Rather than do the first lines meme that’s currently going around, I thought I’d resurrect another old one which is also good fun… Using only books you have read this year, answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title. It’s a lot harder than you think! * Describe Yourself: Shopgirl (Steve Martin) * How do Read More
Poetry I wish I’d pledged to…
You Took the Last Bus Home by Brian Bilston I wish I’d spotted this book on Unbound before it was published – I’d definitely have pledged to it, having seen a few of Bilston’s poems on facebook. So, I bought it for myself anyway and what a treat it is for a rare reader of Read More
All that remains… in the charnel house.
A Tour of Bones by Denise Inge Denise Inge was an American who married an English clergyman. When he became Bishop of Worcester they moved there, and Denise found that they would have to share their new home with a ‘charnel house’. Wikipedia defines it thus: “A charnel house is a vault or building where Read More
Shiny Linkiness
I can promise more reviews before Christmas, but in the mean time, here are some more links to my reviews in the latest issue of Shiny New Books… Old Buildings in North Texas by Jen Waldo This compact novel had me chortling from the first page. Olivia is a recovering from a heart attack and Read More
Weekend Bookishness
Ramble on… Planning my reading year in review I’m starting to think about my end of year posts – they’re going to be fun this year! I think I’ve excelled myself in the amount that I’ve read (135 books and nearly 40000 pages at the last count), and no DNFs either, which I hope, says Read More
The TBR Dare now has its own website
Visit http://tbrdare.com/ I hadn’t realised that Lizzy’s blog was incompatible with Mister Linky – so have taken the step to create a new website for the TBR Dare so we can both post there about it. We’ve added a Twitter feed too @DareTBR. If you’d like to use the first few months of 2017 to Read More
The TBR Dare is back!
Yes! It’s back… Welcome to the new home of The TBR Dare, originally set up by James Chester at James Reads Books, where his beloved dog Dakota was its mascot for 6 years. Now Lizzysiddal of Lizzy’s Literary Life and I are taking it over. We’ll be hoping to sign you up and will be Read More
Weekend Bookishness
It’s been a busy month – and some, so I’m glad that school breaks up at the end of next week (although I have two or three more days work to do on the school magazine after that). However, part of that busy-ness has been the Christmas edition of Shiny New Books. In The Eds Read More
It’s the Christmas issue of Shiny
Yes, the Christmas edition of Shiny New Books has arrived. I’ll be highlighting my reviews later, but I hope you enjoy the Shiny Advent Quiz and our The Shiny Eds Discuss feature, in which Harriet, Victoria, Simon and I talk about three years of Shiny…
The Six Degrees of Separation Meme: Revolutionary Road
Hosted each month by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, this meme picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six steps. (Here’s my one for last month – Never Let Me Go to Electricity by Ray Robinson). This month the starting book is Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. Now this is a Read More
A Portrait of Bowie by Brian Hiatt
A tribute to Bowie by his artistic collaborators and contemporaries Rolling Stone senior writer Brian Hiatt has come up with a clever combination of content in this book that will appeal to all kinds of Bowie fans: Those who love art will appreciate the forty fabulous portraits within its pages – by top photographers, wonderful Read More
YA adventure in Revolutionary France
Blade and Bone by Catherine Johnson This book was published to coincide with October’s Black History Month, so I fear my review is a little late, however, better late than never and this was a YA book well worth reading. Blade and Bone is the sequel to Sawbones which is where we would have first met Read More
The immigrants’ shattered American Dream…
Family Life by Akhil Sharma Imagine the excitement of going to America from Delhi to live. Even though life in India was comfortable and full of cricket, America is the dream destination for nine-year-old Ajay’s accountant father. First, his father went, found a job, set up home; then a year later, he sent one-way tickets Read More
This one gave me the creeps…
I See You by Clare Mackintosh I see you. But you do’t see me. You’re engrossed in your book; a paperback cover with a girl in a red dress. I can’t see the title but it doesn’t matter; they’re all the same. If it isn’t boy meets girl, it’s boy stalks girl. Boy kills girl.The Read More
One house, one extended family, many stories
Moving by Jenny Eclair Moving is Jenny Eclair’s fourth novel and is her most accomplished yet, seeing her move from the bittersweet comedy of her brilliant debut, Camberwell Beauty (which I read pre-blog), to a touching drama. Ever the comedian, Moving is still full of wit, but it is definitely not a comedy. Moving is told in Read More
More short takes
In an effort to clear my TBReviewed pile, here are two more shorter reviews: The Commitments by Roddy Doyle (re-read) This was our book group choice for last month – when we picked from a shortlist with a ‘Music’ theme. It was a re-read for me, and gosh this story of Jimmy Rabbitte and his Read More
Bookish Delights
Yesterday I was delighted to be invited to attend a bloggers afternoon at the Groucho Club hosted by literary agents PFD to meet and hear some of the authors shortlisted for this year’s Sunday Times/Peters Fraser Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award – and you couldn’t hope for a more diverse collection of literary styles Read More
A grown-up Parisian fin de siecle nightmare?
