The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins This was my bookgroup’s Christmas read – we like to pick something classic for festive reading. This was a popular choice, as several of us, me included, have read Kate Summerscale’s The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, the real-life Victorian murder case which inspired Collins. I started reading well before Christmas, Read More
gaskella on normblog
Today, I’ve been appearing over at normblog. Normblog is the blog of distinguished academician Norman Geras who is Professor Emeritus of Government at the University of Manchester, he’s husband to Adèle and father to Sophie Hannah. While Norm’s main concerns are politics and his many short posts every day make fascinating reading, every Friday Norm Read More
The LOTR Readalong
I’ve joined a readalong! I don’t usually do challenges or readalongs, as I have enough personal literary challenges in my reading resolutions without joining in any others. Also, like Simon at Savidgereads, I’m a big fan of what he calls “whimsical reading” and not over-tying myself into pre-planned reading. However, one of my reading resolutions Read More
Running away from country ways and city life – a family’s dilemma
The Good Parents by Joan London This accomplished novel starts off as the story of eighteen year old Maya de Jong, a girl from Western Australia who escapes the country to get a job in Melbourne. She works for Maynard Flynn, a slightly shady businessman, and it’s not long before they embark on an affair. Read More
Complicated emotions are explored in this big novel
The Blasphemer by Nigel Farndale This was the last novel I finished reading in 2009, and it was solid yet gripping, a satisfying read that explores big and complicated emotions – yet I’ve struggled in my thoughts about how to do it justice in a review. Where to start? Examining the cover gives a clue Read More
Here are my snowy pictures …
It was glorious sunshine in Abingdon today. We’re lucky to live on the doorstep of a lovely park and I took the camera with me today when my daughter and I went for a wander. Many of yesterday’s snowmen had been cannibalised to make launch ramps for sledging. With all the local schools being closed Read More
Moviewatch – Moon
I saw Moon the other night on DVD and was absolutely blown away by this brilliant and clever little movie. Sam Rockwell plays an astronaut, also called Sam, who is reaching the end of his three year contract manning a mining station on the moon. He lives all alone there with just the robot GERTY Read More
America has never looked better…
The USA Book: A Journey Through America by Carla Zimmerman Last year a copy of the compact version of Lonely Planet’s The Travel Book came into my hands and it was a fascinating but brief tour around the world. (See my write-up here.) That small sized book was a lavish 900 page brick, so when Read More
This is not a Whodunnit, but a Whydunnit!
Rupture by Simon Lelic This is not a normal whodunnit crime novel, it’s a ‘whydunnit’. We know from the start that a mild-mannered school teacher shot and killed three pupils and a teacher before turning his gun on himself. It’s D.I. Lucia May’s case and although it appears to be an open and shut case, Read More
Reading resolutions for 2010
In a small attempt to focus my reading for the year, I’m going to make some Reading Resolutions again. Last year I was partially successful and it made for some fun when it came to check the stats, so here we go again! … I resolve to: 1. As always, try and reduce the TBR Read More
HAPPY NEW YEAR & GIVEAWAY!!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Pinch, punch, first of the month, and all that – very best wishes for 2010 from me to you. To celebrate the new decade – a giveaway of one of my books of the last decade. Names in comments please by noon on Sunday – I will send anywhere in the world. Read More
Review of My Reading Year.
Just a few notes on my best reads of the year from all the books I’ve read, regardless of when published. I’ve read 111 books, just 3 short of last year, but slightly more pages at just over 32,000, and near enough 50/50 male to female authors. I had two themed reading periods, tackling books Read More
My Books of the Noughties
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends, and got everything you wished for. I’m still mid-way through the round of family visits, so here’s a post I prepared earlier. Yes it is a list – I’m going to inflict my Books of the Decade on you – all five Read More
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
I’m signing off for a few days, so it just remains for me to wish all of you a M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S !!! Back soon with my books of the year and Reading Resolutions for 2010… Cheers! Lots of love Annabel x
The Truman Show meets Dickensian melodrama
Pastworld by Ian Beck Welcome to Pastworld. Imagine that London has been reinvented as a theme park; that Dickensian London has been recreated in every detail. Rich tourists undergo immersion training, get costumed and are then brought in by airship to become ‘gawkers’ in this new, old world. Caleb, son of Lucius Brown, one of Read More
My Secret Santa arrived – yippee!
