Week 2: (November 8-12) – Book Pairing with Katie at Doing Dewey: This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. It can be a “If you loved this book, read this!” or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real … Continue reading Nonfiction November – Week 2
My dear son James has given me a task for my last years, or months, or whatever time I have left beyond the many years I have lived so far. Sometime in April or May last year, I was given an advance reading copy of Kate Grenville's A Room Made of Leaves. I was very … Continue reading A Room Made of Leaves | Kate Grenville #AWW
I know I make my people uncomfortable, and embarrass even those who come to hear me sing. It has been a while since I have read a book that I have underlined as much as I have underlined Kim Scott's Benang. It's up there, for me, with The Pea-Pickers and Moby-Dick as being a slow, … Continue reading Benang: From the Heart | Kim Scott #AUSfiction
Once the queen's head is severed, he walks away. Didn't Anne die in the previous book? And didn't we deal with the time immediately after her death already? Is this opening line a signal that a big recap is coming? Yes and no. As it turns out The Mirror and the Light is an overlong … Continue reading The Mirror and the Light | Hilary Mantel #Readalong
Happy Birthday Ernestine! My Love Must Wait by Ernestine Hill was a bestseller when it was first published in 1941, which puts it neatly in the middle of Bill @The Australian Legend's Gen III of Australian Women Writers. I can see why this story about the adventurer and explorer, Matthew Flinders attracted a lot … Continue reading My Love Must Wait | Ernestine Hill #AWWfiction
Many years ago, the year 2000 to be precise [I know this because], I read and loved Simon Winchester's The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words. Curiously and more sensationally, it was retitled The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford … Continue reading The Dictionary of Lost Words | Pip Williams #AWWfiction
What a fascinating premise!What a fascinating story!What an amazing story teller!Rodham: A Novel is hard to define, and even harder to classify or deconstruct. What is real and what is fiction is the thing that haunts you the whole time you're reading this story. At least it did for me.The idea of sliding doors, alternate … Continue reading Rodham: A Novel | Curtis Sittenfeld
As most of you know by now, I love and adore historical fiction. It's my preferred genre, although I will have a go at most things if it's well-written, has an interesting premise or I'm in the mood. However my go-to, when I need a guaranteed read, a read I can simply fall into with … Continue reading Fictionalised Biography or Biographical Fiction?
Kathy O'Shaughnessy has written an utterly delightful and immersive story about the extraordinary Marian Lewes, otherwise known as George Eliot. The book follows Marian from the early days of her unconventional 'marriage' to George Lewes through to her writing days, fame, second marriage and eventual death.In Love With George Eliot not only refers to the … Continue reading In Love With George Eliot | Kathy O’Shaughnessy #UKfiction
I have spent a ridiculous amount of time wondering how best to write the title of this book - FRAN KISS STEIN like the cover, FRANKISSSTEIN like the title page of the book or Frankissstein like Goodreads.FranKissStein appealed to me, but it's not a version I've spotted anywhere else.Whatever you call it, though, Frankissstein: A Love … Continue reading FranKissStein by Jeanette Winterson
I've had a lovely run of Homeric stories retold from a feminist perspective this year - Madeline Miller's Circe and The Song of Achilles, and now Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls.After Miller's wonderful, rich storytelling, I was looking forward to seeing what Barker would come up. I was thrilled that her story was … Continue reading The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
In close to one of the worst book cover choices I've ever seen, A New England Affair by Steve Carroll is a classic case of a book that should not be judged by its cover!Yes, a woman heading out to sea (to the Dry Salvages) is a central part of the story, but the woman (Emily … Continue reading A New England Affair by Steven Carroll
White Houses was my latest book club pick, chosen by me. I felt a weird sense of pressure to enjoy the book on that account. But the best I could summon up in the end was a mild kind of appreciation. It took me a while to pinpoint my disconnect. The first person narrative was a … Continue reading White Houses by Amy Bloom
It feels like I've been waiting a VERY long time for Jane Caro to finish her Elizabethan YA trilogy. Just A Girl was first published in 2011, Just A Queen in 2015 and now, finally we have Just Flesh and Blood.I'm sure that Caro must get asked all the time, why Elizabeth? In her acknowledgements … Continue reading Just Flesh and Blood by Jane Caro
A big thank you to the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction for shortlisting Sugar Money by Jane Harris otherwise I may never have stumbled across this gem of a story. Based on real events in Grenada in 1765, we follow young Lucien and his older brother Emile as they attempt to convince the hospital slaves … Continue reading Sugar Money by Jane Harris
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