I’m so glad that Cathy is running her ‘20 Books of Summer‘ challenge again for 2021. Although I always sign up for the full 20 with good intentions, I’ve never quite managed it yet. Any challenge that gets me reading from my TBR piles is a good nudge for me not to only read the Read More
Famous last words – Just one more job…
Love and Theft by Stan Parish You know me, I LOVE my thrillers. All of ’em. However there are two types I love more than the rest: the first has spies, the second has a heist. Love and Theft is the latter, and I’m delighted to be taking part in the short blog tour for Read More
The Atomics by Paul Maunder
This psychodrama had two great selling points that immediately made me keen to read it. Firstly its timeline is the late 1960s, and secondly it’s set against the backdrop of a nuclear power station. The novel opens with a mystery, that will be explained fully as the story progresses. Frank is out for a walk Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Beezus and Ramona
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: Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary I’m the right age Read More
April Watchlist
Bingeworthy TV What with the über-excitement of Line of ‘Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey’ Duty every Sunday evening, and rewatching each episode to make sure I got as much as possible from it, it’s a miracle I watched any other TV series, but I was very pleased to discover that BBC2 is reshowing Read More
Review catch-up!
This spring into summer period is shaping up to be a huge publishing push, as publishers catch-up with COVID-19 delays. It’s nice to see new books spread out over several months too, which I hope means that more will get the attention they deserve. Will they revert to form in September and October though? Woe Read More
Together – Luke Adam Hawker – Blog Tour
Today, it’s my turn on the blog tour for a deeply lovely book that’s not easy to write about! The lazy way to describe Together would be ‘This year’s The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse‘ for the combination of pictures and words with an ultimately inspirational message has a sort of similar Read More
#BanksRead2021 : 5 The Shock-Jock Thriller One
Dead Air by Iain Banks Phew! Life turned out to be busier than anticipated this week, but I managed to finish reading my third Iain Banks book for my #BanksRead2021 this morning. Now for a quick review! Dead Air, alongside The Steep Approach to Garbadale was one of the two mainstream novels by Banks that 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
#BanksRead2021: 4 – The Dystopian One
A Song of Stone by Iain Banks There’s something about Scotland that suits dystopias of the military takeover kind–the abundance of castles, lochs and game all play their parts. Distant memory reminds me of the last episodes of the mid-1970s BBC series Survivors which had the plucky survivors in the Highlands, negotiating with a laird Read More
#BanksRead2021: 3 – Dipping into Banks’s Poems
Banks and his close friend, fellow SF author, Ken MacLeod were working on publishing a joint collection of poems as Banks learnt of his terminal diagnosis, and he continued revising in his remaining time, their collaboration being published posthumously in 2015. Banks’s first published work in 1977 was a poem: ‘041’ – more on that Read More
#BanksRead2021: 2 – Which is your favourite Banks novel?
Today, I’m launching a poll to ascertain our favourite Banks novels. You can pick up to three and the poll will run until midnight on Sunday when #BanksRead2021 ends.
#BanksRead2021 : 1 -Walking on Glass
Although this was a re-read for me, given that it’s been 35 years since I read it and it’s not one of Banks’s more celebrated novels, I think I can be forgiven for not remembering a thing about it. I read my first edition UK Futura paperback in the small format, with a white cover Read More
It’s #BanksRead2021 time…
It’s Saturday April 10th, which means it’s #BanksRead 2021 time. I’m going to spend the week and a bit talking about one of my favourite authors of all time, Iain Banks – with or without the ‘M’. I’d like to invite you to join with me to celebrate this much-missed author, by reading one of Read More
The Coming of Christianity and the Beginning of the Death of Magic?
