literary hoohah
This little book is one of the Vintage Readers that were released in the early 2000s. As pointed out on the back cover, this is a small collection of Joan Didion's essays that are a good introduction to her work. The essays cover politics, crime, the war in El Salvador, crime and corruption in Miami,… Continue reading Vintage Didion, by Joan Didion (2004)
Like most people, I am familiar with the term 'mansplaining'. I've also heard a fair bit of excitement about Rebecca Solnit as an interesting writer. Her essay Men Explain Things to Me is the origin of the term, something I only learned seeing the word in circulation - when it first became a thing there… Continue reading Men Explain Things to Me: And Other Essays, by Rebecca Solnit (2014)
This book was one of the few review copies I have been accepting recently, and I'm glad I decided to read and review it, because it's something a little different - but once I got into it I realised it actually is the sort of thing I like. Gone: A Girl, A Violin, A Life… Continue reading Gone: A Girl, A Violin, A Life Unstrung by Min Kym
I'm sure you have now heard about WWW Wednesday (even I know about it), but to recap, this is what it entails - you must post about three books: What you most recently finished reading What you are currently reading What you will read next Here are mine! What I recently finished reading: Young and… Continue reading WWW Wednesday, 19th April 2017
Upcoming reviews I am pleased to say I have finally finished reading Gareth Russell's wonderful book about Catherine Howard, Young and Damned and Fair. It took me about a month to read, which is a long time for me, but it was so worth it. I am now planning a blog post about it in… Continue reading Upcoming Reads and Reviews, April 2017
I've only participated in WWW Wednesday once before, and that was ages ago, so I felt like giving it another try. The idea is to post three things: What you most recently finished reading What you are currently reading What you will read next Hence 'WWW'! So here goes: What I recently finished reading: The Handmaid's… Continue reading WWW Wednesday, 1st March 2017
This is another overdue blog post, but one that I've really been looking forward to writing. I read 31 books in 2016, of varying quality, but overall it was a good reading year. I tried to branch out, accepting a total of eight review copies from publishers - which is a lot for me these… Continue reading Looking back on the books of 2016
As I said in my last post, life has rather gotten in the way of blogging over the last month or so (probably more than that), so I am only just getting around to organising posts I meant to write and publish a while ago... First I must ask you to cast your mind back… Continue reading Overdue update on Christmas and birthday books
Many years ago I worked as a bookseller for Borders and I have to admit that the true crime section was not one that I thought of as full of ‘literature’. All the books had sensational covers with big red letters and bad photographs. They were small fat books that didn't get many visitors, and while I… Continue reading In Praise Of: True Crime
More than one of my fellow reviewers on GoodReads wrote that reading this book is more than that - you 'live it' as well. It is an experience I will never forget. If This is a Woman took me ten days to read, which for me is a long time - but then it is… Continue reading If This is a Woman by Sarah Helm: A Reading Experience
