Double bingo!
It might not be a full house but I’m pretty pleased that I’ve managed a double bingo in the Books on the Nightstand Summer Book Bingo.
Continue reading “Double bingo!”
It might not be a full house but I’m pretty pleased that I’ve managed a double bingo in the Books on the Nightstand Summer Book Bingo.
Continue reading “Double bingo!”
Summer has continued to be fruitful for getting through books but less so for finding time to review them. I’ve been distracted by holiday and days out and family. I would normally write a bunch more about my month at this point, but I have a stinking cold and spent eight hours driving today so I’m just going to post a few photos.
Continue reading “July reading round-up”
I’ve got through a lot of books this year, but I haven’t had time to review them all properly. I may have to start looking at doing something a bit different on that front. Seeing as we’re enjoying a proper actual heatwave (by UK standards) I’m not going to promise to stay home more blogging, I’m going to get out there and enjoy it, but I want to keep the blog alive too. I’ll figure something out. Fellow bloggers: do you find it harder to keep up with it all in the summer months?
As this is the year’s halfway point, it’s a good time to take stock as regards my reading aims and challenges. I’ve read 21 books by men, 17 by women and 1 by both. Not too far off even. I’ve read a reasonable mix of genres and ages of books. However, the actual challenges I took on were the Classics Club – for which I have read four books – and more books in translation. I’ve read five books in translation and one about translation, which is reasonable, I think.
But right now I’m not trying too hard to meet challenges or read the right books. I just want to enjoy reading. Which seems a good summery aim to me.
Continue reading “Mid-year reading round-up”
You may or may not have noticed a lack of updates on this blog lately. I have been on holiday for two weeks and only had time beforehand to schedule one post, so there’s been a big gap. But I have no regrets, as I had a fantastic time away.
We have been to visit my sister (and her family) in Charlotte, North Carolina and to the city of cities, New York. Both of which were awesome. We relaxed and did lots of stuff. We ate some great food, found hidden gems and were total tourists. One day back at work and I am ready to go back across the ocean already!
Continue reading “(Belated) Sunday Salon: Back to real life”
This month I’ve read a lot of books (nine! it’s usually four or five!) and not reviewed many. Is that good or bad? Yay for reading more, I suppose. Then again, a lot of these books were really short, so there’s a chance it adds up to a completely average number of pages read. I can’t decide if I mind that. And I will get to those reviews soon.
Out of interest, I looked at how I’m doing as regards reading widely. There’s a good mix of genres this month – literary fiction, poetry, essays, science fiction and I guess superhero comics are fantasy? There’s a decent range of author nationalities too if you base it on their place of birth – India (actually part of what’s now Bangladesh but when Godden was born it was India), UK, US, Nigeria, Afghanistan – but strictly Godden was British and spent more of her life here. One book is a translation and one is from my Classics Club list, so I’m just about keeping up with my aims there.
My main concern though is that the TBR stands at 146 books. That’s 146 books that I own and have not yet read. The trip to Hay-on-Wye didn’t help, I’ll concede! But I’d really feel happier if that number was under 100, so I think I need to impose a book-buying ban and I need to keep up this reading speed. Less TV, more books; that’s the lesson here. Am I worrying too much? How big is your TBR? Go on, make me feel better/worse and tell me in the comments!
Continue reading “April reading round-up”
It’s been another genuinely good reading month. Oddly enough, my favourite title was one I didn’t review at the time – The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell – so I thought I would write a little about it now. It’s a beautifully told and even more beautifully illustrated retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story, with some other fairy tales mixed in for good measure and some major deviations from what you might remember/expect. It stars a kickass queen who sets out sword in hand to save the neighbouring land. I really loved Gaiman’s language and the ways he mixes the familiar with brand new ideas but what really made this special was the artwork. It’s all drawn in black and gold, elaborate and, well, gorgeous. I highly recommend you seek it out.
This month my blog turned five years old. Five years already! To celebrate I held a giveaway of five of my favourite books of the last five years. If you’re reading this before midnight on 31 March you can still enter, but do it quickly!
Continue reading “March reading round-up”
I finally feel that I’m in the swing of reading this year. February was a good month. I discovered Bidisha thanks to an English PEN event on refugees, I had a very lovely Valentine’s weekend with Tim in London and I finally got to see Kate Tempest live. I also found plenty of time for reading.
I also started contributing to Redhead Reads, a micro newsletter published daily by Beulah Devaney, a fab feminist writer I first discovered through For Books’ Sake. So that’s pretty exciting.
However, while I went to lots of fun events and read lots of books, I didn’t read any great books. I miss that feeling, the feeling of a great read that pulls you in and won’t let you go. There must be plenty of them on my TBR, I just keep picking out the wrong ones!
