humour after the prolific author turned towards noir in the 1990s, and Boxes is the fifth I’ve read, so plenty of treats still Read More
20 Books of Summer – My books… !!!
A very quick post to say, yes, of course I shall participate in the 20 Books of Summer challenge hosted each year by Cathy of https://746books.com/. Yes, I’m going to aim for the full 20. I don’t always achieve it, but always get close. And yes, I am going to cheat in how I choose Read More
The 1937 Club – Ali & Nino by Kurban Said
I did intend to read Eric Ambler’s Uncommon Danger for the 1937 Club, but it’s been so busy I’ve not managed to get started really, so instead I offer you a revamped review of a novel from that year that I read pre-blog and not previously featured. Azerbaijan in the early 20th century was at Read More
Reading Ireland Month – Flattery and Nolan
I finally got my act together for this year’s Reading Ireland Month, hosted by Cathy and read a pair of novels with throwaway titles – Nothing Special, and Ordinary Human Failings. They may have different settings, but both involve a teenager who has grown out of school, and both have broken families. However, I loved Read More
Nordic Snø & Íss
While I haven’t formally run my Nordic reading month this year keeping it casual, I offer many thanks to those blog friends who have still included it in their own reading plans (Chris reviewed The Silence of the Sea by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and Lizzy reviewed Hunter in Huskvarna and other stories by Sara Stridsberg. Do let Read More
Review of the Year #1 – 2023, A Year of Reading and Blogging
As always, I’m saving my books of the year for the 31st, and you’ll get my book stats (my favourite post) on the 29th, but today I plan to share some other blogging highlights, including all those reading weeks, months and challenges I took part in over the year. You’ll also find a book group Read More
Dean Street December – Viva Las Vengeance: The Elvis Mysteries #3 by Daniel Klein
I love taking part in themed reading weeks and months whenever I can, and Liz is hosting this one (see here). Dean Street Press were reprint specialists, particularly mid 20th century women’s fiction from the decades and Golden Age crime – and those are not my usual fare. However, in 2022 they also reprinted a 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
#ReadingBeryl23 – It’s a wrap!
It was a relatively quiet #ReadingBeryl23 week this time, although livelier on socials, as having her birthday in the middle of the week brought up a plethora of other tweets etc. I owe a huge thank you to Maureen, whose short piece about meeting Beryl on a writing course got us started, and also those Read More
An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryl Bainbridge #ReadingBeryl23
Back when first published in 1989, this was my first exposure to Beryl Bainbridge, and it would be some years before I read another, which was when the paperback of Every Man For Himself (later re-read and reviewed here) was published in 1996/7. Then another big gap until I started reading her again in 2011 Read More
The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress by Beryl Bainbridge #ReadingBeryl23
Finally, a review for you. This is one of the few novels by Beryl that I hadn’t read. Bainbridge’s eighteenth and final novel was left unfinished, but her great friend and colleague (and later biographer) Brendan King tidied it up from the notes she gave him. Like all of her later work, it was based Read More
Guest Post: Beryl Bainbridge. A memory, by Maureen Hanscomb
Today I have a special post for you. A couple of weeks ago when I was publicising #ReadingBeryl23, a lovely sounding lady contacted me to ask if there were plans for the week, and that she’d been tutored by Beryl on a writing course. I replied – it’s just an encouragement to read more Beryl, Read More
Nonfiction November Week 3 – Book Pairings
This week of Nonfiction November is hosted by Liz and the subject is Book Pairings. Pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. Maybe it’s a historical novel and the real history in a nonfiction version, or a memoir and a novel, or a fiction book you’ve read and you would like recommendations for 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
