The Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall Readalong runs from the 1st Feb until the 31st May 2021. I first read Wolf Hall in 2011. I remember that I took it our summer holiday to the beach. After exhausting ourselves in the waves every morning, I would look forward to an hour or so every afternoon, lying in the … Continue reading Wolf Hall Trilogy Readalong Master Post
Back in March, when Covid news was dominating every airway and program, I turned to Angela Thirkell's High Rising for some light relief and old-fashioned comfort. So when I spotted A Literary Christmas over at In the Bookcase, I knew that another trip to High Rising was imminent. Christmas at High Rising is a collection … Continue reading Christmas at High Rising | Angela Thirkell #ALiteraryChristmas
For the first half of this year, I was avoiding plague literature, like the plague! But since reading Camus' The Plague during August, I seem to be verging on obsession. What are the signs, I hear you ask? First up, how many people do you know, who take plague literature with them on a holiday … Continue reading A Journal of the Plague Year | Daniel Defoe #Classic
I've been wanting to read a Sherlock Holmes story for a long time now. I purchased my lovely Knickerbocker classic editions about five years ago with the good intentions of reading them in chronological order. Ever since then, I have been putting A Study in Scarlet on my CC Spin list, in the hope it … Continue reading A Study in Scarlet | Arthur Conan Doyle #CCSpin
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 English … Continue reading The Dictionary of Lost Words | Pip Williams #AUSfiction
This is how it happens.Barely a week into 20 Books of Summer Winter, with only two books from the list half started, my lovely Penguin rep hands over a September new release and says, "I defy you to read the first chapter and not want to read the rest."Challenge accepted!Given my predilection for cosy crime, … Continue reading The Thursday Murder Club | Richard Osman #CosyCrime
A number of years ago, I read a few Barbara Pym books. I enjoyed them so much I decided to go back and read her books in chronological order. Some Tame Gazelle (1950), her first published novel, has been waiting patiently on my shelf for nearly 7 years now. It took a pandemic to give me … Continue reading Some Tame Gazelle | Barbara Pym #ComfortRead
Given these weird and scary times we now live in, Angela Thirkell seems like the only sensible option! Her gentle social satire, quintessential British humour and lightness of touch in the face of adversity is not only comforting but inspiring.High Rising is the first book in a 29 book series, the Barsetshire Chronicles, a homage … Continue reading High Rising | Angela Thirkell #ComfortRead
I'm reading Coe's trilogy about the life and times of Benjamin Trotter the wrong way round, chronologically speaking. But after reading and enjoying the third book in the series, Middle England, so much last month, I knew I had to find out how the whole thing started.The Rotter's Club is a 2001 novel set in 1970's … Continue reading The Rotters’ Club | Jonathan Coe #UKfiction
I do love the Costa Prize. It regularly throws up a new-to-me author or a book that I come to adore. The Costa folk have a happy knack of selecting engaging stories, quirky ideas and immensely readable books. There was a lot to love about the 2019 Fiction winner, Middle England.Set in Brexit England, with a … Continue reading Middle England | Jonathan Coe #UKfiction
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
Just as well I've been reading Moby-Dick in the lead-up to starting this book. Just like Melville, Murdoch loves to list and categorise things. In this case, Murdoch spent the first part of The Book and the Brotherhood listing all the characters, what they were wearing and how they were related or linked.I had to … Continue reading The Book and the Brotherhood by Iris Murdoch
