September already and time for another Six Degrees of Separation, hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best.
This year’s Booker Prize shortlist is announced in a couple of weeks. Kate’s choice of starting book, Second Place by Rachel Cusk, is on the longlist. I wonder if it will go the distance.
Continue reading
Read 28/03/2021-30/03/2021
Rating 5 stars
Angharad Price’s novel The Life of Rebecca Jones is a fictionalised memoir born of family documents and photographs, some of which appear in the text. It’s a clever and affecting book that paints a picture of farming life in the Maesglasau valley in Merioneth across the 20th century. Written in Welsh, the original novel has the title O! Tyn y Gorchudd, which can be translated as O! Pull Aside the Veil. I read Lloyd Jones’s excellent translation into English. Continue reading
Yesterday was the first Saturday of March and I really couldn’t think of how to get my Six Degrees of Separation chain started. This month, meme host Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best has chosen Phosphorescence by Julia Baird as our starting book.
Continue reading
Read 15/11/2020-23/11/2020
Rating 5 stars
Stasiland has the subtitle Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall. In it, Anna Funder shares the experiences of a number of East Germans to build a picture of life under an oppressive regime. Her interviewees range from people who tried to escape, people separated arbitrarily from family overnight, and people who worked for the Stasi. There are amazing people between these pages who survived unimaginable horrors, and there are also the people who supported the use of those horrors. I found it a very moving book. Continue reading
Read 15/10/2020-28/10/2020
Rating 5 stars
From start to finish, The Patient Assassin is a gripping read, bringing to life a complex man and the Indian history he is part of.
Hello September. You’ve come around quickly, and almost a week old already. That means it’s time for Six Degrees of Separation, in which Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best chooses a book and we all add six more in a chain. The concept is explained here.
Continue reading
I did alright, as it happens. I managed ten books, seven of them from my original list. Continue reading
It’s not only the first day of August, it’s the first Saturday in August. That means it’s time for this month’s Six Degrees of Separation. We’re starting with a book I’ve heard of this month – Jenny Odell’s How to do Nothing. Continue reading
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
Cathy is hosting the annual 20 Books of Summer reading challenge again over at 746 Books. The eagle eyed among you will have spotted that the image I’ve chosen from Cathy’s selection isn’t for twenty books. There are three reasons for that. Continue reading
