One of my daughter’s favourite programmes from the noughties was My Parents are Aliens which ran on Children’s ITV from 1999-2006. In it a pair of marooned Valuxians morph into humans and adopt three orphaned children in an attempt to fit in, and experience many funny things as they learn what it is to be human. Read More
Extra/Ordinary Stuff!
1000 Extra/ordinary Objects by Taschen I have long admired German publisher Taschen’s affordable art and design books – I have quite a few in my library on favourite artists (Hopper, various Pop Artists, etc). To celebrate their 25th anniversary, they produced a series of books, and 1000 Extra/Ordinary objects (note the slash) is one of them. Read More
Actor, Lover, Soldier, Spy!
Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd I was surprised to find that Waiting for Sunrise was the first novel by William Boyd that I’ve reviewed on the blog – I feel as if I know him better than I do, thanks to excellent TV adaptations of his books Restless and Any Human Heart in recent years, but Read More
A life on hold
Intermission by Owen Martell Martell’s short novel takes a real event, the death of jazz bassist Scott LaFaro in a car accident in 1961, and imagines what followed. LaFaro was the bassist in the Bill Evans Trio and died shortly after they recorded what are regarded as some of the best live jazz albums of all Read More
Living a lie …
A Virtual Loveby Andrew Blackman We all present different faces to different people: dutiful family member; one of the lads or girls with friends; several faces at work (often depending whether we’re talking to someone higher or lower on the pecking order); potential mate; and our online alter ego, to list but a few. They Read More
A dreamlike novel of longing
Glaciers by Alexis M Smith I couldn’t resist the cover of this short novel the moment I spotted it, and felt it – you can’t see the embossing of figure, her bicycle and the title. There’s a sunny hopeful quality to the cover, and it matches the story perfectly. This debut novel is short with just Read More
Bought it on Wednesday, read it by Friday, blogged on Saturday
Alex by Pierre Lemaitre Translated by Frank Wynne Alex is one of those thrillers that has been quietly gathering a word of mouth momentum since its publication earlier this year. Now the paperback is out, it is going to go stratospheric as Gone Girl did, (my review of that here). A French teacher friend has been recommending Alex to our book Read More
Nice little surprises
It’s lovely when you get a nice little surprise (or ‘pleasing’ as Lynne at DGR would call them). I’ve had a couple of good bookish ones this morning. Firstly, I unpacked my acquisitions from the charity shop yesterday. I know I don’t need books, but my daughter was having her hair cut, and what was Read More
Lighten up Anita
Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K Hamilton I am profoundly aware that I often read books in the wrong order. I’m not referring to books in a series here though – I always prefer to start from the beginning with them; instead I’m talking about influence. This means for instance that it was forty years before I Read More
Is the day of the encyclopedia on the shelf over?
Dear Readers, I’m in a quandary. Twenty years ago, with the aid of a legacy from my late great-aunt, I invested in a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Leather bound with gilt page edges, and 32 volumes – it cost me over £1200 back then. Britannica itself has now stopped publishing the print edition, concentrating Read More
Perfect holiday rom-com reading …
This post was republished into my blog’s original timeline from my lost posts archive. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion It’s not often that you know you’re going to love a book within the first few pages, but with The Rosie Project, that was never in question for me. It is the story of Don Tillman, a Read More
A novel of love, war, betrayal and stiff upper lip
Some Day I’ll Find You by Richard Madeley Richard Madeley slightly surprised everyone in 2008 when he published his successful memoir Fathers and Sons which explored male familial relationships through the mirror of his own. Despite journalistic roots, it was somewhat unexpected that one of the most successful daytime TV hosts and champion of the Richard Read More
A quiet novel with emotional depth
The Cleaner of Chartresby Salley Vickers The seventh novel by Salley Vickers, The Cleaner of Chartres is the story of orphan foundling Agnès Morel, and the people who come into her life. Before introducing us to Agnès, the novel begins by telling us about the great cathedral, how it burned and was rebuilt by an Read More
What does this measure?
