See the post preceding this one for an account of my fab evening in the company of Sophie Hannah last night. I bought an extra copy of her latest paperback, A Room Swept White which she kindly signed to giveaway. (It’s not out in the shops until later next week.) Plus I have a spare Read More
An Evening with Sophie Hannah
Last night it was my great pleasure to go to a literary dinner in Abingdon hosted by that second home of mine(!) Mostly Books at a local hostelry – an Abingdon first I believe. The Mostly Booklovers club at the shop had been offered a list of authors who might be approached to give an Read More
Will they, won’t they?
Obstacles to Young Love by David Nobbs. Billed as a story of ‘faith, love and taxidermy’, this is the seventeeth novel from septuagenarian author David Nobbs, creator of the sublime (certainly in the hands of Leonard Rossiter) Reginald Iolanthe Perrin. This novel follows the lives of Timothy and Naomi over a period of thirty years, starting back Read More
How music can save your life …
The Mozart Question by Michael Morpurgo Previously included in a collection of autobiographical writings and short stories (Singing for Mrs Pettigrew: A Storymaker’s Journey), the The Mozart Question was later published separately as an edition lavishly illustrated by Michael Foreman’s hazy watercolours. The former Children’s Laureate, Morpurgo, tells a simple tale about an important subject… A young reporter gets Read More
Passing Trains – Girl Meets Boy
Just back from shopping and I picked up this great bookish greetings card at Waitrose. A classic cover from the New Yorker magazine by Adrian Tomine, and published in various forms by the The Cartoon Bank. I’m sure it’s all over the place, but this was the first time I’d seen it, it’s rather lovelyand I Read More
Book vs film: Too much Julie, not enough Julia?
Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell This was the July choice for our book group, which gave those who didn’t read the book time to watch the film instead. I managed to do both, and they are quite different animals… Julie Powell and husband Eric hail from Texas. They live in Read More
File under Noir, not Fantasy
The Dresden Files Books 1 and 2 by Jim Butcher A few weeks ago while talking about crime series to read, my good blog-friend LizF recommended these books to me. As is often the case with me and my TBR mountains, I’d spotted them myself some time ago and had already picked up the first Read More
What we did on our holiday
I went AWOL in Cornwall this week. I did take my laptop, and did plan to blog of an evening – but all that fresh air, and all the up and down steps and hills took it’s toll, and it was a case of collapsing in front of the telly.We stayed in Fowey (pronounced Foy to Read More
Obsession and abuse – disturbing but unputdownable
True Things About Me by Deborah Kay Davies I didn’t like this book, but I did find it unputdownable! It’s the story of a bad relationship seen through a young woman’s eyes. A man recently released from prison sits down at the desk of a young woman, a bored worker in a claimant’s office. She is seduced Read More
Sorting through my Mum’s stuff…
I’d like to share with you a few of the things I’ve found while sorting through my late Mum’s stuff. Don’t worry, I’m not getting morbid, these are curiousities and things of happy memories. Firstly, this is an unopened packet of sandwich mats! Doilies shaped to fit those rectangular plates people used to have for Read More
Being in a band – a girl’s perspective
Different for Girls: A Girl’s Own True-life Adventures in Pop by Louise Wener While I never followed the band Sleeper, I was aware of them – their singles were fun and tuneful. However their singer, Louise Wener, did stand out from the crowd with her big brown eyes, pouty lips and great haircut – there were few Read More
Of Gangsters and the Great Depression
The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers by Thomas Mullen It’s the 1930s in the height of the great depression, millions are out of work and bands of bank-robbing outlaws are regarded as folk heroes in the USA. Former public enemy number one, John Dillinger, has recently been sent to his grave and stepping up to the top Read More
An extraordinary look at two ordinary lives
Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris: Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry by Leanne Shapton Shapton’s book deserves to win prizes for its concept which is totally unlike anything I’ve ever seen (or read) before. It’s the story of a relationship from start to finish, but presented in the Read More
You’ll never look at your neighbours in the same way again!
The Radleys by Matt Haig Don’t let the next sentences turn you off this book, for I thought it was brilliantly original and I loved it. The Radleys is being given the full crossover novel treatment with a young adult edition, however I firmly believe that it is an adult book (pictured) that teens will enjoy rather than Read More
Family in crisis! Will quirkiness pull them through?
