Come and escape from the world in some great books!
sparkling trails of light drawing out the numbers 2018 in glowing light to welcome in the new year So here it is. New Year's Eve and, being a dad to a five year old and generally quite antisocial, I am at home with family, a glass of chilled champagne and, currently, Pointless on the television.… Continue reading 2018: A Year in Books
The Greek epics seem to have had a resurgence - dare one say a renaissance? - or a reimagining recently. On my to-be-read list are Stephen Fry's Mythos and Heroes, Madeline Miller's Circe, and Song of Achilles and now this by Pat Barker. I don't know what the appeal is of these narratives, nor why they are… Continue reading The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker
Normal People. Are people normal? I don't think so. I think we are weird and strange and contradictory and self-contradictory and life primarily in delusions and bubbles of pretense and make-believe. But maybe that's me! "Normal" seems like a slur... So the point is, I'm not entirely sure what drew me to this book: it… Continue reading Normal People, Sally Rooney
Oh well, having set down my best intentions earlier, to review Washington Black before finishing Sally Rooney's Normal People, and to complete the 30 Day Book Challenge by Christmas, I have failed on all accounts and now have Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls to review as well! But, I have had a lovely Chrsitmas… Continue reading Washington Black, Esi Edugyan
I find this a very broad category today; A book with a person's name in the title (real or fictional). I mean in every genre, there are a wealth of books containing (or perhaps consisting of solely) the name of the characters: every one of the Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Artemis Fowl series in Young… Continue reading 30 Day Book Challenge: Day 17!
With an unexpected day off again tomorrow - thanks to an unwell child, poor thing! - it is possible that I may be able to catch up a day or two! Maybe. But today's challenge is to name a book you've read more than once. Now, this is a tricky one. If we look at… Continue reading 30 Day Book Challenge: Day 16!
Why do we read detective stories? It is a strange genre. Every piece of advice is that tension and conflict are the driver of a narrative and, with this genre, unlike the thriller genre, the most significant conflict - the one which traditionally culminates in murder, as it does with this one - occurs significantly… Continue reading The Sentence is Death, Anthony Horowitz
I really should have limited myself to just naming a book and moving on! One name, one image; job done! Instead, no, I decide I'm going to chat and talk about them! I do find it hard not to chat about books. That's the problem! So now, if I do one a day every day, I'll finish… Continue reading 30 Day Book Challenge: Day 15!
Heading towards the half way point. Slowly. I'm aiming to finish by Christmas, possibly on Christmas Day which gives me 20 days in which to complete the final 16. Still a little bit of leeway! Anyway, today's challenge is A fairytale retelling. And there are a lot of these to choose from, even if we… Continue reading 30 Day Book Challenge: Day 14!
Day 13, unlucky for some perhaps, brings with it a terribly arbitrary category: A book with a colour in the title. And, yes, I am anglicising the spelling of colour. And in my head, I am thinking "correcting" when I wrote "angliscising"! Okay, well let's generate a list and celebrate the joys of modern technology:… Continue reading 30 Day Book Challenge: Day 13!
After the previous post, which I found horribly difficult, this one is easy. I mean, why would you expend all the energy required to hate a book? Surely if you react to one that strongly, you'd just stop reading and move on. Wouldn't you? There are so many fabulous books out there, why would you waste time… Continue reading 30 Day Book Challenge: Day 12!
So moving on with this, the challenge has shifted to characters for today rather than novels with the challenge to find A literary character you want to have dinner (or drinks) with. Can I not just ask for all of them? Not together. Obviously. I don't have enough chairs! It's my blog and my rules,… Continue reading 30 Day Book Challenge: Day 11!
The Book Lovers' Sanctuary 
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