Sorting through mountains of papers, one happy discovery has been a folder containing many of my childhood drawings and doodles that my Mum had kept. It has been absolutely wonderful to be reunited with them, and indeed a real trip down memory lane as I can remember many of them. My daughter has been especially Read More
Sisters are doing it …
The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman Elv, Claire and Meg Story are sisters. They’re extremely close, inventing a language all of their own – Arnish – even their mother is excluded from their fantasy world, and the younger two are always rapt with Elv’s storytelling about the fairy land of Arnelle. Theirs is a world full Read More
Sookie Stackhouse #2
Living Dead In Dallas by Charlaine Harris Living Dead in Dallas is the second in the hugely successful Sookie Stackhouse series of vampire novels by Charlaine Harris. If by any chance you’ve not encountered them before, either as books or in their TV incarnation True Blood, I suggest you start here with the first. In this second novel, Sookie is Read More
The Yeomen of the Guard off duty …
Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo by Julia Stuart (republished into its original place in the time-line from my lost post archive) I’d picked this book up in a bookshop, and put it down again, thinking it might be a bit twee. Then I was offered a copy by the publisher and after Read More
Twins & Ghosts – a complex combination
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger There was an awful lot written about this book around the time of its publication last year. I generally prefer to miss all the hullaballoo, to let things settle down for a bit and read books at the time of my choosing. This autumn, I decided to include it in Read More
Everybody here has a secret…
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious This was our book group choice for October, and what a good one it was, for everyone who finished reading the book loved it. This is the book that set the benchmark for every soap opera and drama of small town America that followed, and it’s almost shocking to find Read More
Susan Hill’s ghostly story for autumnal nights
The Small Hand by Susan Hill Susan Hill is justly renowned for her ghost stories – her best-known is The Woman in Black which is both chilling and a darned good read. The Small Hand is her latest, and I thoroughly enjoyed it too. It starts off simply. Adam Snow, an antiquarian bookseller is on his way home from meeting a Read More
Black magic in Madchester
To the Devil: A Diva! by Paul Magrs. Magrs is the author of the totally wonderful Brenda & Effie series of novels, gentle comic paranormal mysteries set around Whitby – Never the Bride is the first, and I gave it ten out of ten – but don’t take just my word for it – Juxtabook and Savidge Readsboth adored it too. After so Read More
The World of Ephemera #3: The Department at Work
In the days of brown coats and drawing boards. My parents worked for the Customs & Excise for just about all of their working lives in one post or another. The C&E is now incorporated with the Inland Revenue into HM Revenue & Customs or HMRC. We tend to associate C&E with catching smugglers and inspecting Read More
Return of the Living Dead …
It’s that time of year again when I fit a few spooky novels into my October reading plans. Last year I read only vampire stories – this year I’m ranging more widely for fearsome creatures and I’ve started off with a ‘Teen Gothic’ novel about werewolves… Claire De Lune by Christine Johnson Claire is just a Read More
Those maddening real-life Mad Men …
From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor: Front-line Dispatches from the Advertising War by Jerry Della Femina. This book was originally published in 1970 – an insider’s guide to the goings on in the ad industry in the 1960s by a guy who was there – one of the original Mad Men. Thanks to the success Read More
The World of Ephemera #2
I have a stunner of a spoof letter for you today. This was found in amongst my Mum’s papers, but not just one copy – I’ve come across several during my filing! What makes it even funnier is that this copy had a typed circulation list attached plus a handwritten note from my Mum explaining how Read More
Tracey Beaker meets the Famous Five
Dead Man’s Cove by Lauren St John Lauren St John is the author is a series of books for older children set in Africa. The White Giraffe and its sequels are heartwarming and well-loved, although I admit we’ve not read any of them (sadly, my daughter is not a fan of what she considers ‘animal tales’). However her Read More
Bodies in Bologna
Almost Blue by Carlo Lucarelli Translated by Oonagh Stransky Lucarelli is apparently an established author of over a dozen books, and a TV presenter to boot, but this is the first of his detective novels to get translated into English. Ispettore Grazia Negro is part of a new group within the Italian constabulary set up Read More
The Grinding Wheels of 21st Century Commerce
Union Atlantic by Adam Haslett. To some, Doug Fanning would seem to have it all, yet he is damaged goods. His traumatic childhood and experiences in the Gulf War have left him emotionally stunted. Post 9/11, he seemingly lives for his job as a high-powered investment banker, caring for nothing and no-one, and he takes risks Read More
Oxford Bookbloggers meet
A group of eight bookbloggers met last night at an Oxford pub – appropriately named ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’. (Good ale, no big screens, decent standard pub food). It was a shame more couldn’t come, the date ended up clashing for few, but those of us there had a lovely evening of mainly (ahem!) Read More
The World of Ephemera #1
Welcome to my first post in my new series on the world of Ephemera – featuring rescued pieces of paper that are just too interesting to recycle. Today our subject is knitting and crochet patterns. Yes, back in the late 1960s they had knitting patterns for outfits for fashion dolls – not busty Barbie, the much Read More
My new favourite word …
One of the joys in sorting out all my late Mum’s stuff, was encountering so many interesting pieces of paper. From 50yr old concert programmes to her autograph book; newspaper clippings on the value of prunes in your diet (yes, really) to all those postcards I described before, not to mention the notebooks monitoring her Read More
The Camper Who Stayed.
