I was ‘playing with my books’ the other day, and came across two novels waiting to be read which both happen to be number six in a series: Adrian Mole & the Weapons of Mass Destruction by Sue Townsend, and the Song of Susannah from Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. Although it is months and Read More
One for the new year …
The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp by Eva Rice Take one big happy family; add some horses, a big country manor in Cornwall, plus doses of first love which doesn’t go easily. Shake it up and relocate to London; mix with rock’n’roll and serve with love again. This is the essential recipe for Eva Rice’s new Read More
What's in a name?
You might notice that I’ve had a bit of a re-branding for Gaskella. When I started blogging over four years ago, I tried to think of an imaginative name for this blog. I enjoy a good pun, but couldn’t think of anything bookish that I liked that hadn’t already been used; there are some crackers Read More
Gaskella’s Books of 2012
Today is one of those dates that can only happen once every hundred years – 12-12-12, so it’s an ideal time to review my reading year. Yes, in common with many other bloggers, critics and reviewers I’ve picked out the best bits, so here are my personal top ten books that I’ve read in 2012, Read More
The Game of Kings – Half-time thoughts
Phew! I’ve made it to the halfway point of reading my first Dorothy Dunnett book, The Game of Kings – volume one of the Lymond Chronicles. At one stage, I wasn’t sure I’d make it in time for the dates I’d planned… If you’re joining in, how did you do? Although I enjoyed the book Read More
Carnegie Longlist 2013
The longlist for the 2013 Carnegie Medal has been announced and I was please to see quite a few books I’ve already read on it, plus several in my TBR pile – and of course in an ideal world I’d like to read all of them! The Carnegie Medal is awarded annually to an outstanding Read More
Book Group report…
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness You can read my review of this book here, but I thought I’d share what our book group thought of it too this month. A brief note on the editions, (more about that here): most of the group read the newer adult crossover covered version (left) which is unillustrated. Read More
Getting to know Beryl better…
Beryl Bainbridge: Artist, Writer, Friend by Psiche Hughes I will happily go on record to say that Beryl Bainbridge is my favourite author. Earlier this year, I hosted a reading week celebrating her work; you can see my record of that week and a bibliography of Beryl books and reviews on my Reading Beryl page. Read More
Look at what I won!
I have had my moments as a ‘comper’ in the past – entering loads of competitions, and winning a few too. I haven’t done that for years though, and have reverted to not winning things in general – but this week I’ve won twice! Not only did I win a prize (a nice multi-wicked candle) Read More
Getting to grips with the phenomenon that is Lee Child
Killing Floor: (Jack Reacher 1) by Lee Child Lee Child is a phenomenon. Made redundant by Granada TV at the age of forty, the Sheffield man who had initially studied law turned to writing and created the series of thrillers featuring Jack Reacher – there are now seventeen of them. Child is a worldwide bestselling Read More
A woman scorned …
My First Wife by Jakob Wassermann, translated by Michael Hoffman They often say that truth is stranger than fiction. This novel is apparently no fiction – it’s one of those ‘all names have been changed’ type books! My First Wife was published posthumously in 1934, and was a thinly veiled account of the author’s first Read More
Incoming Beryl …
Beryl Bainbridge: Artist, Writer, Friend by Psiche Hughes I am inordinately excited to have been able to get my mitts on this rather different biography of my favourite author, the first full biography since Beryl’s death. Thanks to my lovely neighbours who rescued it from the Amazon delivery man and depot hell this morning, so Read More
Modern Art is not rubbish
What Are You Looking At?: 150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye by Will Gompertz The BBC’s Arts Editor, Will Gompertz, is unusual for an arts commentator – he has a sense of humour and a mission to enthuse us about his subject. He is uniquely qualified – having worked for Read More
One man's version of love and betrayal…
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford Subtitled “A Tale of Passion”, Ford’s 1915 novel has one of those first lines that tend to come up in quizzes: “This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” We picked it for our book group to discuss in November, after several of us having loved the recent Read More
The man with a word for everything …
An evening with Mark Forsyth One of the surprise bestsellers last Christmas, thanks to being serialised on BBC Radio 4, was a little book all about etymology – The Etymologicon, by Mark Forsyth. It is all about the strange connections between words and phrases through finding where they come from, so you can link “church Read More
The TBR Double Dog Dare
For the past two years, James over at Ready when you are CB has hosted the TBR dare, and I signed up for the full dare both times. The TBR Dare became the TBR Double Dare, and this year has become the TBR Double Dog Dare, as James’s dog Dakota is in on the act! Read More
The Liebster Award
Karen at Miss Darcy’s Library nominated me for the Liebster Award (German for dearest or beloved), given and passed on by bloggers to blogs that are newer to them. In this meme you answer seven questions put to you by your nominator, then compile your own seven questions and tag some other blogs to pass Read More
Bookmark for The Game of Kings
There is a cast list of major characters at the beginning of my edition of The Game of Kings. For anyone joining in my Doing Dunnett readalong, I’ve made it into a bookmark which can be folded in half and glued/laminated should you so wish. If we make it on to Queen’s play, I’ll do Read More
“Lymond is back.”
