I only discovered Will Carver earlier this year when I read The Beresford for its blog tour in July. Wow! I loved that smart, funny, horror novel and have since acquired several of his earlier ones. Then, not even six months later comes another Will Carver novel! Psychopaths Anonymous is narrated by Maeve, a successful Read More
#NonFicNov – Week 1: My Year in Non Fiction
I love joining in with Non Fiction November – over the years I have tried to increase the amount of non fiction I read, and this annual feature is a great spur towards doing more of that. Week one of the month is hosted by Rennie at What’s NonFiction and simply asks us to review 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
Sept/Oct Watchlist
I didn’t compile a Watchlist for September, as it was a thin month for viewing with back to school tiredness – apart from Strictly that is. However, October has been much more interesting – and I’ve been out to the cinema THREE times! No Time to Die Bond comes out of retirement to save the 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
Blog Tour – The Rabbit Factor – Antti Tuomainen
Translated by David Hackston I was really excited to add another Finnish author to my Nordic reading list. The Rabbit Factor is my first encounter with Antti Tuomainen’s unique thriller style which reminded me of the Coen brothers with its dark comedy leanings. It won’t be my last, because I loved this novel, and it’s Read More
Weekend Miscellany
GoodReads Challenge I’ve done it! Pressure’s off now, except I’d like to beat my best ever total of 142 in 2018! With a clutch of novellas (see more below) that might be doable too! However, I doubt I’ll reach my best ever total page count of over 41k from 2016, I’m currently in the 31k Read More
RIP XVI- I’m tiring of the zombies!
The Walking Dead – Vols 2, 3, 4 While I am still loving the TV series of TWD (I’m watching the final series 11 on Disney Star), I’ve now tired of reading the original comics. I bought myself the volumes 1-4, first published in 2004-5 and enjoyed the first one (see here). The TV series Read More
I had to treat myself…
To a third copy of Lord of the Rings I’ve already got these… On the left my single volume paperback from the 1970s, on the right one of the 50th anniversary editions – in this case illustrated by Alan Lee, which together with its companion 60th anniversary Hobbit was part of my joining offer to Read More
Conspiracy Theories – thank goodness, this is fiction!
The Counterfeit Candidate by Brian Klein Conspiracy theories are the stuff of many a great thriller; one of the very best I’ve read before is Fever City by Tim Baker which took on JFK, (as did Stephen King in 11.22.63 which I’ve yet to read). There are just as many alien conspiracy thrillers, after Roswell Read More
The 1976 Club – Helen MacInnes
It’s time for another Club reading week hosted by Simon and Karen – and the year chosen this time is 1976. When I examined Wikipedia’s 1976 in Literature page, I saw I’d read quite a few back in the day – most of the SF listed (Delany,Herbert, Niven/Pournelle, Zelazny), plus an assortment of others including Read More
Cheltenham Literature Festival Blog Tour
I was delighted to be asked to take part in the blog tour celebrating this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival. Participants were asked to pick one of the topics from the festival programme to receive a random book from: I chose ‘stage and screen’ and was delighted when Adam Buxton’s memoir Ramble Book came through the Read More
A Catch-up!
