Auster’s first fiction published under his own name was three novellas, initially published separately in 1985-6, then collected as The New York Trilogy (NYT). I discovered the NYT when it first came out in paperback in the UK. I was attracted to the cover, also bearing Faber & Faber’s livery (right); the blurb promised detective Read More
Introducing Paul Auster Reading Week 17-23 Feb & Sign-up
Auster is probably my favourite living author, and last autumn I decided I would host a reading week to celebrate his work – and it begins today! I hope some of you will join with me in reading some of his writing: be it novels, memoir, essays, screenplays, poetry, letters and so on – he’s Read More
The Finished Books Tag
Perfect timing! I spotted this tag which is doing the rounds on Paul’s blog, Half Man, Half Book blog this morning – and it’s perfect to fill the gap before Paul Auster Reading Week which begins on Monday. Do you keep a list of the books you have read? Of course! That’s the easy answer. Read More
A book with no words that speaks loud and clear
Bad Island by Stanley Donwood You may have heard of Donwood through his longterm collaborations with Radiohead, or have seen his gloriously colourful cover for Robert MacFarlane’s Underland (right) which came out last year, (indeed Donwood has collaborated with MacFarlane and others on various other illustrated books). I came to Donwood first, however, via a Read More
Some good reads from pre-blog days, and what I thought about them then… #9
I’m getting into my Paul Auster Reading Week reading (17-23rd Feb), so here are some more 2006 capsule reviews from my master spreadsheet. Hope you enjoy them. Jackie Brown (a.k.a. Rum Punch) by Elmore Leonard Originally titled Rum Punch, this novel was reissued and retitled after the Tarantino film of it. If you’ve seen the Read More
Silver by Chris Hammer
Chris Hammer was a journalist for years before writing his first thriller, Scrublands, (see Kim’s review here). In Scrublands, investigative journalist Martin Scarsden visits a town in the bush where, a year before, a priest had shot at his congregation before being killed himself. He discovers that the accepted facts don’t fit and in doing Read More
Book Group Report: A Yorkshire Classic
A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines For once, our group was united – everyone who managed to finish the book really enjoyed this novel, a much-loved modern classic from 1968, filmed as ‘Kes’ in 1969 directed by Ken Loach. As is often the case where we read books which we all loved, together Read More
“Won’t you be my neighbor?”
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood A quick film review from me today. I went to see this at the weekend – and I simply adored it. It made me cry, it made me laugh a little, it certainly made me feel good – do go and see it. ‘Mister Rogers’ – Fred Rogers, was Read More
Weekend Miscellany
January review A sad day yesterday, but we all have to live with it now, so I shall SUMO – shut up and move on. I’ll start today, by updating you on how I’m doing on #TBR20. The plan was, (with Lizzy and Richard @caravanablog and any others participating), not to read or buy any new books Read More
Japanese Literature Challenge 13
The Cake Tree in the Ruins by Akiyuki Nosaka Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori It’s the 13th year of the Japanese Literature Challenge, hosted by Meredith of Dolce Belezza – it runs from January through to the end of March – find out more here. I hope to read more than one book for it, Read More
The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch
I discovered this memoir through Rebecca’s post here and it was one of her ‘backlist best of’ choices too last year. You need to be of strong stuff right from the start, as Yuknavitch begins her account of her life so far with a truly emotional and painful episode, the stillbirth of her daughter, a Read More
Blog Tour – Cara Hunter – All the Rage
I discovered Oxford author Cara Hunter last year when she visited my local indie bookshop for a Crime Panel Event. It was fascinating to hear her talk about the genesis of her detective, DI Adam Fawley, and about the way she includes social media and transcripts in her texts. I went on to read the Read More
The World of Ephemera: Learning Your Scales
You know I love ephemera, (see here for lots of posts on the subject). It’s amazing, the bits of paper you find, when rooting around for things. Today I found this: I bet you thought slide-rules were just used for maths! Actually most of you will never have come across a maths slide-rule. By the Read More
A review assortment – Johnston – McGlasson – Dawson
I didn’t mean to leave a week between posts, but I’ve got some very welcome overtime at the moment, which means that everything else moves into blogging time and so on. So here are three medium length reviews of recent reads for you. A Sixpenny Song by Jennifer Johnston It was Kim’s post here, celebrating Read More
A review assortment – Lahiri, MacKenzie, Maugham
The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri Translated from the Italian by Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush An London-born American author of Bengali descent, Lahiri moved to Italy where she now writes in Italian – and her husband translated this essay into English, which she then reworked in both Italian and English for its English publication! Complicated, huh? Read More
“Home is so sad”
How It Was by Janet Ellis After reading and loving the late Clive James’ last book, an anthology of his writing on Philip Larkin (reviewed here), I was planning to read more Larkin already. Then, up he pops in my last read of 2019, in the title and epigraph of Janet Ellis’s second novel, for Read More
Belatedly, my reading plans for 2020
I don’t intend to make formal New Year’s reading resolutions, but I do have plans! 1. State of the TBR It always has been out of control. I used to take part in the TBR Dare annually, in which participants tried to only read from their TBR from 1st Jan to 31st March. That was 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
Red Lockdown!
Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton Anyone who works in a school will be familiar with ‘lockdown’ procedures, with code reds being the ones you hope you’ll only ever have to practice; the make yourselves as invisible as you can to an intruder ones. Lupton’s latest novel takes such an awful situation, placing it into an Read More
The World of Ephemera: A Classic Crochet Pattern
Something away from books today as a palate cleanser from all those best of lists! Plug the word ‘Ephemera’ into the search bar or click here, and you’ll bring up a rich variety of bits of vintage paper, most of which hail from my late mum, who was an inveterate newspaper clipper. I found this Read More
Review of the Decade
Happy New Year & Happy New Decade! But, before I dive headlong into the 2020s, here’s just one more backwards-looking post to pick out my highlights for each year of the 2010s, well 2010-2018 – I’m considering 2019 done! 2018 Book of the Year: To Throw Away Unopened by Viv Albertine. Something about this memoir Read More
Year End Review 6: It’s my BOOKS OF THE YEAR!
This year I’ve given up trying to shoehorn my selections into a set number, be it 10, 12 or a baker’s dozen. My list has as many categories as I felt I needed – which ended up as 18 this year. Without further ado, here they are: Best fictional biography: Murmur by Will Eaves – Read More
Year End Review 5: The Stats!
This is possibly my favourite post of the year! I love playing with my master spreadsheet, all that data to mine for nuggets of information that will tell me if my reading habits have changed. Without further ado, here are the charts (accurate to 25 December). Books & Pages I read slightly fewer books this Read More
Year End Review 4: Non-Fiction
I managed to increase the amount of non-fiction I read this year once again – I seem to be going up by one or two NF books per year! So in 2019 I read 33 non-fiction books (up to 25 December), making 25.3% of the total this year. Thanks to taking part in the Wellcome Read More
Year End Review 3: In Translation
I’ve given books read in translation their own section over the past couple of years to keep up the pressure on myself to read more widely from other countries. This year, I failed to keep up with last year’s success at 25 books (18%), managing just 18 (14%) up to my cut-off day of 25 Read More
Year End Review 2: The Disappointments
The DNFs I still find it difficult, even after all my decades of reading, to stop reading a book. However, this year I was a little tougher on myself and I had more DNFs than previously.. Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien – (75/480 pages) – This was for book group, but Read More
Review of the Year 1: The Discoveries
I’m kicking off my review of my 2019 reading year by sharing a few of the authors I discovered for the first time and now want to read much more of – and poetry! Charlotte Bingham Bingham’s volume of memoir MI5 and Me (reviewed here) which covers her later teens in the late 1950s when Read More
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
If everyone’s coming to you this Christmas, you may sympathise with Elizabeth David’s views on seasonal catering and getting stuck in the kitchen… If I had my way – and I shan’t – my Christmas Day eating and drinking would consist of an omelette and cold ham and a nice bottle of wine at lunch Read More
Review Clear-out! James, Scarfe, Vaughn and Auster
In an effort to make room on my dining table where I work, so we can eat Christmas lunch on it, I’m clearing the pile of books yet to be reviewed, here’s my last batch for 2019: Somewhere Becoming Rain: Collected Writings on Philip Larkin by Clive James When James died a few weeks ago, Read More
Cool Britannia?
Don’t Look Back in Anger by Daniel Rachel Subtitled ‘An Oral History of the Rise and Fall of Cool Britannia’, I was always going to be interested in this book which charts the changing cultural face of Britain from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and it Read More