My Secret Santa gift from the Book Blogger Holiday Swap arrived and I couldn’t wait to rip the paper off and see what was inside… Complete joy! two wonderful, and completely different books from my wishlist and super hand-crocheted bookmarks to go with them. The books were Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor, Read More
My Reading Resolutions for 2009 – how did I do #4 (the final one!)
By now you might have cottoned on, by the series of bookish but not books-read posts, that I’m suffering a severe case of end-of-term-can’t-read-itis and have thus resorted to fillers; (all this pondering the stats is helping me formulate my books of the year though). Aside from that, I am reading The Moonstone but mostly Read More
My Reading Resolutions for 2009 – How did I do #3
My third reading resolution for 2009 was to ‘read more world and translated fiction’. Last year I read a dozen which were all Nordic or French except for Blindness by Saramago. This year I did a bit better… Eighteen in translation, plus a sprinkling from parts other than the UK or USA. I spread my Read More
My Reading Resolutions for 2009 – How did I do #2
On Sunday I told you about the results of my first Reading Resolution that I made for 2009 – here’s the second. I said ‘I will read the Canongate Myths series of books’. Here they are sitting together on the shelf; at the start of the year I already owned the first eight, since added Read More
My Reading Resolutions for 2009 – how did I do #1
Back in the New Year of 2009, I made a set of ‘Reading Resolutions’. One of them was ‘I shall read more books published before I was born.’ So including all books read up to the beginning of December, how did I do? Not very well actually! I managed to read a huge 90 books Read More
Q&A with science writer Marcus Chown
It’s my great pleasure today to introduce you to Marcus Chown, author of We Need To Talk About Kelvin who is on a blog tour to promote the book (which I reviewed here). Apart from writing great popular science books, Marcus is cosmology consultant of magazine New Scientist, having formerly been a radio astronomer at Read More
An truly original modern fairy tale
The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw This novel is that rare thing – a thoroughly grown-up modern fairy tale that works. It’s also a beautifully designed book with an evocative cover and silver page edging. It is set in a remote cluster of islands around an archipelago called St Hauda’s land which feels Read More
Making Quantum Physics Accessible
On Wednesday, I am delighted that Marcus Chown, author of We Need to Talk About Kelvin: What Everyday Things Tell Us About the Universe” will be visiting my blog to do a Q&A as part of his blogtour to promote the book. Marcus is a best-selling science author and cosmology consultant for New Scientist magazine. Read More
Not enough time to read …
I’m very aware that I haven’t posted since last Thursday which is a long time for me. But there has been so much going on – we’re in December and suddenly Christmas rears its head and I’m behind with everything because November was even busier for me. So I shall fill the gap by telling Read More
My Literary Hero
Paul Auster I finished reading his latest book Invisible a week or so ago. It is a great novel and displays many of his favourite tricks and his characteristic verve in the writing. I also re-read his first novel The New York Trilogy – a linked set of metafiction detective novellas, which I found as Read More
Three middle-class brothers – three family mid-life crises
The Bradshaw Variations by Rachel Cusk A year in the life of the Bradshaws – three brothers, their ageing parents and their families. Firstly, there’s middle brother Thomas who has taken a year’s sabbatical to learn the piano, his wife Tonie who has been promoted and back at work full-time, and daughter Alexa. Older brother Read More
Medical Myths debunked
Don’t Swallow Your Gum: and Other Medical Myths Debunked by Dr Aaron Carroll and Dr Rachel Vreeman This short book looks into about seventy-five medical myths and old wives tales, examines the evidence, and debunks them. Many will have read Ben Goldacre’s bestselling book Bad Science – (If you haven’t read it, do! My review Read More
An Evening with Susan Hill
There was great anticipation in the air in Abingdon tonight for another Mostly Books event featuring popular author Susan Hill. The small hall was packed to hear her talk about her latest book – Howard’s End is on the Landing which I previously reviewed here. She proved to be a real character, and started her Read More
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!
My Dad, Ray, was born eighty years ago today in 1929, the year of the Wall Street Crash, and on the day of the Grand Banks Earthquake off Newfoundland. He shares his birthday with Alex Issigonis (1906) – designer of the Mini, astronaut Alan Shepard (1923), Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood (1939), Brit actor David Hemmings Read More
