When I was approached by Will from Renard Press to read this book, I found its premise really intriguing and said yes, of course! I found I kept wanting to call it ‘Fledgling’ – but that’s wrong – its title has no ‘l’. To fledge, as in the verb, is about the process of raising Read More
Tag: Motherhood
Rememberings by Sinéad O’Connor
Yesterday, it was a year since Sinéad O’Connor was found dead in her South London home. I hadn’t realised that when I picked her memoir out of the TBR piles a couple of weeks ago, but realised once I heard the trails for an Archive on 4 programme hosted by Jo Whiley to celebrate her Read More
Jan into Feb Watchlist
It’s time for something different as a breather or palate-cleanser from all the Nordic reading I’ve devoted myself to since Christmas! It’s the return of my Watchlist – on the big and little screen. Big Screen Movies I went to the cinema twice – to see two films in black and white (although Branagh’s has Read More
#NordicFINDS – Iceland Week – a final quirky novel
Butterflies in November by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir Translated by Brian Fitzgibbon My final read of #NordicFINDS is a quirky novel that slightly took me back to nearly the beginning of my project this year, for Butterflies in November has some similarities in its narrator with Bess in The Murder of Halland, except that this time Read More
An assured debut from Annie Mac
Mother Mother by Annie Macmanus It’s always a relief when a well-known person in the media writes a book, and it’s good. Former Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac, who left the station earlier this year, has done just that – her debut is assured, straddling that line between commercial and literary fiction. Macmanus is Dublin Read More
Mixed Summer Reading
A twofer today… Yeah! Everyone Is Still Alive by Cathy Rentzenbrink After loving Cathy Rentzenbrink’s heartbreaking but witty memoir The Last Act of Love, (and having her semi-memoir Dear Reader on my shelves which I hope to get to in my 20 Books of Summer 21), I was always going to be interested in reading Read More
20 Books of Summer 21 #4 – Living Autobiography with Deborah Levy
The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy Deborah Levy, I think, has become my favourite woman author. She thinks deeply about things; she’s read everything that matters; can talk eloquently about anything, but has a sense of humour; and, for me, she is incapable of writing badly. Reading her ‘Living Autobiography’ trilogy has been a Read More
Review Catch-up – Tadjo, Fuller and Benson
My review pile runneth over and there are a couple of books that I would have reviewed for Shiny, but I don’t feel I can write a long piece on, so I will cover them here in my review round-up. In the Company of Men by Véronique Tadjo Back in 2014, the world awoke to Read More
A Women’s Prize longlisted novel for the Dewithon 21
This Christmas gone by, I’d bought a signed copy of a novel in advance for someone, but then it was agreed that we wouldn’t do presents this time so the book was added to my teetering TBR piles. Then, when I was scouting through a list of Welsh authors so I could join in with Read More
Happy Mother’s Day – with Jess Phillips
Jess Phillips will be known to everyone as a Labour MP (for Yardley in Birmingham) and an ardent feminist. She serves on the Opposition frontbench as Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding and during this week, which saw the tragic murder of Sarah Everard, in the House of Commons International Women’s Day debate, she Read More
20 Books of Summer #9-10 Yuknavitch & St Aubyn
My 20 Books of Summer continues apace. I’m currently on my 12th title – and am cheating madly – but only swapping in books that have been in my TBR before the beginning of 2020, or my library pile – which need to go back next week. I’m also generating more time for reading by: Read More
Life as a WPC
On the Line by Alice Vinten We are all fascinated by other peoples’ lives these days. Narrative non-fiction as publishers call the mixture that includes history, politics, biography and memoir – any non-fiction that tells a story. Doctors and surgeons’ memoirs, have been joined by nurses, midwives, chefs, firemen, barristers and more, and now by Read More
A modern morality tale
Strike Your Heart by Amélie Nothomb Translated by Alison Anderson Belgian author Nothomb writes taut novellas about flawed heroines that are always interesting (see here and here) and they always read like fables or fairy tales in one sense or another, despite being resolutely modern. Her newest, published last autumn is no different in that Read More
Review Catch-up #1 from 2018
I’ve got a pile of books I finished reading in 2018 that I haven’t reviewed yet. Some deserve their own posts, but here’s a pair of shorter write-ups. The Atlas of Disease by Sandra Hempel This is a curious book – ostensibly an ‘atlas’ produced using the latest data available, in which the author charts Read More
A sassy pageturner – smart, fun and thought-provoking
The Cows by Dawn O’Porter Although I don’t really believe in having guilty pleasures as far as choice of reading goes, I don’t read much what marketers call ‘women’s commercial fiction’. When I do read a book that falls into this category, it does feel like a guilty pleasure though and I revel in it, Read More
Blog Tour – All the Good Things by Clare Fisher
Today, it is my turn on the blog tour for Clare Fisher’s strong debut novel – see the banner at the bottom for all the other ports of call. Fisher’s debut is an interesting take on a story we’ve all heard before in which a vulnerable young woman, who has been bounced from foster home Read More
Jumping into a new to me crime series…
Murder in Pigalle by Cara Black I usually like to read a series of crime novels from the beginning, to get any back-story in the right order and to see how the recurring characters develop. Sometimes, however, it’s good to jump into a series knowing that if you enjoy a later volume, that you may Read More
A tale of motherhood across generations…
The Confidantby Hélène Grémillon, translated by Alison Anderson I got a letter one day, a long letter that wasn’t signed. This was quite an event, because I’ve never received much mail in my life. My letter box had never done anything more than inform me that the-sea-was-warm or that the-snow-was-good, so I didn’t open it Read More