Life has been a bit busy this past week, school trips, fireworks to organise – just generally being more active, and then falling asleep in front of the telly, one more week until our two week half term! All this has led to a bit of a blogging slump. But it’s the weekend and it’s Read More
The Mirror Visitor quartet – the final installment
The Storm of Echoes by Christelle Dabos Translated by Hildegarde Serle When I was sent a copy of the first volume in this fantasy quartet of novels by Daniela at Europa Editions in 2018, I fell in love with Christelle Dabos’ world-building in its fractured planet, the wonderfully realised young heroine Ophelia and anti-hero Thorn. 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
Catch Your Breath by Ed Patrick – Blog Tour
I’m delighted o be one of the final stops on the blog tour for Ed Patrick’s super medical memoir. Memoirs by doctors nowadays tend to fall into distinct types, although in decades gone by it would usually only be surgeons who dominated the field. Surgeons still write memoirs, and I’ve reviewed a fair few including Read More
Dark Things I Adore by Katie Lattari – Blog Tour
There’s something about books set in artist communities that always intrigues me. Not only do I enjoy reading about the creative process, and where you have a group of artists, they will spur each other on to produce exciting work, although this can so easily tip over into being too competitive. These communities are always Read More
An assured debut from Annie Mac
Mother Mother by Annie Macmanus It’s always a relief when a well-known person in the media writes a book, and it’s good. Former Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac, who left the station earlier this year, has done just that – her debut is assured, straddling that line between commercial and literary fiction. Macmanus is Dublin Read More
The ‘loveliest’ book I’ve read this year
The Book of Pebbles by Christopher Stocks & Angie Lewin I was given this book for my birthday some months ago, and what a delight it is. Many of you will already be familiar with Angie Lewin’s gorgeous nature-based linocuts and wood engravings which grace many a greetings card. Her illustrations essentially get equal billing Read More
Weekend Miscellany
After managing to complete my 20 Books of Summer, my September reading thus far has been all review copies bar one, catching up on reading ahead for several forthcoming blog tours in particular – now I’ve just got to write all the posts! It’s been a busy week, being back at school. While the weather’s Read More
The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz
My Shiny New Books co-host, Harriet has long been a fan of Korelitz, reviewing three of her novels for Shiny (see here). I’d noted her down as an author to look out for, but since reading and enjoying her latest book The Plot so much, I’ll be more actively seeking to read her other novels. Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Second Place
My favourite monthly tag, 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: Second Place by Rachel Cusk Longlisted for the Booker Prize, Read More
August Watchlist
Bingeworthy TV Obviously, I’m already addicted to new BBC drama Vigil two episodes in, which started with killing off a main character (remember Spooks?), and am still loving Ghosts. I’m also working my way through rewatching Detectorists, which is just lovely. I was inordinately excited to discover that zombie spectacular The Walking Dead series 10 Read More
Book 100 of the Year: Charles Yu’s strange science fictional universe
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu Inspired by Susan’s review of Yu’s latest novel, Interior Chinatown (which I’ve had to order!), I returned to Yu’s previous novel, his first published in 2010, which has a winning cover full of ray-guns, and if you look carefully enough, a dog. Both Read More
20 Books of Summer 21 nos. 18-20 – Le Carré, Sallis & Shaw
I’m going to finish off the reviews of my 20 books in one go today. Here goes… Call For the Dead by John Le Carré Having read many of Le Carré’s early books over the years, I was slightly surprised to discover I’d never read his first book, the novella Call For the Dead, published Read More
20 Books of Summer 21 nos. 16-17 – Zadie Smith & Horatio Clare
Firstly I’m going to pause to go ‘Whoop! Whoop!’ – I’ve read my 20 books with days to spare. I honestly didn’t think I’d make it, but judicious choice of some short books to finish has done the job – all 20 were books I’ve owned since 2020 and were all own copies from my Read More
Love Under Lockdown by Michael Estorick – Blog Tour
I’m delighted to be kicking off the blog tour for this gentle comedy about two ageing chaps taking them from the Brexit referendum through to the end of the first Covid lockdown. Bill and Pete have been best friends for 55 years, they’re now in their mid-sixties, and retired. Estorick first wrote about them in Read More
Planning Ahead!
Last week on Twitter I posed a question. I asked: Hi my bookish Twitter friends. Just wondering… There are reading months for French, German, Spanish/Portuguese lit in translation. Does anyone host an Italian or Nordic/Scandi one. If not, I’d be willing, which would you prefer? I got a good response, but predictably, it was divided! Read More
20 Books of Summer 21 nos. 14-15 & a second for #WITMonth
Gosh! I’ve read 16 out of #20BooksofSummer21, so with a fortnight to go, there’s a definite probability of beating my previous best of 17, and a possibility I might just make the full 20 – it’ll have to be novellas or easy to read thrillers though. Bring it on! Meanwhile here are reviews 14 & Read More
Olympus, Texas by Stacey Swann – Blog Tour
There are two ways to read this novel: firstly, you can just dive straight in and enjoy it without thinking about the significance of the placename in its title, or, you can give yourself a knowing smile and keep an eye open as you read for all the resonances in its pages. I did the Read More