This weekend, I have a mystery object for you … Found lurking in an unsorted box of bits and pieces, probably from my late Mum’s, this is an Abel Morrall’s Metal Gauge. But what does it measure precisely? I know it’s for knitting needles – and pre-metric (the 5 hole doesn’t correspond to 5mm for Read More
An evening with Salley Vickers
Salley Vickers, the best-selling author of Miss Garnet’s Angel, and her latest novel The Cleaner of Chartres is an absolutely fascinating person. We were lucky enough to have her visit Abingdon yesterday evening where she talked about her books in interview with Mark Thornton from Mostly Books Salley, (named we found out from the WB Yeats Read More
Meet Mr Sulky
Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard, translated by David McClintock When Stu announced he would host Thomas Bernhard Reading Week this week, I first thought ‘Who?’. Just a little research revealed that he was considered one of Austria’s leading writers of the post-war era, and he was also rather controversial for constantly criticising Austria – a Nestbeschmutzer (one Read More
A French crime novel of character…
The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas, translated by Sian Reynolds This was our bookgroup read for June into July, the first roman policier, and an award-winning one too, by frenchwoman Fred Vargas – Fred being short for Frédérique. Vargas is an archaeologist and historian and, with Reynolds as her translator, won three successive CWA International Dagger awards for Read More
The book that inspired 1984 and Brave New Worl
This post was republished into it’s original place in my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin Translated by Clarence Brown So, I finally read the book that inspired Orwell’s1984 (my brief write-up here). Many other dystopian novels have similarities, including Huxley’s Brave New World (my review here) although Huxley said he was actually inspired by HG Wells, Read More
Ancient Animal Antics
Kalila and Dimna: Fables of Friendship and Betrayal by Ramsay Wood The animal tales re-told in this volume originated in antiquity. Written in Sanskrit and known as the Panchatantra, they came out of India over 2000 years ago and were later absorbed into Persian and Arabic traditions. Told in five parts, this volume contains the first Read More
Come dine on – oops – with me…
The Savages by Matt Whyman Not since I read the wonderful book, The Radleys by Matt Haig, (reviewed here), have I found a YA novel such fun. Just look at the cover – you know it’s going to be hilarious. You can sense that the Savages are a close family – like The Munsters or The Read More
“This land is your land, this land is my land…”
Fallen Land by Patrick Flanery The above quote from Woody Guthie seemed to fit the overarching theme of this novel perfectly. It’s all about the illusion of The American Dream, its transitory nature – it certainly doesn’t last for any of the characters in habiting the land in Patrick Flanery’s accomplished second novel. In a Read More
What the DITLOID?
As I’m mid-book at the moment (I’m enjoying Patrick Flanery’s latest Fallen Land very much), I thought I’d have some fun with you instead to fill the gap… I learned a new word at the weekend – Ditloid. It turns out to be an acronym for ‘Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich‘, missing the Read More
‘I’m just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood’…
The Almost Lizard by James Higgerson I’m twenty-one years old today, and once I’ve finished this little introduction I’m going to kill myself. … Not many can spend their final few weeks on this earth writing their autobiography, a to-the-minute summary of all that has occurred within their lifespan. But most of us leave this Read More
Barbara Pym Reading Week
This post was republished into it’s original place in my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive. I’ve never read Pym, but was more than happy to join in Barbara Pym Reading Week, hosted by Thomas at My Porch, to help celebrate the centenary of her birth. I consulted my shelves and found four Pyms waiting Read More
Book Group Report – a German classic novella…
The Jew’s Beech by Annette Von Droste-Hülshoff Translated by Doris and Lionel Thomas Being a German novella from 1842, this book was an unusual choice for our Book Group. It came about in conversation because one of our group’s sons was studying it at uni, and another who teaches German, owned a copy in German Read More
The joy of Ladybirds…
Playing with my books this morning, I spotted my pile of Ladybird books from my childhood. I had stacks of them, all the nature and music titles, most of the historical ones, and an assortment of others. The format never changed – a page of text on the left, and illustrations on the right, mostly Read More
A new approach to the problem of werewolves …
Red Moon by Benjamin Percy Inside this chunkster of a werewolf novel are at least two shorter novels trying to get out… Imagine a post 9/11 America into which a new threat has emerged to fuel a nation’s paranoia. It’s the age of the werewolf, or Lycans as Percy dubs them. From the opening chapters Read More
Is That All There Is? …
All That Is by James Salter I must admit that until I looked him up on Wikipedia I had no idea that James Salter was 87 and still going strong, or that he was such a lion of American literature. He published his first novel in his thirties after a career in the USAF. I Read More
The Great American Dream?
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald Having adored Baz Luhrmann’s new film of The Great Gatsby (which I blogged about here), I just couldn’t wait to re-read the book. It must have been a couple of decades since I last read it, and this time, for my third re-read, I was able to use my Folio Fitzgerald set Read More
Travelling Man
Lost Luggageby Jordi Punti, translated from the Catalan by Julie Wark. This is the story of Gabriel Delacruz, orphan, international furniture remover and father to four sons. Four boys – born in four different countries to four different mothers; one German, one English, one French and one Spanish, and all christened the local equivalent of the Read More