These are the first words of the first book, The Game of Kings, by Dorothy Dunnett’s in her series, The Lymond Chronicles. I’ve not read any of Dunnett’s novels, and back at the end of August I mused on whether I should get stuck into her books. The response was tremendous and very encouraging – Read More
A book I wish I’d written …
Now don’t get me wrong, as someone who gave up English lessons at O-level, and has only written reports and policy documents, newsletters and blog posts (of course) since, I really don’t think I have a novel in me. More correctly, at the moment I don’t have a novel in me – much as I’d Read More
Sibling Rivalry, Love and Betrayal
The Heart Broke in by James Meek Meek, a former journalist at the Guardian, came to my attention with his strange but wonderful Russian novel, The People’s Act of Love which he started writing in the mid 1990s but wasn’t published until 2005, and subsequently longlisted for the Booker prize. The People’s Act was set in Read More
Half term movies
I’ve been to the pictures twice this half-term – two very different films and two gooduns. First, I went with my daughter to see Tim Burton’s new stop-animation film, Frankenweenie. Inspired by Frankenstein, natch, it’s the story of a boy and his dog, and like all the best classic horror films, it’s in black and Read More
A “perfick” entertainment…
It’s not often that you can successfully combine a phrase and idea from a Shakespeare sonnet – number 18 as it happens. You know the one that begins: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease Read More
“Fashion! Turn to the left. Fashion! Turn to the right…”
Fashionby DK When I was a young girl, my mother bought me a series of historical colouring books of fashion through the ages. I adored these books, and armed with my Caran d’Ache Swiss watercolour pencils, I spent hours devising colour schemes for the costumes. I then designed my own versions of the outfits for Read More
London lives
This post was republished into my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive. N-Wby Zadie Smith Zadie Smith’s fourth novel, about the intersecting lives of a group of North Londoners, was one of the big publishing events of the late summer. Many other bloggers managed to read and review it much nearer its publication date Read More
A family drama with a Hollywood backdrop
Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures by Emma Straub A novel set during the golden age of Hollywood has an instant allure, promising old-fashioned glamour and a look behind the scenes of the movies, plus possibly a whiff of scandal. That’s not what this novel is really about though, despite its title and monochrome cover … Read More
Strange places for books
I think about the over-large extent of my TBR piles all the time. Blog-friend Simon Savidge has been doing that too recently. In his recent post on his TBR he asked “Where is the strangest place that you have ever left piles of books?” Rather than comment, I went to take a photo of my Read More
It’s good to share …
The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip by George Saunders This is a charming tale for children of all ages – a wonderfully quirky novella, that has been matched by equally bizarre illustrations and produced as a singleton in a neat slim volume. Three families live in a hamlet called Frip. They all keep goats and Read More
Serendipity makes this a timely read from And Other Stories…
Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt I started reading this book around ten days ago, and was shocked and amused in equal measure – but I paused around a third of the way through to give in to the hype and read JK Rowling’s latest (see previous post here) – and by the time I picked Read More
Which side of the fence are you on?
The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling Everyone who encounters this book will have a point of view about it. The author is a global phenomenon through the Harry Potter series: she’s worked her way up to being a multimillionaire from being a single mum, and does a lot for charity. Now she’s taken a risk, Read More