Mister Memory by Marcus Sedgwick I’ve been a fan of Sedgwick for years – He has primarily written for children and YA audiences until fairly recently. However, reading his YA novels as an adult has never disappointed, (see here, here, here, here and here – Yes, I am a big fan!). Now he is also writing for Read More
More thrillers from Anne Holt and Chris Pavone
Two more slightly shorter reviews of recent thriller reads… The Travelers by Chris Pavone They don’t come much more multi-layered than this complex thriller, published in March and now available in paperback. Will Rhodes is an award-winning, globe-trotting journalist – writing features for Travelers, a top travel magazine and travel agency. He and wife Chloe live Read More
Michelle Paver x 2
Our Book Group choice to discuss this week as our themed ‘Horror/Ghost story’ selection was Michelle Paver’s first adult novel – Dark Matter – subtitled ‘A Ghost Story’. Her second novel, Thin Air – also ‘A Ghost Story’, was published recently too, so I’ll combine thoughts about the two into one post. Firstly, Dark Matter. Published in 2010 Read More
An afternoon with Matt Haig and 400 schoolchildren!
This afternoon, I was able to put my occasional bookhelper’s hat on and be part of the Mostly Books team managing a mammoth event and signing at OLA school in Abingdon. OLA Librarian Mrs Hickford had invited many of the local state primary schools to join her pupils – and so the main hall was packed Read More
4 Stories, 13 views…
Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann My first encounter with McCann, this volume contains some of his shorter fiction: a full novella and three short stories of varying lengths. The titular novella has thirteen short chapters, each prefaced by lines from a poem about a blackbird that inspired the title (Thirteen Ways of Looking Read More
Catch-up – two shorter reviews
My pile of books read but not reviewed yet is taller than I like, so here are two shorter reviews to catch up a little. Europe in Autumn by Dave Hutchinson Only Hutchinson’s second novel, but you can tell the author has been writing other stuff for ages. Europe in Autumn, published in 2014, is the Read More
Six Degrees of Separation Meme
Hosted by Kate at the Books Are My Favourite and Best blog, the Six Degrees of Separation meme is a monthly bookish version of the original concept devised by Frigyes Karinthy in 1929 (more here). Each month Kate chooses a different starting book for us to take in whichever direction inspires us. Thanks for Elle for highlighting this Read More
The second of two top notch thrillers
Beside Myself by Ann Morgan I read this immediately on the heels of The Woman in Cabin 10 (see here), a second top-notch thriller which more than made up for the disappointment of The Girl on the Train (see here). This psychodrama has double the attraction too… I wonder if you can guess from the Read More
Slightly tepid in style but full of the Gorgon’s rage…
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy This novel was my first encounter with Levy and I’ll confess, I read the book and wasn’t necessarily wowed by it at first. Upon reflection though, the more I thought about it, the more I started to get to grips with some of the themes within, it’s grown on me. The initial Read More
Aickman for Halloween
The Strange Stories of Robert Aickman If you enjoy a strange story, then you should really check out those of Robert Aickman who was a master of the genre from the 1960s onwards. A couple of years ago, on the centenary of his birth, Faber reprinted most of his stories in four volumes of the Read More
An assured third novel
All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan This is Irish author Donal Ryan’s third novel, and despite not having read his previous two, it’s clear that he’s an author really getting into his stride for All We Shall Know is both accomplished and a compulsive read. His first novel, The Spinning Heart won major prizes Read More
Serious Gimmickry…
Multiple Choice by Alejandro Zambra Translated by Megan McDowell I’m always really drawn to experimental fiction, even if I don’t always get on with it, so once spotted, I was always going to have a go at this book. I know nothing about the author, but Zambra, I gather, is one of the stars of Chilean Read More
‘Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore’.’ …
The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe in a spectacular pop-up presentation by David Pelham and Christopher Wormell If ever there was a poem that was made for reading aloud, it’s The Raven, Poe’s 1845 masterpiece of rhyme, metre and repetition. (I just adore the rhymes – ‘that is’ and ‘lattice’ in the 6th verse must Read More