All Quiet on the Orient Express by Magnus Mills This is another black comedy of the highest order from a master of novels about men and their work. It’s Mills’ second book, the third I’ve read, and the best yet for me. We meet a man and his motorcycle, who are camping in the Lake Read More
Gaskella is 2 – plus a shelf-clearing giveaway!
Woohoo! Yes, it was two years ago that I started Gaskella. I started off on Blogspot – moving over to WordPress early this year, and in the 730 days since starting I’ve posted 394 times which is pretty good going I think, and amassed over 1700 comments (that includes my replies). Despite this being an Read More
Incoming – Real lives …
I haven’t done an incoming post for a while, but I bought a book at the weekend that I’m so looking forward to dipping into over weeks to come, then another brilliant sounding book arrived from the OUP (thanks Kirsty)… Once I’d picked up Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone by Eduardo Galeano, translated by Mark Read More
Raise a glass …
Still going through a forest of papers, and I’ve found a bundle from my late great-aunt Muriel which my Mum had kept. For many years Muriel worked as Secretary to the Chairman of Beatson Clark in Rotherham – a company which makes still makes glass containers. I found the programme for the Society of Glass Read More
Kill or cure
The Poison Diaries by Maryrose Wood (and the Duchess of Northumberland). The Duchess of Northumberland is the mastermind behind the wonderful Alnwick Garden adjoining her family’s ancestral pile, Alnwick Castle, in Northumberland. I visited last year and found it a wonderful attraction. One of the (many) highlights of the Garden is the Duchess’ special project Read More
Reel food!
Movie Dinners by Becky Thorn It’s time to blow the family trumpet. My sister-in-law’s second cookery book is published today. It does exactly what it says on the cover – helping you to recreate food from the movies in your own kitchen. From Oliver’s pease pudding and saveloy to the bunny boiler’s rabbit stew from Fatal Read More
How can I be sure?
I Think I Love You by Allison Pearson Rarely in recent times has a book called out to me as much as this one. You see, in common with the teenagers in this novel who are all fanatical David Cassidy fans, I was too. David was Godlike, with his shell necklaces, feathered hair, and whispery voice. You Read More
Stalin & UFOs – a philosophical SF thriller
Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts. This novel was short-listed for the Arthur C Clarke Award for Science Fiction novels last year, but it’s really more of a philosophical thriller and a commentary on the fall of Communism than out and out science fiction. It’s dark, thoughtful, thrilling and hilarious by turns and I loved Read More
Boring Postcards redux
One of my favourite artbooks is Boring Postcards by Martin Parr. It elevates the worst examples of the humble picture postcard to art. You can see my 2009 post about the book here where I gave it five stars it was that good. Another of the things I brought back from my Mum’s was her postcard collection. Two Read More
Boring Postcards is anything but!
Boring Postcards by Martin Parr This was a book I rescued from a local charity shop for just £1 and fell in love with instantly. Martin Parr is, I discover, an amazing photographer in his own right, specialising in capturing everyday life. In Boring Postcards, he has turned editor, selecting a bunch of vintage postcards Read More
In Praise of Good Old-Fashioned Autograph books
These days your average school leaver gets everyone to sign their shirt with marker pen on their last day as a souvenir of their time at school. Turn the clock back a few decades and you reach the time when people kept autograph books, and their friends wrote silly little poems, or drew pictures, or Read More
I’m going against the trend here …
Hector & the Search for Happiness by François Lelord About a week ago I’d just started reading this book when Simon at Savidge Reads (him again!) posted about it. Simon wasn’t keen, and it seems the majority of commenters weren’t either – finding it too cute and patronising, but I was rather enjoying it as did Rosy B Read More
