I’ve had a tab entitled ‘Desert Island LIbrary‘ on this blog for ages, in which I imagined if I were stranded on a desert island, which books I’d like washed up onto the shore in a waterproof trunk! I started off writing short takes on the books to go into this trunk – but it Read More
1974 joint Booker Prize winner…
Holiday by Stanley Middleton Some time ago, I picked up a copy of Holiday at a book sale, only knowing that it had shared the 1974 Booker prize with Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist. I’d otherwise never heard of Middleton, so I was surprised to find this was the 14th novel of his 44-novel career! If Read More
Two novels with a French connection – Chevalier & Magnan
The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier This was our Book Group’s choice for this month – ‘Blue’ being the key word we’d picked it by. This was Chevalier’s first novel, published in 1997, and it is different to all of her others by having a dual timeline, following the stories of two women, centuries apart. Read More
My Blog’s Name in Books
This meme is doing the rounds again, and I can’t resist joining in the fun. This time, thanks to Fictionophile, there is a variation – the books should be from your TBR! A is for The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark N is for Never Trust a Rabbit by Jeremy Dyson N is for Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman Read More
Two novels in which the protagonist is NOT ‘completely fine’
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman Most people I know who have read this book have loved it – but not everyone, notably Rebecca (who reviewed it here). I must say that although it was an entertaining read that I sped through, I’m tending towards Rebecca’s view. You’ve also probably seen all over Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: The Poisonwood Bible
Hosted each month by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, Six Degrees of Separation picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Click on the titles to go to my reviews where they exist. Our starting book this month is the chunky literary bestseller: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver This Read More
“17 Brushes with Death”
I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell Subtitled “17 Brushes With Death” O’Farrell’s memoir was recently longlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize, and I (and others on our shadow panel) were devastated when it wasn’t shortlisted. For me, it could have replaced Ayobami’s Stay With Me or perhaps Rausing’s Mayhem, although I can Read More
Guest Post: Q&A with Richard Beard
The other day, I gave you my thoughts on the shortlist for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018 (see here). Today, I am delighted to host a guest post in the form of a Q&A the prize’s publicists did with the shortlisted authors (see more here). I lobbied to get Richard Beard as a) I loved Read More
From one book prize to another: The Rathbones Folio Prize shortlist
One of the younger book prizes, the Rathbones Folio Prize began life as the Folio Prize, sponsored by the Folio Society in 2014. The prize money has varied, but is currently £20,000 sponsored by the investment bank, and this year’s winner will be announced on May 8th. The prize has an interesting and unashamedly literary Read More
Review Catch-Up – McBain, Berthon, Ishiguro
Driving Lessons by Ed McBain McBain is most famous for his many 57th Precinct novels, but he has written many other books too. This slim book from 1999 was part of a series of novellas from Orion called Criminal Records. Some were published separately, the others anthologised in one volume edited by Otto Penzler. A Read More
Wellcome Book Prize Shadow Panel Results…
It’s been a busy month or two of reading the six wonderfully varied books shortlisted for this year’s Wellcome Book Prize. The judges will announce their result on Monday, but today our informal shadow panel is posting its winner, and our winner is: TO BE A MACHINE by MARK O’CONNELL Here’s what the shadow panel Read More
Wellcome Book Prize Blog Tour
Today, it’s mine and Paul’s (Halfman, Halfbook) turn on the Wellcome Book Prize Blog Tour. Each day two bloggers are covering one of the books on the shortlist for this prize which will be announced on Monday. One will review, the other will host an extract, so head over to Paul’s blog (Halfman, Halfbook) to read a Read More
Wellcome Book Prize #5 – Rausing
My penultimate review of the six books shortlisted for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize. The final one for The Vaccine Race will be my stop on the official blog tour, for the prize which starts tomorrow (details above). Mayhem: A Memoir by Sigrid Rausing You may remember much news coverage of the Rausing family, heirs Read More
1977 week – ‘Here’s Johnny!’
