Read 19/07/2020-27/07/2020
Rating 5 stars
Book 8 of my 10 Books of Summer reading challenge
This beautiful Folio Society edition of Dorothy Wordsworth’s Grasmere Journal was part of my 10th wedding anniversary present from my husband last year. It’s illustrated by Georgie Bennett and has an introduction by Wordsworth scholar Lucy Newlyn. Continue reading
Read 19/07/2020
Rating 3 stars
Book 7 of my 10 Books of Summer reading challenge
Eley Williams’ debut collection of short stories, published three years ago, explores the precision and elusiveness of language.
At its best, Williams’ writing is woozy and other worldly. Continue reading
Read 19/07/2020
Rating 4 stars
I love Jeff Goldblum. Have done since I watched The Fly as a teenager. I haven’t watched many of his films, but in the ones I have seen, he is chimeric. In Helen McClory’s book, he is the same. Continue reading
Read 12/07/2020-18/07/2020
Rating 5 stars
Book 6 in my 10 Books of Summer reading challenge.
I’d read a lot of praise for Deb Olin Unferth’s novel Barn 8 on social media and in the press and I finally decided to take the plunge.
It is as good as people say it is. This is my first encounter with Unferth, although this isn’t her first book. Continue reading
I’ve been out! Twice! Continue reading
Read 11/07/2020-12/07/2020
Rating 5 stars
Book 5 in my 10 Books of Summer reading challenge, a substitution in the original list.
I find it hard to believe that Boy Parts is Eliza Clark’s debut novel. It’s confident, fiercely funny and its chattiness belies the darkness at its heart.
Not since Chuck Pahlaniuk have I felt so delighted to be entertained by the vagaries of human nature. Not since James Kelman has a writer captured so well for me the hard edge of working class play and working class survival. Not since the translation of Virginie Despante’s Vernon Subutex trilogy into English have I been so pleased to meet a character that is so grotesquely charming. Continue reading
Read 26/06/2020-11/07/2020
Rating 5 stars
Book 4 in my 10 Books of Summer reading challenge, a substitution in the original list.
Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya is the US edition of Caroline Elkins’ book published in Britain as Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya. It documents a particularly atrocious period in Britain’s history – the brutal suppression of the Kikuyu people in Kenya in the 1950s, through the use of detention camps and forced labour, and the subsequent attempts by British government to cover it up. Continue reading
It’s the first Saturday in July and time for this month’s Six Degrees of Separation. This month, Kate has chosen Siri Hustvedt’s What I Loved to start us on our way through our literary connections. Continue reading
What I Think About When I Think About Reading 