Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish People I’d Like To Meet

This is a nice whimsical topic: the bookish people I'd love to meet... but there are so many of them! Authors we could have to a dinner party, or meet at a book festival; characters who might be able to step from the page like Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, bloggers and reviewers... Let's think...

Top Ten Tuesday: Memorable Things Characters Have Said

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Previous Top Ten Tuesday Topics September 21: Books on my Autumn /… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Memorable Things Characters Have Said

Top Ten Tuesday: Resolutions / Hopes for 2021

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. PREVIOUS TOP TEN TUESDAY TOPICS: December 1: Books I Want to Read… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Resolutions / Hopes for 2021

Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Bookish Quotations

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. PREVIOUS TOP TEN TUESDAY TOPICS: August 18: Books that Should be Adapted… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Bookish Quotations

Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell

“Anyone, Eliza is thinking, who describes dying as ‘slipping away’ or ‘peaceful’ has never witnessed it happen. Death is violent, death is a struggle. The body clings to life, as ivy to a wall, and will not easily let go, will not surrender its grip without a fight.”

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Reasons Why I Love … Shakespeare

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. PREVIOUS TOP TEN TUESDAY TOPICS: April 7: Books I Bought/Borrowed Because…April 14: Books I… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Reasons Why I Love … Shakespeare

Top Ten Tuesday: Character Traits I Love

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. So this week we are looking at character traits we love. Things… Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Character Traits I Love

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 17!

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!

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 11!

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!

30 Day Book Challenge: Day Two!

Today's task: Favourite book by favourite author. Wait! What?! I have to pick one?! One?! Was this challenge not supposed to be fun? Okay. Let's narrow down the favourite authors part. As with the previous day, let's look at them by genre, too. I'm going to kick off with the obvious: Shakespeare. Not trying to… Continue reading 30 Day Book Challenge: Day Two!

Weekly Round Up: 2nd July 2018

Exciting news this week! New blog features have arrived! Well, been made. By me. I'm not sure they quite work right, but as I'm seeking access to ARCs and am signed up to NetGalley and other blogging lists, I learn that a Review Policy is required. It sounds terribly formal and... binding. But if these… Continue reading Weekly Round Up: 2nd July 2018

Weekly Round Up 28th May

Okay, so some books are a quicker read than others, sometimes life, children and work get in the way of reading and finishing a book. Half-terms always seem like a good time to catch up on that eternal TBR pile ... but then life intervenes and you end up standing in a river in glorious… Continue reading Weekly Round Up 28th May

Roof Toppers, Katherine Rundell

It's that time of year again: the Carnegie Medal Shortlist is announced! Much joy! Genuine excitement! Much fretting over how to juggle reading the Shortlist with doing work, marking, planning ... and, this year, entertaining the baby! And Roof Toppers was a lovely way to start the Shortlist ... Which I finished today by reading… Continue reading Roof Toppers, Katherine Rundell

Intertextuality in the The Woman in Black

Intertextuality is a strange idea. It's reasonable and intuitive that texts refer both backwards and forwards within themselves: how many stories and tales begin and end at the same place and setting? Detective fiction is built on the importance of small early details turning into clues to be resolved later. Anton Chekov went so far… Continue reading Intertextuality in the The Woman in Black

The Shakespeare Curse, J. L. Carrell

The last book I read, The Passage by Justin Cronin, took me a month to read. This book, The Shakespeare Curse, took me 72 hours. That's not a good sign. Not good at all. I like to lose myself in a book, to live, breathe, love and bleed with the characters I share my reading… Continue reading The Shakespeare Curse, J. L. Carrell

The Passage, Justin Cronin

Horror is not usually my thing at all. I don't like blood. I get bored by violence. I get worried by crime writing's increasing interest in hugely violent bloodied crime scenes and the minutiae of destruction that can be inflicted on the human (and usually female) form. So it was with some misgivings that I… Continue reading The Passage, Justin Cronin

Hamlet and Women, discussion

Hamlet, perhaps the most famous and most argued over play by Shakespeare, was written between the years 1599 and 1601 as Elizabeth I was reaching the end of her reign. The play features two of the most famous women in Shakespeare: Ophelia and Gertrude and Hamlet’s relationships with these women account for a large number… Continue reading Hamlet and Women, discussion

Anthony and Cleopatra, William Shakespeare

Absolutely sublime play. Re-reading it after many many years and still bowled over. A GCSE set text; an integral part of Degree level "tragedy" unit (other people got to play with dead bodies, I learned how to be miserable: thanks Cambridge!!); and a vital part of my make up! As I write, please near in… Continue reading Anthony and Cleopatra, William Shakespeare