Review Catch-Up

I’ve built up rather a pile of books to catch up on reviewing – it’s all the lovely fault of getting stuck into my Shiny archiving project. So here are some shorter takes to reduce the pile somewhat. Dan Leno & the Limehouse Golem by Peter Ackroyd This was our book group choice this month, Read More

Review Clear-out! James, Scarfe, Vaughn and Auster

In an effort to make room on my dining table where I work, so we can eat Christmas lunch on it, I’m clearing the pile of books yet to be reviewed, here’s my last batch for 2019: Somewhere Becoming Rain: Collected Writings on Philip Larkin by Clive James When James died a few weeks ago, Read More

Non-Fiction November: Be the Expert: Recent Biographies/Memoirs/Reportage

Week 3 of this year’s Non-Fiction November has the theme of ‘Be The Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert’ in which we can either “share three or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you Read More

My own little bit of the World of Moose…

One of the books I’ve recently pledged to on Unbound is I Wonder What I’m Thinking About? by cartoonist and illustrator Moose Allain.  Visit his own website The World of Moose here, his prints are affordable and lovely.) All the Unbound pledgers were entered for a draw to win a piece of original Moose art – and Read More

Scenes from a humorist’s life …

Our book group is having a short story July, concentrating on two authors renowned for their wit: Saki and Thurber.  I’m working my way through Saki, so I’ll deal with him in another post; here I’ll talk about my first experience of reading James Thurber. My Life and Hard Timesby James Thurber James Thurber (1894-1961), Read More