The Great Perhaps by Joe Meno My first encounter with US novelist Joe Meno, The Great Perhaps is a tale of a dysfunctional American family. An academic couple and their two daughters, they are four very different characters… Let’s meet the Casper family: Father – Jonathan, who has epilepsy provoked by seeing clouds, and is searching for Read More
A rather different kind of literary festival…
Last Friday evening, I had the pleasure of helping staff of Mostly Books man the bookstall at a rather special event at Larkmead School – a state secondary school just up the road from me in Abingdon. The event was the launch of an anthology of writing by sixth form pupils called The Blender which was created in conjunction Read More
Marshal Guarnaccia – kidnap in the Florentine hills
Death in Springtime by Magdalen Nabb. The first I’ve read, this is the third novel in Nabb’s series of police procedurals set around Florence and featuring Marshal Guarnaccia. I was recommended this series by good blog-friend LizF who kindly sent me this one to get me started. Nabb, who died in 2007, wrote fourteen novels in Read More
If you could turn back time …
Alice in Time by Penelope Bush This was our book group’s choice for our June meeting, chosen partly as Bush is the cousin of one of our members, but also as we haven’t read a young adult book for twelve months – we usually pick one per year. Alice is 14. She’s been best friends with Read More
There’s a whole Hydden world out there …
Hyddenworld: Spring by William Horwood Back in the early 1980s, I read Horwood’s bestselling animal fantasy about moles – Duncton Wood. I remember enjoying it immensely, but never read the sequels, and I can’t remember what it was really about apart from religion and war in mole-dom. But it was remembering the enjoyment of the former that Read More
If a picture paints a thousand words …
Recently Simon T at Stuck in a Book set a challenge. To find a picture that represents your reading tastes – he’s collating entries here. I thought for a while about this, and came up with two pictures – a cheat I know, but I couldn’t find a singleton. This represents a lot of things to me … Read More
Live for the moment – forget everything
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa translated by Stephen Snyder When I spotted this book, with its quote from my literary hero Paul Auster on the cover, I was hooked. Having read it, I’m delighted I chanced upon it, for I loved this gentle tale of the Professor, his Housekeeper and her son. Read More
Too little too late?
All That Follows by Jim Crace It’s 2024 and the eve of jazzman Lennie Less’ 50th birthday. Leonard is on a break from sax-playing – he has a frozen shoulder. Sitting in front of the telly, he hears about a siege in a town not so far away, then he sees a photo of the hostage-taker; it’s Read More
More modern vampires
Fledgling by Octavia E Butler Fledgling was the last choice for the season of the ‘Not the TV Book Group’, and the lively discussion was hosted by Kim at Reading Matters. Published shortly before the author died, Fledgling is another different and slightly SF take on the vampire novel. Shori looks like a twelve year old black girl, but is actually Read More
A delightfully quirky children’s adventure
The problem with getting into your forties and beyond is that you inevitably need reading glasses. I managed to lose mine for a whole day this weekend, but luckily I found them this morning – phew! So yesterday I had to read with my old glasses (which are now perfect for computer work, but no Read More
A Promising Pair
Introducing Peirene Press Peirene Press, named after a Greek nymph who turned into a water spring which was drunk by poets for inspiration, is a new publishing house specialising in contemporary European literature of novella length in translation. I was lucky enough to win a copy of their first novel from Librarything, and was offered Read More
How does a book choose you?
I was browsing in my fave local indie bookshop the other day … looking at all the new arrivals. Then I got into a conversation about what makes you pick up a book – or rather, what is it that makes a book cry Pick me! Pick me! There are some obvious factors: In particular, I’m Read More
Russian echoes of Waiting for Godot
The Concert Ticket by Olga Grushin The story in this wonderful novel was inspired by a real event – that of the eighty year old Stravinsky returning to Russia in a ‘for one night only’ comeback concert; the queue for tickets started a whole year before. Set in an unnamed Russian city some time during the height Read More
Catching up with Persephone Reading Week.
Last week was Persephone Reading Week which has been hosted by Claire and Verity. As well as visiting the Persephone bookshop, I did manage to read one of their titles, but didn’t manage to blog about it last week. So here I am a week late – my choice was one of the Persephone top-selling titles: Little Boy Read More
A marvellous birthday weekend…
This post was republished into its original place in my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive I’ve not been very active on the blogging front the past week – but I have had other things on my mind. I had a one of those big birthdays with a zero on the end this weekend, Read More
Living without your ABC
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn This was our book group’s choice for April into May. Ella Minnow Pea was my suggestion – I read it ages ago, then it popped into my mind after a blog post discussed it a month or two ago (sorry I can’t remember whose blog to credit it). After last Read More