Continue reading “February reading round-up”
As I cough and splutter my way through New Year’s Eve, I would like to come up with some pithy, wise things to say about the year that’s ending, but mostly I’m counting down the time until I can take more Sudafed, so apologies if this a bit rambly.
This year I read 71 books. I set myself three challenges, of which I completed two. Honestly, I am fine with that. I read some great books this year. My favourites have been:
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones
Transmetropolitan, Vol. 5: Lonely City by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson
An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell by Deborah Levy
Looking at that list, I’m pleased with how varied it is. There’s lit fic, popular science, translated fiction, a graphic novel and poetry. Completely unplanned, I swear!
On the non-reading front, I’ve also had some fun new experiences this year. I went to Amsterdam (and instantly fell in love with it), saw Cirque du Soleil live (which was a total surprise planned by Tim – best surprise ever!), successfully grew chillis (in fairness a friend did the difficult first part and gave me the seedling, but I’m still happy I didn’t just kill it) and I knitted stuff (Tim’s mum taught me to knit at the end of 2013 but I didn’t knit any actual things until this year and I’m super proud of myself still every time). Oh, and we finally finished watching Battlestar Galactica, which may not sound like much of an achievement but we bought the box set five and a half years ago, so I’m totally counting it. It’s a great show, I don’t know why we took so long!
Right now, I think it’s time for another cup of tea and one of my new Christmas books (which I’ll post pictures of another time). Happy New Year everyone!
Merry Christmas folks!
As I have two whole glorious weeks off work, I have ambitiously set aside the above pile of books to work my way through, though I will no doubt get distracted by shiny new Christmas present books at some point. We do have lots of people to visit and sensible house stuff to do, so I’m not sure how much reading time I’ll actually get, but here’s hoping!
Happy holidays and happy reading everyone.
Is it really December tomorrow already? Time really does seem faster every year. It looks like I have read way more than usual this month because I read seven graphic novels/trade paperback collections of comics and let’s face it, they tend to be quicker reads than your average non-graphic novel. I read them for Graphic Novel Week and wrote short reviews of them all here.
This week I took Tim (as a late birthday present) to see one of his favourite authors, William Gibson, speak in Bath at an event arranged by Toppings bookshop. It was a slightly odd evening, in that Gibson just did a reading from his new book then a short Q&A and implied that the main point of it all was the book signing. Every other author event I’ve gone to has had either an interviewer or the author giving a short talk, but I don’t go to that many so perhaps I’m just discovering late in the day that author events vary quite a lot!
I suppose I expected something more because this year it’s 30 years since the publication of Neuromancer, Gibson’s first novel, which has achieved legendary status and had major influence on the world that reaches far beyond those who’ve actually read it (which I had done in preparation for the event). I had seen on the Internet that Gibson was doing/had done some events specifically about Neuromancer this year and therefore expected it would at least get a brief discussion. As it was, it was only mentioned by audience members in Bath (who, incidentally, had some very intelligent questions that provoked some interesting debate between Tim and I as we waited in the cold and wet for our delayed train home).
Certainly it was different at the David Mitchell event earlier this month, at which an interviewer helped Mitchell discuss his new book and past work for a good half hour before the Q&A and signing. It’s a style I much prefer, even if it did mean I took an hour and a half lunch break that day! But then I’m pre-disposed to prefer an event with an author I’m a big fan of, whose work I have read all of (or at least all the novels, I believe there are short stories out there I haven’t read).
Books
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (review here)
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell (review here)
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Transmetropolitan Vol 1: Back on the Street by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson
Transmetropolitan Vol 2: Lust for Life by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson
Transmetropolitan Vol 3: Year of the Bastard by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson
Transmetropolitan Vol 4: The New Scum by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson
Transmetropolitan Vol 5: Lonely City by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson
Serenity Vol. 4: Leaves on the Wind by Zack Whedon and Georges Jeanty
Ex Machina Vol. 1: The First Hundred Days by Brian K Vaughan and Tony Harris
Short stories
“Can’t and won’t” by Lydia Davis (Selected Shorts podcast)
“If at the wedding (at the zoo)” by Lydia Davis (Selected Shorts podcast)
“The party” by Lydia Davis (Selected Shorts podcast)
“The two Davises and the rug” by Lydia Davis (Selected Shorts podcast)
“The egg race” by John Updike (Selected Shorts podcast)
“Camilo” by Alejandro Zambra (New Yorker, May 26, 2014)
“The right sort” by David Mitchell (Twitter, collected together here: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/14/the-right-sort-david-mitchells-twitter-short-story)
“Sheherezade” by Haruki Murakami (New Yorker, available online: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/scheherazade-3)
“Here’s the story” by David Gilbert (New Yorker, June 9 & 16, 2014 )
“The adolescents” by Rachel Kushner (New Yorker, June 9 & 16, 2014 )
Happy December, folks!