Twice a year, Simon and Karen host a club where we all read from a particular year. This time it was 1977. This turned out to be not the best year for me – the book I would have chosen, had I not read it before would have been Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym Read More
Wellcome Book Prize #3 & #4: Adébáyọ̀ & Mannix
Stay with Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ Adébáyọ̀’s novel is the one fiction selection on this year’s Wellcome Prize shortlist. Although it has much to say about the patriarchal society of Nigeria in the 1980s, it surprised me with how much it does meet the prize criteria of a book that celebrates, ” the many ways Read More
Wellcome Book Prize #2 – The Butchering Art
The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris This is the second of my reviews of books shortlisted for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize, read as part of the shadow panel. Lindsey Fitzharris is an American with a doctorate from Oxford in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology, and a post-doc Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust Read More
Before it gets recycled…
Sometimes, a book is just falling apart so much, and you have no need to keep it despite it having some sentimental value, that the best thing is to recycle it. This is the case with my Puffin Songbook. First published in 1956, mine is the second reprint from 1963. The cover is by Ronald Read More
‘An Ark, a flood and a man called Noah’
This post was edited and republished from my lost posts archive on my old blog The Flood by David Maine When I originally wrote the two posts I’ve combined into one here back in early April 2014 – the film Noah was just about to hit the big screens. I wrote a post about why Read More
Book Group Report: ‘Red’
The Red House Mystery by A A Milne It’s thanks to my friend Simon that I’m aware that A A Milne was a author and playwright of wide reknown before he wrote Winnie the Pooh; I’m not sure if the rest of our book group knew this before I introduced this book as a possible for our Read More
Wellcome shortlist #1
To Be a Machine by Mark O’Connell The second book in my shadow reading from the Wellcome Book Prize shortlist, (the first was The Vaccine Race which I’ll be reviewing for the official blog tour in a couple of week’s time). I loved this book from the front cover to the back, starting with its Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Geisha
Hosted each month by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, Six Degrees of Separation picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Click on the titles to go to my reviews where they exist. Our starting book this month is the bestselling: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden I read Read More
The Baltic Books Blog Tour #2
This year the Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – are celebrating 100 years of independence with new translations of Baltic Books coming to the UK for the first time and a series of cultural events happening across the UK. The Baltics are also being honoured as the Market Focus at London Book Fair Read More
The Baltic Books Blog Tour #1
This year the Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – are celebrating 100 years of independence with new translations of Baltic Books coming to the UK for the first time and a series of cultural events happening across the UK. The Baltics are also being honoured as the Market Focus at London Book Fair Read More
A Trip to the Ashmolean…
The other day, daughter and I went to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to catch the last day of the Michelangelo drawings, and the first week of the new “America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keeffe to Hopper” exhibitions, using our new Art Fund cards to get half price entry. Michelangelo Drawings A single room full of drawings, Read More
Shiny Linkiness…
It may be the Easter hols, but I’m still very busy on the termly school magazine for a day or two. So I have a link to my latest Shiny review for you to fill the gap. Almost Love by Louise O’Neill I was a big fan of O’Neill’s first two novels which were hard-hitting Read More
The Power of Fairy Tales: Marina Warner & Sally Gardner
Once Upon a Time by Marina Warner Subtitled ‘A short history of fairy tale’, Warner’s compact volume belies its small size. It’s a tiny hardback, but within its 200 or so pages, the author recounts the rich history behind the beloved fairy tales we all know from their most common (often arguably via Disney film Read More
Reading Ireland month
March is Reading Ireland Month, as always hosted by Cathy at 746 books and Niall at The Fluff is Raging. I forgot that Tana French in my previous post is Irish, so I’ve actually read two books by Irish authors this month (plus another coming up for Shiny next week). Here’s the second… From a Low Read More
What ‘Elle Thinks’ is Right … Tana French is Fab!
In the Woods by Tana French Every time Eleanor of Elle Thinks mentions Tana French (the latest being here), I say ‘I must read one of her books’. Tana French is one of Eleanor’s go-to comfort reads, and she is always recommending her. Well, now I have read French’s first novel, and I can see Read More
An amoral anti-hero for Italian Lit Month
The Goodbye Kiss by Massimo Carlotto Translated by Lawrence Venuti There’s dark, and then there’s dark! You know what I mean, we’re talking the super-noir of Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me or Simenon’s Dirty Snow here… Lean and mean novels with an amoral anti-hero at their hearts. This is the case for the protagonist Read More
Aristotle and young Alexander
The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon I bought this novel when it was published back in 2009, and it’s been in my bedside bookcase for some time. I’d moved it there because one of the boxes on my BookBingo of the time was read a book with an author that shares your name and Read More