Sistersong by Lucy Holland I read less fantasy these days, but when I do, there’s no type I enjoy more than that with an Arthurian or Dark Ages setting. Sistersong is exactly that, and I found it hard to stop reading this novel which occupies that fertile fantasy crossover land between YA and adult reading, Read More
Discovering a new indie press – Broken Sleep Books
A few weeks ago, I was directly contacted by a new author, Rosanna Hildyard, to see if I’d like to read her booklet of three short stories, Slaughter, published by Broken Sleep Books. I’m a bit cagey about responding to direct author requests, just in case I don’t get on with their work. (Once I Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Shuggie Bain
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: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart I haven’t read last year’s Read More
Banksread is nearly here
Fancy joining me in reading something by the late, great, Iain Banks? Well, if you do, let’s do it together, whether you prefer his mainstream novels or science fiction. I’m planning to re-read his second novel ‘Walking on Glass‘, and later ‘A Song of Stone‘, both of which are hazy memories, then I”ll turn to Read More
The Book Blogger’s Prize – the results are in!
It’s been a while coming, but the results are finally in and a winner has been announced. Sadly it wasn’t me! However, I’d like to take the opportunity to say a huge thank you to everyone who voted for me and my review of Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, a book I’ve championed since its publication Read More
March Watchlist
With March feeling fairly never-ending, probably time was going slowly as we inched our way towards the 29th and the first little easing of the lockdown, I’ve managed to squeeze in a lot of films and television. I’ll begin with the telly… Binge-watching and more Telly I am continuing to love Snowpiercer, but am reduced Read More
Reading Ireland Month 2021
Having a Belfast mam and still having a yearning to claim my Irish passport, I couldn’t not join in with Reading Ireland Month 2021, hosted by Cathy at 746 Books. I had long planned to read a modern Irish classic, but it just didn’t do it for me, so I quickly revised my plans – Read More
Shiny Linkiness – Becky Chambers
Just a quick note here to say that my review of Becky Chambers’ final book of the Wayfarer’s Quartet is up at Shiny New Books today. All four novels stand alone, being set in the same galactic milieu with different characters, just a few minimal references to characters in the other novels. You can read Read More
A Women’s Prize longlisted novel for the Dewithon 21
This Christmas gone by, I’d bought a signed copy of a novel in advance for someone, but then it was agreed that we wouldn’t do presents this time so the book was added to my teetering TBR piles. Then, when I was scouting through a list of Welsh authors so I could join in with Read More
Funnish, but not Melrose calibre…
Double Blind by Edward St Aubyn Having read all five of St Aubyn’s ‘Patrick Melrose’ novels last summer and loved them (my wrap-up here), it was time to turn my attention to his new novel – a non-Melrose one. The only problem was that my expectations were very high indeed – would the book live Read More
Happy Mother’s Day – with Jess Phillips
Jess Phillips will be known to everyone as a Labour MP (for Yardley in Birmingham) and an ardent feminist. She serves on the Opposition frontbench as Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding and during this week, which saw the tragic murder of Sarah Everard, in the House of Commons International Women’s Day debate, she Read More
Weekend Miscellany
Well it’s been quite a week! Returning to school from furlough was a bit of a shock. I’ve been in the habit of waking up naturally at around 8, then tea and reading in bed until around 10 when Woman’s Hour starts on Radio 4 (never got on with that programme). Then a bit of 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
Earlier, I found out about ‘fronted adverbials’ .
There’s been a lot in the news lately about English grammar, and what should be taught when, as parents have struggled with grammar terminology while homeschooling their kids during lockdown. Thinking back to my childhood, I can remember having to identify nouns and verbs, subjects and objects – more often than not in French or Read More
The NB Blogger’s Book Prize! Vote Closes on the 17th.
First of all, a big thank you to Rebecca who pointed this prize out to me, I might have missed the submission date otherwise. NB, formerly New Books, Magazine is ‘a literary magazine and online platform for book lovers, book clubs and all round bibliophiles.’ I used to subscribe to it in its initial guise, Read More
Two more indies in translation: Yuri Herrera and Kristina Carlson
This year, I’m going for it as far as reading from my own shelves is concerned, continuing to read more from small presses, and more in translation. Of the latter, that’s 13/30 books read so far – ten languages from twelve countries. I’m pleased with that. If I can add more books from Africa into Read More